House Flipper 2 is a cleaning, building, and interior decorating simulator tasking the player with taking dilapidated houses and renovating them into cozy masterpieces. Between scrubbing stains, picking up trash, tearing apart walls, painting, selling, buying, and so much more, House Flipper 2 is an utterly transformative experience that leaves players gawking at their hard work with each refurbished cottage and shining mansion.
Though it had some stains in withholding its more exciting elements until later levels, annoying store browsing, and subpar voice acting, the sheer variety of its visual design and wonderful music made it an excellent addition for powerwash simulator fans ready to take their cleaning to the next level.
- Satisfying House Decoration
- Lovely Looking Houses
- Cozy Music and Atmosphere
- Renovating Remains Rewarding
- Painfully Slow Ability Unlock
- Frustrating Store Browsing
- Lose Mountain of Progress to Crashes
- Dry Narrative and Voice Acting
I still can’t fathom why I enjoy cleaning games. Between tearing apart spaceships for scrap or washing a dirty kid’s playhouse with an industrial-strength hose, Powerwash Simulator has spawned a veritable genre around cleaning and manual labor that I will gratefully devour time and time again.
Even so, the simplicity of the cleaning loops can start to show after countless hours, and it’s hard to stay interested in a sim after you’ve power-washed your 100th shed or destroyed over one thousand ships in Hardspace: Shipbreaker.
Enter House Flipper 2, a cozy sim centered around refurbishing old houses into works of art through cleaning rubbish, painting walls, and organizing furniture. Like its predecessor, House Flipper, the sequel incorporates its mechanics centered around building and tearing down walls with substantial visual enhancements and mechanics like an auction system and storyline.
Though it has more than a few pitfalls in its hesitation to give you more tools, its subpar voice acting, and soul-crushing crashes, House Flipper 2 offered a genuinely satisfying experience that let me fulfilled with each cozy renovation. Even if you aren’t into home decorating, I recommend House Flipper 2 as a satisfying, comfy game that will leave you fulfilled when restoring neglected ruins into comfortable homes I’d gladly live in.
Still curious if this is your cup of construction tea; let’s hop into the review below!
Immerse yourself in the hauntingly beautiful world of "Hollow Knight," where every step unveils secrets and challenges waiting to be conquered. With its captivating art style and intricate gameplay, embark on an epic journey filled with mystery, danger, and discovery unlike any other.
Somebody Renovate That Narrative!
My most immense gripe with House Flipper 2 is its highly meager narrative and dry voice acting. In terms of premise, we play the role of a house flipper who, after moving back into their parent’s home, goes on ever-elaborate flipper escapades, renovating other people’s properties and building a reputation as a master flipper.
Though there isn’t an end goal besides gaining access to the legendary Driftwood House, the game makes several attempts to throw a story at the player with phone calls from our manager or a previous tenant asking us to find a specific item. Unfortunately, the sheer mundanity and dry voice acting of these calls brought down the experience as they spoke in monotone voices that I had to confirm weren’t AI-generated with a seemingly pointless dialogue tree attached that accomplished nothing.
To be fair, House Flipper 2’s story doesn’t play a significant role in the game, and I adored the subtle environmental storytelling of removing a company meeting area in favor of a single lone desk or even just a sticky note telling me to search for “the lost bagel.” Still, the absurdly boring narrative created a severe disconnect between the put-together people and their utterly trashed houses.
I just once wish I could confront the wacky owners who had let their houses fall into criminal neglect and be so rude they fire me on the spot or give me the house’s deed out of guilt (I’m doing all the work here!).
All in all, however dry it may be, the narrative still couldn’t get in the way of the stellar gameplay and fantastic feeling of saving each house from its spiral into ruination. Even so, if you get a call from a character in the game, do yourself a favor and hang up.
Jack of All Flippers
Though the story was disappointing, I had endless fun cleaning houses and watching my hard work transform a ruined mess into a luxurious cottage. At its core, the gameplay revolves around cleaning dirty houses by scrubbing stains and picking up trash while replacing outdated furniture and building new rooms so we can earn more money to move on to more significant projects.
Even if it seems like relatively simple work, the satisfaction of turning a vile neglected wreck into a prestigious living place left a powerful catharsis with every house finished. Lovingly gazing at my masterpieces with each finished project was fulfilling and slightly saddening before selling them and bidding farewell to my baby blue cottages and purple flower-covered mansions each time.
