House Flipper 2 Preview

One of the most enjoyable, cathartic, and stress-free games, House Flipper, returns with its sequel, aptly named House Flipper 2! The demo, which was made available for a limited time thanks to Steam Next Fest, gave us a taste of cleaning and renovating a beautiful beachfront home. Whilst several additions and quality of life improvements have been added, it still retained the quaint, cosy charm of the first title.

You’ll learn what each tool does as you play by finding useful books scattered around the garden and inside the ramshackle house. There isn’t an awful lot of complexity to it: the paint roller is used for painting walls, the bin is used to collect litter, the seemingly magical Flipper tool can sell furniture and other items to help fund the renovation, and so on. It’s a simple enough gameplay loop: clean, repair, or destroy before purchasing furnishings and adding a splash of colour. It’s more of the same, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing!

As this demo was based around one mission, we’re not just free to decorate however we please. Having said that, taking a quick peek at the in-game store shows a plethora of goodies to furnace your newly renovated houses! The client has a set list of items they want purchased, including furniture, wallpaper, and flooring. You have a handy task list to help you keep track of anything you may have overlooked, which, when combined with each tool icon having an exclamation mark above it when you still need to use it in the current room you’re in, makes for less time hunting for that one last speck of dirt.

My usual routine in House Flipper was to finish each room one at a time, first by clearing the floor of debris, then cleaning up any dirt, before finally adding in the required items. I was pleased that this oh-so-satisfying gameplay loop was still here, but this time with more added steps. You won’t be able to just slap on tiles straight away; instead you’ll need to grout the area before placing them down. It isn’t much, but small touches like this make the whole process feel more fleshed out. When it comes time to start adding furniture and other objects, the new grid snap mechanic works wonders! No longer do you need to meticulously position a kitchen counter so it sits perfectly in the corner, although this can be toggled off if you want a less rigid placement.

It isn’t entirely flawless, though, the omission of the mini-map was a slight disappointment, as I found this particularly useful when pinpointing the location of a task in the original title. The “Flipper sense” doesn’t work perfectly just yet, as I often found that the objects it was supposed to highlight (context-sensitive depending on the currently equipped tool) didn’t flash up as intended. Mouse movement also felt a little stiff, even after cranking up the sensitivity. Thank goodness for the well-implemented controller support!

There is a noticeable step up from a graphical standpoint, though, with everything from the floor tiles to grimy pots and pans having received a facelift. Clearly, a lot of effort has gone into not only a smoother gameplay experience, but also a fresh coat of paint. It’s worth noting as well that even though this is a demo build, it runs a lot smoother than the full release of House Flipper, and there was not a single instance of frame drops. Hurray!

As this was only a small taste of what is to come when House Flipper 2 releases later this year, I can only guess at what houses we can expect in the full release! Since the first game had a myriad of references to famous places throughout all of media (Walt’s house from Breaking Bad and the Kame House from Dragonball, to name but two) I hope this trend continues with the sequel. How about a fresh Bel-Air mansion, perhaps? Either way, I’m genuinely looking forward to more relaxing gaming!