Platform(s): Nintendo 3DS (review platform) If you loved the settlements feature in Fallout 4, or have extensive experience in Minecraft, then this is your lot. So, would I recommend it? Well, I’ve been playing this game for five months on and off now, so it has to be doing something right. It’s a great game to pass the time, without making you sweat or providing a ridiculous challenge that you can’t complete within the Johannesburg to Cape Town flight time. I often found myself playing for hours on end, eventually breaking from the title with sore hands and a cricked neck.
And for this reason, it’s hypnotically therapeutic. It’s an interactive mirror on which your tastes and personal preferences are reflected through the game world. If anything this game is more a teacher aid. And while this mechanic works excellently, it doesn’t really add much to the title. Happy Home Designer also comes with its special lot of Amiibo cards - they’re cards, but they’re Amiibo too - which you can use to plunge new characters into the game world.
You’re also given ample time to design each scene, so there’s no a la Zelda time-loop mechanic. It’s strange, but that’s what makes this game fun Yes, it’s all good fun, but it’s not a game that’s going to give you thrills. The game provides users with adequate furniture and trimmings to suit the client’s taste, and the real challenge is finding which doily matches which wall clock. You can use the items in your various Ikea-like catalogs to spruce up habitations of your anthropomorphic clients, which ranges from scatter cushions to flat screen televisions to banana lamps and the odd indoor football arena (some characters are seriously extravagant).Īlthough the game will give you plenty of forced story clients in the beginning of the title, your character slowly gains independence, and finding work involves talking to random townsfolk with varying design tastes.īut there’s one real problem about this: the challenge doesn’t really ramp up. I wouldn’t so much call this a sandbox game, but rather an open-room game. It’s strange, but that’s what makes this game fun. Some fancy classic, homely living rooms while others want their entire space to be a shrine to fruit. Each character you decorate for has a particular plan and taste for their living space. After designing like two one-roomed houses.Īs this is a brand new town, you have plenty of possible clientèle, and as your legendary status grow, so does your client base. Slowly, you work your way into the company known as Nook’s Homes, and become a Martha Stewart-like superstar literally overnight. Using the Animal Crossing series’ characters as a base, you play as the town’s new recruit interior decorator, or happy home designer if you will.