Furthermore, even if the game expects you to derive a sense of satisfaction from a job well done, a great deal of critical thought is put into properly laying out furniture in small spaces. Properly placing a set of cabinets in a kitchen or completing a train set with connected tracks and an adorable locomotive offered an excellent challenge that forced my attention rather than gazing dumbly at the stains until they vanished.
Though I’ll concede to being annoyed with the early game’s severe handholding that made me play for hours before I could swing my sledgehammer, the later section of the House Flipper 2’s purchase and auction system gave me all the freedom my inner interior decorator could ever need.
Buying a massive two-store concrete ruin with my earnings with absolutely no rules or requirements is utterly thrilling and made all the work we’ve performed feel like practice for turning these less-than-worthless piles of ruin into million-dollar masterpieces.
All in all, House Flipper 2 has fantastic cleaning gameplay with a satisfying, personal catharsis from refurbishing these houses and attempting ever-ambitious projects that increasingly tested my creativity and problem-solving skills.
Even if that amount of choices sounds terrifying and like a fast track to decision paralysis, the main missions give plenty of direction in allowing you to scan for stains, trash, and sell-able equipment with pre-listed items for purchasing so you don’t have to comb the store looking for the best coffee table.
Man, I Wish I Could Live Here
To complement its stellar renovating, House Flipper 2 offered top-notch visuals for its props and waste. While they never felt groundbreaking, the furniture and apartments were gorgeous enough to leave me revolted at the sight of leftover pizza and suspicious stains while simultaneously in awe of a flawlessly finished house.
Even after taking several screenshots, it’s hard to reconcile the before and after of my jobs working on these houses and the struggle to sell them, knowing I’d never see my particular handwork again. While this variety discouraged me from browsing the store for specific items, sometimes spending entire minutes looking for the right bedside table or finding a matching paint color, it wasn’t an issue on regular missions where every design choice was premade.
Overall, it’s hard to find much fault with House Flippers 2’s homey houses, cozy cottages, and mountain mansions. Though I wish I was allowed to walk around my new property and explore the woods around me for secrets, I’m content to throw my trashbags and watch them bounce off an area’s invisible wall.
A Constructionist’s Serenade
Though I can’t blame you for choosing to listen to a podcast or audiobook instead, House Flipper 2 boasts some appropriate and incredibly soothing tracks. Specifically, while the music for Pinecone Suburbs and Crayfish Coast was fine, the Coral Root Forest boasted an impressive track of a person humming to a guitar that felt utterly soothing.
Furthermore, the splat sounds of painting or smashing apart brick walls were delectably enticing and made me along for the faint, delightful sounds. Though this same courtesy doesn’t extend to the extremely dry voice acting (that I’m still trying to verify was AI-generated), we can easily hang up the call if we’re not enjoying ourselves and focus on the music.
All in all, though I’d expect listening to YouTube video essays or fanmade acoustic Hollow Knight music would complement House Flipper 2’s mostly simple work, there’s plenty of beauty in the game’s audio work.
From Plumber to Master Landlord
Regarding progression, House Flipper 2 was frustratingly reluctant to give us the construction reigns. Though the game rewards us with perk points and money for purchasing new items and houses or getting to paint more efficiently, the speed with which it would dish out our new painting or building abilities was painfully slow.
While I can concede that this was likely not to overwhelm players by giving them every ability from the start, it felt annoying having to wait an unknowable number of missions before I could lay bricks or demolish walls. Maybe it’s my fault that I actively sought the 3 out of 3 stars for each house (I could never forgive myself for leaving a kid’s room without its baby blue frog walls), but I still wish I could have swung my sledgehammer without having to complete six entire hours of work.
Overall, though House Flipper succeeds in gradually training you to refurbish houses on your own before giving you the keys to mold your own houses from nothing, I wish they were more willing to give me more tools from the start.
A Tornado of Crashes
Unlike my flawlessly finished houses, my computer’s performance with House Flipper 2 was far from spotless. I ran into several crashes while playing and regularly lost nearly 20 minutes of progress on my projects if I forgot to save manually.
Though House Flipper 2 does have an autosave, it takes place after finishing projects, so you can reach the very end of a project, prepare to watch as you lay your last wood panel, and then soul-crushingly have your meticulously crafted masterpiece cruelly wiped from the world. If you want to save yourself some eventual heartbreak, I urge you to frequently save after large chunks of progress, especially on more significant properties more likely to overwork your PC.
Besides crashing, stacking objects can feel slightly clunky, often forcing us to position ourselves atop strange props to reach the appropriate height to place a trophy or stray wineglass. Though this isn’t entirely awkward, and many pieces of furniture seamlessly stack together, we’ll have to accept a floating toilet roll or leaning tower of perfume bottles in tightly knit areas.
