House Flipper
I've seen House Flipper around for a while and never gave it a second glance because of the graphics. Don't get me wrong, this will only appeal to a specific kind of person - but it caters to that urge to tidy and organise everything, without the effort of getting out of your gaming chair. It's really satisfying to clear a house and make it pretty again. The game loop is simple; either take jobs from clients to clean / renovate / refurbish their homes, or buy broken-down homes, renovate them and resell them for a profit. It's an indie game with relatively simple graphics, but it's very satisfying and relaxing - taking a complete and utter mess, and fixing all the problems one by one.
Pros
- There's a skill point system - although I'd love if there were more of these, and they were more interesting than just "paint faster"
- Very addictive
- Cathartic
- You can just do quick jobs, or buy house wrecks and do them up
- You can finish a job once you've met 70% of the criteria. This is good if you're bored of it, but I do also wonder if it's there because sometimes there's an invisible cockroach nest, or a bit of invisible dirt that makes it impossible to 100%
Cons
- The graphics are pretty bad, but I think that's understandable given that you can move everything and it's all destructible
- The music track is quite short and gets repetitive quickly
- There are no sound effects when using the tools - this makes it feel lifeless
- Assembling items can be a bit inconsistent; sometimes you can hold the mouse button to do several steps, sometimes you can't or it doesn't register clicking the first time
- Cockroaches frequently don't appear correctly (like they're inside the wall), and the vacuum cleaner is kind of hard to use
- If you switch between cockroaches or glass shards in the middle of a map, they just turn invisible