House Flipper 2is the sequel to the originalHouse Flippergame from 2018, a simulation video game that received many different designed-themed DLC expansions over the years, from cyberpunk-style rooms to, most recently, looking after a farm.In addition to various tools and graphical improvements, the upcomingHouse Flipper 2offers players a new game mode called Sandbox Mode, enabling players to build and share their own houses and renovation job quests with other players.
Recently, Game Rant spoke with Jakub Bujas, Producer at Frozen District, about the new Sandbox Mode inHouse Flipper 2and what it’s like returning with a sequel as a continuation of the house-flipping journey and evolution of the franchise. Bujas also talked about how the Sandbox Mode enables players to create the house–or houses–of their dreams, and much more.The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: It’s been over five years sinceHouse Flipperfirst launched, and you’ve had several DLCs over the years, withHouse Flipper’s birthday earlier this year. How do you feel about returning with a sequel, and what are the things you’ve learned as developers over the years asHouse Flipperhas grown?
A: I’m really excited. I think that we made something really huge, and we are still doing this process. And we’re still in connection with our community consistently. And we know that they want a lot of great things. And what’s more, we know that we’ve got them. So that’s really exciting and that’s the thing that drives me right now, for sure.
What we’ve learned - that’s a really extended question, and I’ve got many answers to that because we’ve learned a lot. When we startedHouse Flipper 1, it was meant to be a small project for our small company - we were 10 people or something, and at the beginning, even less.
So, we started this as a small project with not so much experience in this genre; simulators, and so on. But we’ve made it, and it happened that there is a big gap in the market on this topic. And that’s really cool because we were able to still develop it to the end, add more DLCs, and so on. So, we didn’t only grow in terms of people, but also in terms of experience. So right now, we know, for example, that matters for sure. And people appreciate it when you’ve got a bugless game with a lot of content.
But also, in terms of games like our sandbox, people like to do what they want to. But at the same time, they want to be safe, and they want to know that our game is providing all the stuff that saves their saves, their gameplay, and so on. That’s the main thing that we had to rethink beforeHouse Flipper 2. Also, that’s at the beginning ofHouse Flipper, we wanted to provide only tools for interior design and innovate inside of the houses.
But over the years, we got the idea that people are really creative, and they like tobuild their own houses, their own surroundings, and so on. It took time to realize what we really like to have in the game and I thinkHouse Flipper 2is the realization of our dreams and our community.
Q: Brilliant, thank you for that. Could you talk about some of the new tool mechanics inHouse Flipper 2, like the spray bottle for cleaning?
A: So, first of all,House Flipper 2provides a new game mode, because we split it into two game modes. We knew that people liked renovating houses and playing the same gameplay as inHouse Flipperone. But at the same time, we realized that we didn’t haveHouse Flippertools for game designers, level designers, and people who like tocreate levels for other people. From this idea came the second mode, which we call the Sandbox Mode. The Sandbox Mode is like a level designing mode, but with additional cool features for players to make it easier for them, to create those levels, without bothering with Unity for resources.
And in this mode, there are a lot of tools for level creation. We released a trailer for the Sandbox Mode. There is landscaping, creating your own jobs, etc. So, all the tools that we had inHouse Flipperare inside of Unity, and our level designers created their houses. Right now, they’re inside the game inHouse Flipper 2. And that’s a huge step, because all of our level designers work inside the game from the beginning, so all of our level designers are, at the same time, testers. If they can create something, a player will be able to create the same thing. That was the basic idea behind our creation and I think that works pretty well. And yeah, I cannot wait for what our players do with those tools.
So that’s the Sandbox Mode. But in terms of - we call it Flipper mode, but it can be Story Mode, playtesting, and so on. In Story Mode, you’ve got pretty much the same tools asHouse Flipper, but with a lot of upgrades. The main difference betweenHouse FlipperandHouse Flipper2is that you don’t have hard-coded floor levels. InHouse Flipperone, you had three meters per floor - three meters in height. InHouse Flipper2, it’s up to you how high the floor will be.
So, this also gives you the opportunity to create differently. When you don’t have hard-coded doors, you cannot say how high the wall will be. So, a natural consequence of that was that we had to split those walls into parts, and we could split them into parts - into 20x20x20 centimeters cubes. And all the cubes - we call them voxels, so 3D pixels - those voxels are fully customizable. The natural consequence was we had to modify tools fromHouse Flipperto not operate at strictly constant heights, but to be flexible on the walls. So the paint roller, for instance, can work on any diagonal you like on the wall. Also, with the hammer tool, you’re able to now create a small gap instead of a wall. You don’t have to tear down the whole pillar.
In terms of additional tools, we provide one for sure. And this one is an edit wiring tool, so you may connect switches to any lamp that you’ve got. This controls the luminescence inside the room. But the biggest upgrade, as far as I know, and our community’s really thrilled about this, is there are upgrades to the Flipper Tool - this gun inHouse Flipperthat is used to sell items. InHouse Flipper 2, we gave it additional features and the most exciting one is cloning items. Now, you can clone one item and place it with all the customization that you put into this item. Also, there is the possibility to clone styles of an item and paste them on another.