Flipping Forever and Ever
Though I adored becoming a master builder and my collection of perfect homes, replaying House Flipper 2 from the start would be dull and tedious. Having to collect every ability again and paint with minimal surface area sounds exhausting, and the real fun sets in hours later when you’re tearing every house apart.
Luckily, the gameplay of refurbishing houses remains fun so long as you take breaks between flipping homes (House Flipper burnout is real), and even when the game throws the identical houses at us as before, I was thrilled to see what new solutions I’d concoct in for this particular creation. Also, if you get tired of the story, House Flipper 2 offers a sandbox mode, allowing more freedom for players who want to get to the building nitty-gritty without jumping through cleaning hoops for the next few hours.
Honestly, I recommend sticking with the save file you have rather than starting all over; the grind isn’t worth it, and there’s plenty of variety to enjoy in the main game and sandbox mode.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Satisfying House Decoration
- Lovely Looking Houses
- Cozy Music and Atmosphere
- Renovating Remains Rewarding
Cons
- Painfully Slow Ability Unlock
- Frustrating Store Browsing
- Lose Mountain of Progress to Crashes
- Dry Narrative and Voice Acting
Alternative House Flipping Sims for Your Consideration
To be fair, House Flipper 2 won’t be for everyone. The repetitive and mundane work can easily bore players looking for more intense, engaging experiences with a flavorful Unpacking-esk story to accompany their work.
Luckily, there are plenty of cleaning and building sims that manage to incorporate stronger narratives and more polished cleaning gameplay. If House Flipper 2 wasn’t your cup of tea, I recommend the titles below:
- Hardspace: Shipbreaker
- Powerwash Simulator
- Visceral Cleanup Detail
- Unpacking
- PC Building Simulator
- Construction Simulator
Play Log
JT Spent 13 Hours cleaning, painting, and demolishing ruined shacks into luxurious cottages fit for kings and wealthy retirees. After saving 13 houses from their owners’ criminal neglect, JT went on to wholly house flip two compact family homes, a cozy beach house, and a massive concrete ruin into lovely cottages and mansions before auctioning them to become a millionaire.
Though JT still plans to continue designing and eventually renovating the fated driftwood house, he will gradually improve houses one at a time to make the most of each venture.
FAQs
Question: What Does House Flipper 2 Do Differently?
Answer: While it incorporates much of the same mechanics of cleaning and renovating from the original, House Flipper 2 boasts an engaging auction and renovation system alongside drastically boosted visuals and easier item placement. Though the sequel attempts a narrative with voice acting, its dry delivery is disappointing, with glimmers of brilliant environmental storytelling and hilarious post-it notes.
Question: How Long Does it Take to Unlock the Sledgehammer?
Answer: Though House Flipper 2 is fairly generous regarding unlocking the paintbrush and vacuuming ability, it can take an entire 6 hours for perfectionist house flippers to unlock the ability to tear apart and rebuild brick walls. While quicker house flippers can leave their houses partially unfinished to unlock the tool, it can leave you feeling dissatisfied and guilty over that remaining pizza slice.
Question: What Do I Spend Money on in House Flipper 2?
Answer: Besides purchasing furniture for your family house, money is useless in the early game and only attains value once you can buy properties for auction. With the ability to auction houses, flippers can gain more money and move on to more elaborate projects and larger houses.
Score: 7 Good
All in all, renovating dilapidated houses was a satisfying, relaxing endeavor that left me ever satiated with every renovation. Though I was utterly put off by the shallow narrative and paltry voice acting, I appreciate House Flipper’s 2’s cozy visuals and setting that left me wanting to live in my creations.
Frankly, I think the test of an excellent cozy cleaning game is making manual labor as stress-relieving as possible while leaving you feeling like you accomplished a significant task you can pat yourself on the back for. To those ends, despite a few clunky placement issues, House Flipper 2 abundantly succeeded in turning mundane work into miraculous celebrations of creativity and human ingenuity.
While I can understand House Flipper 2’s easygoing activities turning off more action-oriented players, breathing life into neglected homes, and making something beautiful out of material, apathy never ceases to offer me some consolation. Though I can imagine myself tired of flipping homes after I’ve finished my 100th kitchen, House Flipper 2 has plenty more properties to show me before I lose my appetite for interior decorating.
Immerse yourself in the hauntingly beautiful world of "Hollow Knight," where every step unveils secrets and challenges waiting to be conquered. With its captivating art style and intricate gameplay, embark on an epic journey filled with mystery, danger, and discovery unlike any other.
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