Tiny House Sim Review – A TRULY FUN MIXED BAG

Tiny House flipping… intriguing, relaxing, or an absolute nightmare? Tiny House Sim takes house flipping in a completely new direction. You’re going to need to be creative to fit in all the essentials… but maybe a toilet under the shower is going a bit too far? Alright, before we get started, full transparency: FarFromSky sent me this game for review via Keymailer. I’m going to do my best to be objective, but it’s always good to keep that in mind. Now onto the review.

The Upside to Tiny House Sim

Tiny houses are almost fully customisable in this simulator! You can tear down all the internal walls, repaint anything and everything and really remodel a tiny house to your liking. You can’t change the shape of the tiny house, or its shell. But you have free range over the whole inside! This lets you get creative with your designs and deliver something truly unique. Or you can do what I did and shove a toilet under a shower! I hope the owner likes cleaning themselves and evacuating at the same time!

Whilst the shell cannot be modified, you can still repaint it or re-panel it to create your own flavour. You can change the style of roof tiles, the colour of the shell, and even change the entry point of the tiny house if you so choose. Again, it’s just another great way to allow you to put your unique touch on any project.

You Can’t Help the Comparisons to House Flipper 2

The approach to tiling in Tiny House Sim is very similar to the likes of House Flipper 2. You select the style that you want and then you can change the amount of tiles you place down in one hit. This is a great way to make renovations feel like they are moving at a slightly quicker pace. This is a simulator, so time and patience are key. But we’ve all played games where things just take too long, and you get bored. These games need a good balance of pace. I’m glad the devs were thinking about that.

There is also a decent variety of items available to furnish out your tiny house! From a good variety of wood panels and tiles, to furniture that can be altered to suit your colour palette, there are plenty of options to achieve your ideal tiny home. Taking time to mix and match furniture is pretty entertaining and super relaxing, so big brownie points here! The best part? You can go completely off the rails with your designs! As long as you tick the right boxes, you’ll complete the mission.

You might not expect it, but reversing a tiny house in this game is oddly satisfying!  After you finish building your masterpiece, you get to deliver it by  hooking it up to your car and navigating to your client. This involves some precision parking, and let me tell you, as someone who loves a good reverse park in real life, yes I am one of those pricks, nailing it with a tiny house in the game is strangely addictive. Just tap ‘S’, take it slow, and boom – perfectly parked!

Tiny House Sim Isn’t All Fun and Games!

Tiny House Sim’s biggest killer is the clunky UI! There are so many customisation options to explore! It’s just, they are all in these menus that are really awkward to navigate. Now, upon first glance you may think that it is just the House Flipper 2 UI. Honestly, I can’t blame you! I thought the same. However, whilst it does bear a striking resemblance to the Flipper title, it is very sluggish in comparison. It’s like House Flipper 2 menus without the functionality!

I can understand that this may seem harsh, but let me explain! The radial tool menu should be pretty straightforward for picking the tools you need right? Well, the tool menu looks simple enough. However, instead of functioning like a standard radial menu, where you pick the tool depending on the direction that you move the mouse, it instead treats each mouse movement as if you are pressing left or right on the keyboard. This means that you are awkwardly flicking your mouse around to select the right tool you need for the job. It’s like trying to speedrun Mario Kart with a dance mat – technically possible, but everyone’s gonna be laughing at your clumsy attempts. This may not be a deal breaker to some, but it definitely makes getting the job done feel much more awkward. 

There’s Still Work Left…

Also, whilst I did say that painting and tiling is quite quick, meaning that you aren’t mozying around for hours on end trying to get a new look for your tiny house, there is still a slight drawback to it! Painting around the edges of a wall is tedious because of how easy it can be to accidentally paint the ceiling, floor or any other areas nearby. I mean, at one point I even somehow managed to tile a wall in a completely different room whilst aiming at the intended location. This game could benefit from being able to create a set area in which to paint meaning that if you accidentally paint outside the area it has no effect! Especially given the fact that you paint free hand, being able to set boundaries to paint in could become super helpful! Especially because…

In Tiny House Sim, there is no quick select tool that allows you to get back a paint colour or style of tile. When you accidentally paint over somewhere you shouldn’t, you have to go back and the correct tile, colour and style, or right paint to fix the affected area. Problem is, the game only saves your most recent style of paint or style choice for each type of tile, meaning that if you use multiple styles of the same tile, you will have to go into the menu and manually try to select the right colour and style. This can be painfully frustrating as there can be a lot of guesswork involved (and money wasted) to try and find the right style… or you end up retiling an entire area.