So, it’s easier than ever to make a consistent, coherent style inside, for example, a kitchen. I’ve heard from our community that when they like to change one chair to another style, then they have to justrevamp a whole room, sell everything, and put the new items in that style. Now, you’re able to change and redesign any item you want, and then copy and paste the style to any items inside of the room. So that’s pretty cool, and I think that’s a really big step forward for our franchise.
Q: That’s awesome. And with the Sandbox Mode, players can build underground right, as well as at heights with the terrain tool for, like underground bunkers, if they want to?
A: Yeah, exactly. InHouse Flipper 2, we give players a land map. So, it’s a 2D map of the whole terrain, with heights having the land map in each point. So, the player can change the height at any point of this map. And in terms of those bunkers and any tunnels inside the ground, we provide a tool called Land Holes. Using it, you’re able to create a hole inside the land map andbuild underground. So basically, you don’t sculpt into the land – it’s not a 3D voxel area like inMinecraft, but it’s rather a 2D map with a height map. You can create holes in this land map, and it provides the opportunity to build bunkers and basements. InHouse Flipper 2with Story Mode, you’ve got houses with basements also, so yeah, it works.
Yeah, with the Story Mode, I read it can let players experience a long renovation project versus short projects. Could you tell us a bit more about the different types of projects in Story Mode?
A: Sure, I prepared some statistics. So, inHouse Flipper 2, we’ve got 24 jobs for players, and they’re split into three different areas. We’ve got eight jobs in the suburbs, nine on the coast, and seven in the forest. So those are the three different regions in Pinnacove. Pinnacove isa small townsomewhere in the USA, and our player is young, and starting the job of being a House Flipper – he’s trying to get experience and progress flipping houses in neighborhoods and helping people around them.
As an early career person, at the beginning, you don’t have a lot to do, because, at the same time, we’d like to make a set tutorial for the player. At the beginning, as you know fromHouse Flipperone, you’re responsible for cleaning, throwing out trash, and so on. As players progress, then we provide more and more tools. So, in the beginning, there are rather silly and easy jobs to do but to give you enough money to buy your first house or be able to flip it as you wish. But in the end, there will be jobs with a lot of different things to do, but I don’t want to spoil anything in terms of the plot. But yeah, in the end, there will be a huge house boss, let’s say [laughs].
Q: You mentioned Pinnacove has three main sections. How big is Pinnacove and could you tell us a little bit more about it? Maybe the types of residents people might come across – what’s it like?
A: Yeah, Pinnacove is inspired by small fishermen’s villages. In our story, some Italian people from Europe emigrated to the USA and settled down there and created Pinnacove. In the beginning, it was only an Italian fisherman’s village, but after many years, it developed and right now it’s more like a place for vacations for many people, the whole environment for tourists.
And our player is coming back from his studies to his hometown because he grew up in Pinnacove. And he came back to Pinnacove because, firstly, he wanted to take care of his parent’s house. And second of all, he would like to change something in his life, change something in his career path. Fortunately, in the beginning, he meets his old friend from Marina, who offers him an opportunity to be a flipper in outsourcing for his own company, because he’s buying and selling houses. And he’d like to have some good right hands to help.
In Pinnacove, there will be three different regions playable at the release date. But we’ve got plans for three more on the map. During the game, you’ll be able to see the whole map of Pinnacove and all the real estate that will be available for three of those.
So, as I mentioned before, there will be suburbs. The suburbs are similar toHouse Flipperone’s first environment you saw in the small first house. So American suburbs - many people know those houses and what they look like. So, we wanted to create this impression that, yeah, it’s the second part of the game ofHouse Flipper,and it’s the continuation. You’re in the same environment, feel free tofeel cozy and just chill outin front of our game.
After that, you progress swiftly to the coast because it is a fisherman’s village. It’s a pretty well-developed coast with attractions and so on. In the story, of course, there are some stories about tray fish and about frogs and how they’re involved in the legends of Pinnacove.
So the cool thing aboutHouse Flipper 2is that we had the time and also the right people to retrieve those stories, and they’ve got a really big impact on what you’re able to see in the game - you’ve got posters, even books with covers, and also you can read them, of course, small parts – but you can read something about them. There is a lot of additional information about the story of Pinnacove and also the characters in the game because inHouse Flipper 2you cannot meet any character in person. You talk with them by phone - they call you, and you can talk with them. That’s something new fromHouse Flipperbecause now, you’ve gotdifferent dialogue options. You can discuss and maybe go even deeper if you’re interested in some topics, so that’s nice. And all of those characters have a maybe more advanced story behind them, the motives behind their story, and so on, so that’s cool.
After the coast, you go to the forest. I think that’s my favorite region. Because players really like loneliness inHouse Flipper 2- they like to chill out, just close in their world, their own space, and release their creativity. And I think in this particular environment, it does that the best, especially at night when you’ve got whispers in the trees and so on, and you’re sitting inside your cottage - that’s really cool.
