You know when you assemble a piece of furniture in your house and are super proud of the result? In House Builder, you will have that same feeling.
THE GAME
House Builder is a simulation game from FreeMind, distributed by PlayWay. The game's proposal is simple: build different houses around the world. From igloos in the snow to modern houses in burnt cement, House Builder will introduce you to the various styles of engineering and architecture.
Whether you are building dockable houses in Japan or simply a tree house in the middle of the forest, you will build it all! For each new map presented, different mechanics are introduced, as each type of construction requires a specific technique. You will dig the foundation, mix cement, cut wood, pick up stones from the ground, paint walls... in short, you will be a one-man army in the task of building houses.
MY IMPRESSIONS
House Builder has an interesting idea: to teach about engineering and architecture while you go step by step through the construction. The game itself is a great pastime. However, at some points it starts to get boring. In the beginning, when you are learning a technique, the game makes you do a lot of work until the moment you unlock a new skill, which is presented in a kind of skill tree that you unlock as you get "better" at each task. Better, in quotes, because you don't actually get better. It is just the game giving you a little help, since nobody would have fun laying five hundred bricks one by one. In this case, for example, instead of placing brick by brick, you start placing several bricks at once with one click. So if the game helps you with this, how does it get boring? It helps you here and there, but in other activities, there is nothing that can help you accomplish the goal in a less boring way. So, hands-on and lots of mouse-clicking.
In the levels where the construction is in the middle of the forest, I felt like those guys who make YouTube videos, digging a hole in the ground and turning it into a two-story house with a pool. I would go to the river to get water, cut bamboo with a machete, and walk through the forest picking up branches. In the urban levels, things are a little easier in this sense. As you progress through the game, you earn money and can use it to buy materials and decorations. In the case of materials, in most levels you will be forced to buy something that is missing. The decorations, on the other hand, are disposable; they are not necessary to complete the levels.
For those who are already used to simulation games in this style already know what to expect. The focus here is less on graphics and physics and more on completing the objectives. Many times the game bugged in frustrating ways. The game itself has an option to reset your current position, which is to be expected. Depending on the stage, it takes you anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour to finish your build.
ACHIEVEMENTS
All achievements are linked to the skills you unlock as you play. It is not necessary to complete every level for this. You can force yourself to earn these skills by doing the same activity until you unlock the improvement in question. So if you want to get 100% quickly, open the skill tree, look for the requirements to upgrade, and go through the stages that have the tools you need to get that upgrade. Or, if you are in no hurry, just complete all the stages and you will naturally get most of them.
CONCLUSION
It is a great game to play while listening to a podcast or listening to music. You get involved with it without pretension, build a little house here, stop, go do something else, then come back to it later and so on. Don't expect anything more than this. For those who enjoy engineering, architecture, and interior design, it might attract more attention. As I said, the game even has a part for decorating the houses, but I didn't like it much. I saw no purpose in decorating a house when I could just build another one.
It may sound controversial, but I value consistency. If you are going to give me a hard time, let it be from start to finish. Throughout the gameplay, you fluctuate between being very realistic, having to cut the boards to the correct size for example, to something totally surreal, like cutting down a tree and it generating three trunks. And I understand why that is, but it lacks coherence.
House Builder has many elements that didn't need to be there. The skill tree, for example, could be better applied. The purchasing of materials is very boring. I wish it didn't have this feature, but since it does, the levels should have a complete list of all the materials that will be used in that building. It is very frustrating to stop construction in the middle because four floor tiles are missing and you have to open the buy menu, press the buy button four times, because it also doesn't give you the option to type in quantity, wait for the delivery to arrive, and then go to the street to get this tiny amount of material from the delivery truck. With the list in hand, you could organize all your work materials and build everything in peace. And to top it off, we have a grading system when you finish a level. I asked myself at each level if it was possible to earn less than five stars and how it was possible to do such a feat because the grades only appear at the end of the level, and the level is only finished after following all the instructions to complete the construction. You may be thinking that I am picking on silly details, but this kind of thing pollutes the game in such a way that it is full of things that don't need to be there.
Anyway, House Builder has its ups and downs, I relaxed by putting bricks in the walls, but I was angry cutting down trees that can use kage bunshin no jutsu and turn into three. If the game is a little more polished in terms of mechanics, it will be much more fun and enjoyable to play.
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