The Early Access Reality

Whilst Tiny House Sim has been a bit of a mixed bag so far, there is no denying that the devs are working hard to create an entertaining flipper simulator. So far I have only been able to play the handful of missions that are available in the current early access build, as well as work on my own Tiny Houses and auction them off. But the devs have got a clear roadmap as to what they want to include in the game, which can be seen not only at the bank itself (in the form of a list), but also with how many buildings and areas that can be seen in the world, but are shown as currently under construction.

It seems as though there will eventually be opportunities to be able to loan money to fund new builds, buy new vehicles and even potentially go on some rides at the show grounds? I am particularly intrigued by this one. I can only speculate at this stage about what future builds of the game could look like, but at least a clear plan can be seen here, which sadly can’t be said about a lot of early access releases.

Tiny House Sim Definitely Has Visuals!

Being developed by a small team, there are no surprises that there would be some limitations to the game. This is definitely most noticeable with the people that you come across when driving around the map. They all look kind of goofy. Now I don’t think it really matters too much, as you will spend most of your time in the warehouse working on tiny houses, but I couldn’t help but crack a smile every time I saw an NPC, especially when a whole bunch of them came together at the auctions! It’s just funny to see the contrast! One moment you’re carefully detailing a tiny home, then you step outside and… oh dear.  It’s like the character creation screen glitched out and spawned a town full of rejects.

It is worth noting that, whilst graphics aren’t the be all and end all of a game, having decent visuals are still important. The overall aesthetic design is very simple in Tiny House Simulator! It’s still very functional, and not really a problem, aside from the aforementioned NPCs, but its not going to be the game you use to showcase your PC Master Race status!

Music & Sound Design

So, the music is a bit… interesting… Almost as if it was created by a robot… On a serious note though, most of the music is completely passable, if not just a bit bland at times, but there is one tune in particular which I just couldn’t wrap my head around. This random country tune is nice and relaxing, but then suddenly interrupted by guitar out of time… like that drunk uncle at Christmas dinner who interrupts grandma’s story with a rant about the government controlling the weather, before falling asleep face-first in his mashed potatoes. The rest of the music is kind of just there… It won’t make you want to two-step, but it also won’t make you want to tear your ears off. So, there’s that.

Goofing Around

Moving around the world is also a little wonky. Whilst driving around town, you could suddenly spin out, even without towing a tiny home. The slightest touch of a curb can have you facing back where you came from. And I say can, because sometimes you could mount the curb and be completely fine, and other times, let’s just say that it’s a good thing that an update fixed this town full of speed racers, because otherwise, this tiny house flipping career might have been short lived… Okay, I might have exaggerated slightly, seeing as the game doesn’t currently have any collision physics anyway. Hitting another car is like throwing two blocks of cheese at each other. You can see that they have collided, but there is no real evidence after the fact to prove it. 

Also, your car can turn into a submarine… Well, not really, but you can drive down into the ocean and just keep going till you hit the abyss. What’s really funny about this is that as soon as you drive into the sea the music tone changes to mimic how it would sound underwater. It is almost as if the devs knew that we would try this, so just made it more entertaining to accomplish… But, you won’t have to worry about getting stuck as there is a cheeky little reset button that will help you get back on track after your seafaring.

Decision

Tiny House Sim is undeniably a lot of fun to play through. The core elements of a building/flipping simulator are here, and pretty easy to use. The clunky UI can be a pain at times, making things feel not as straightforward as they should be, but doesn’t derail the overall flow of the game. Don’t get me wrong, there is still plenty of room for improvement, but the devs have done a great job already of updating and refining the experience! There is a roadmap available to show the plan for major updates, and honestly, it looks really promising. Tiny House Sim may be worthwhile at the current price, $11.99 US, but if you don’t want to spend that kind of money, you can always check out the prologue for free!

By Samuel Incze – Reviewed on PC

Average

Tiny House Sim offers a fun and entertaining experience with creative freedom in designing tiny houses, but is hampered by a clunky and awkward UI. The game boasts a variety of furniture and customisation options, along with satisfying gameplay mechanics, making the building process enjoyable. However, the poor UI design, and occasionally finicky controls, can lead to frustrating and tedious moments during gameplay.

This game was reviewed using a download code provided by Far From Sky. The Beta Network uses affiliate partnerships, however, this does not influence reviews or any other content published. The Beta Network may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links that are on the website.

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