Mobile Game Review of "House Flipping Frenzy"

House Flipping Frenzy by GOSUB 60 is a game on the market at the right time, as it simulates something dear to heart of everybody: making money off real estate. The idea of "flipping houses" is simple enough... Buy a pretty run-down undervalued house, add some improvements to it, so it appeals to the proper audience, then sell it at a profit. So how did this game fare? Pretty well, surprisingly, as it manages to combine the "spinning plate" formula, with periodic "calm" of more strategic decisions.

When you arrive at a city, there are multiple neighborhoods. You have to perform well enough at the first neighborhood to progress to the second, and so on. If you perform well enough you can get a "gold" rating, else, silver, and bronze. The idea, of course, is to make lots of money, and use that money to, well, make MORE money.

So the process goes like this. When you start at the neighborhood, you look at the neighborhood demographics. How many people want 2 bedrooms, how many want 3 bedrooms, and how many want 4 bedrooms. Each of the house listed has, obviously, 2-, 3-, or 4- bedrooms. They all have problems. You can choose to redo the minimal, or a LOT, or in between. Obviously, the more you redo, the more it'll cost, but you'd also likely to attract the upper-end of the market (i.e. more profit).

Once you've picked the house, you pay for inspection, and he'll tell you if there's any hidden costs (i.e. something that's NOT in the listing, like leaky roof, or bad wiring...) Then, if you can flip multiple houses, you'll go pick another one. As you progress through the neighborhoods and cities, you get to flip more than one house at the same time.

Once all the houses have been picked, you take one last look at the city's demographics, then the exciting part starts... You need to do the following for EACH of the house(s) you are flipping:

* go to the bank and get the paperwork and money
* each house needs up to 3 contractors of different types, hire the right one(s)
* once the contractor's done, pay him with the bank money
* once all of the renovation's done, go to sales office and put up a for-sale sign
* people will see your sign / listing and start to come see the houses. However, if you show the house to MATCHING clients (for simplicity, they are color coded as brown, red, and blue) you'll get better prices
* if the prospective buyer makes an offer, choose to accept (or leave it for a better one to come along) However, if two buyers makes an offer at the same time, you can have a bidding war which raises the price even higher!

And you have a time limit for all of the above. Remember, you can have up to 3 contractors per house, multiple houses... It can get pretty darn hectic.

Graphics are just simple enough to do the job, and just cute enough to not bore you. The game is also very well paced, with each level of complexity introduced gradually. You start with one contractor, one house, and automatic choice of renovations. You're given more choices, but one thing at a time.

It's just too bad that the time limit and those gold/silver/bronze medal levels are so... arbitrary. If they had framed it in some context, that some other company is moving in so timing is short, or maybe we need to place in the top X for a bonus... that'd make more sense. As is, it's a lot of fun, except for that bit of arbitrariness. I can give this game an 8.0, really.