House Flipper Review - Is It Worth Playing In 2023?

Updated:

25 Apr 2023

If you’re the type of person who plays The Sims only to spend hours building houses, then House Flipper may be on your radar already. As an avid fan of simulation games, I picked up House Flipper after reading some reviews. Despite playing the game often, I’ll give an open and honest review of different aspects of House Flipper’s gameplay.

About

House Flipper is a simulation game that allows players to renovate and decorate a variety of houses. The developers behind House Flipper are Empyrean, and the game was published by Frozen District. On May 18, 2018, House Flipper was released for PC players. Upon release, House Flipper had mixed reviews on Steam, but as of 2023, the reviews are very positive.

Story

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The first office before being cleaned before the start of House Flipper.

One of the things that House Flipper lacks is a real story. The game contains the occasional brief monologue from characters that pay you to renovate their houses, but these are reserved for DLC houses. Even then, the stories of the NPCs don't intertwine into one larger story and are just something to listen to before getting to work.

Gameplay

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A house that hasn’t been cleaned or renovated yet.

In House Flipper, character customization is very limited. The only aspect of your character that can be changed is your arm, and there are seven different options to choose from. Unlike the character creation part of the game, there are lots of activities to do in House Flipper. Changing flooring, painting walls, laying tiles, installing plumbing and radiators, placing furniture, and decorating

Within the base game, there is a fine variety of houses. There are houses that are repeated multiple times but start with different layouts. This is mostly an issue in the early game with smaller houses. Most of the iconic houses are only available later in the game, such as the house on the moon.

Just considering the base game, House Flipper isn’t very replayable. Unless you’re planning on completing all the achievements, want to redo early houses, or just enjoy the game, One of the great things about wanting to replay House Flipper is that once you complete all the available houses, you’re able to rebuy houses you’ve already sold.

Quest System

While House Flipper doesn’t have the usual quest system, it does have the equivalent "job" system. Jobs can be completed at any point in the game to earn money faster than renovating houses, learning mechanics, and unlocking more houses.

Jobs are a great part of being a house flipper. Allowing players to make money quickly since they give you specific instructions on what to buy, what walls to build or destroy, what to sell, and what furniture or decorations they want in specific rooms.

These jobs can be boring at times. They’re mostly used as a way to earn some extra money or to unlock a house you want once you reach mid- to late-game. The fact that most jobs are boring is made bearable by fun jobs like “kindergarten.”

Graphics

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The graphics on the highest settings truly shine while outside.

The graphics for House Flipper are nothing to write home about. The biggest issue with the visual appeal of the game is the variation in texture between some items. Some furniture appears completely flat, while others have an extreme amount of texture. The animations also look stiff or unrealistic, the best example being the animation for destroying walls. This makes the game look less realistic. All in all, the graphics for House Flipper aren’t great, but they aren’t the worst. It does seem like the issues with the graphics and animations will be solved with the second House Flipper game, but it would be nice to see an overhaul for the first game.

Developer

House Flipper was developed by Empyrean. In over 170 hours of gameplay, there have been very few bugs that I’ve run into. These bugs are usually swiftly resolved by the developers. So far, DLCs have been released once a year. While new patches tend to be released quarterly.

Price

House Flipper currently costs $24.99 and is available on iOS, Android, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Windows, MacOS, and Nintendo Switch. There are seven available DLCs to purchase that add an impressive amount of content at varying prices.