Q: It looks absolutely beautiful, especially with the graphical improvements. What do you think the improvements to the graphics add to the experience for players inHouse Flipper 2?
A: Maybe I can start with the roots behind this decision. InHouse Flipper, we wanted to give players photorealistic graphics. And, in my opinion, that was a mistake. Because it’s really hard to maintain these kinds of graphics in games, especially when you are not an AAA studio with a lot of graphic designers.
In our case, after a few years, we realized that people want a lot of new things, a lot of new stuff. And it’s really hard to maintain the co-currency, even inside one group of items. But when we talk about the whole game with 1000s of items, then it’s nearly impossible to allow a player to pick any of those items and have the style inside of the room if we are talking aboutphotorealistic graphics. Each graphic designer has a different point of view on what photorealistic means. Each player, even me, and you probably will have a discussion - what does photorealistic mean? Is that far enough or not? So, that’s tricky, and then we didn’t have the same items and the same output from each graphic designer. As a consequence, players just struggled with having the right designs, with putting in the game what they’ve got in their heads.
InHouse Flipper 2, we decided to change the graphic style slightly to - I cannot say cartoonish, because so many people are saying it’s cartoonish - it’s not like that. It’s somewhere betweenHouse FlipperandThe Sims. We wanted to find something in between that’s still realistic at some point, but with brighter colors, with more cheerful ones, not depressing. And also, that grants us the opportunity to create all of those items in the same style. And what’s more, they are not so detailed. So yeah, it will just be working on lower-spec hardware.
Q: What kinds of improvements to things like grid placement and tool mechanics are there? You mentioned changes to things like paint roller size, which is one of the big changes. What kinds of improvements like that can players expect from some of the improvements to the tools and the placing of items?
A: Yeah, sure. So, firstly, in terms of the grid system and snapping items. We spent a lot of time on improving this and making it better thanHouse Flipperone because we know that there are a lot of players with OCD and many players really care about those items’ placement, and they want to have the things where it is possible to place. So, we probably provide at least two systems that grant your wishes.
So firstly, this grid system depends on the item - small items are five centimeters and larger ones are 20 centimeters, so to the height of one voxel or one cube of the wall. But, of course, you can just switch it off, and you can place it purely whenever, wherever you want – gridless, let’s say. There is always some kind of grid, but gridless means that the seed of the grid is smaller.
In addition to this, of course, during the placement of the item, you may see this grid - it was really important to us that the player would be aware of this grid and how it works. So they’ll be able to place where they put down the item.
And the second thing we created is the penetration system. And that system provides you with some safety checks. When you’ve got an item, and you’d like to, for instance, put it on the wall, then this item will always stick to the wall, and it won’t go further into the wall. But it will always be penetrating and be in front of you. And that’s also true in terms of connecting, for instance, tables. Because when you put those two kitchen tables next to each other, then they will glue both of them and create one smooth item. So, a lot of items have this feature - being glued to one another. So, we created some sockets. For example, you can hang toilet paper. They’re small things, but people appreciate them. Or, for example, you can put clothes on the hangers and it works. So, it provides some life in your interior.
And also, in terms of item placement. InHouse Flipper, people wanted to be able to put some items inside the other. So, on the shelves, inside the fridge, and so on. So yeah, it’s possible, and you’re able to put any item on any shelf. For example, you can put a lot of food inside the fridge and that works. Also, you can take this fridge or an item on a shelf, and it will change the place of all the items. So yeah, I think that’s a huge improvement. It saves time for sure.
Yeah, I’ve seen you may choose which plant you want to go in the plant pot and things like that. Just those little extra details.
A: Yeah, we found that even if the items are less detailed, because many players just want to see the difference between a bit less detailed item and a photorealistic-detailed item. But if we give opportunities to players to combine items together, put items on shelves, and give them more freedom, then they appreciate it even more. So, I guess that’s the right direction.
Q: Going back to the Sandbox Mode, how much creative freedom do players maybe have to make their own houses and share them with others, and what kinds of constructions can they make in terms of creative freedom?
A: Yeah, sure. So, as I said before, players have the same tools as our level designers. And basically, our level designers operate on three kinds of tools. The first one is creating walls, and in our game, walls are also floors, because the basics of the wall are those cubes - 20 x 20 x 20 centimeters, so one voxel. And that’s prettysimilar toMinecraftbecause you’re still based on voxels. And you can put this one cube wherever you want on your level. And those cubes can be combined as walls or floors. In terms of that, you can build anything you want and you can trade. There is a previous stream where we showed a big medieval castle, so those things are possible to build. Also, we’ve added more and more items - circled windows, with different shapes, and so on.
Honestly, I think that people won’t only create houses, but they will just unleash their creativity fully, and create things that will totally blow my mind. And I really think that it’s possible because I know that inside our company, many of our employees create really great creations, and thinking outside the box with those tools is highly appreciated. So that’s the first one - so you can create levels with voxels. And the whole level is created with dots, but invisible ones. So, it’s like a big matrix of 3D pixels. We can cover any of those pixels with your material, your stuff.
The second one is landscaping. As I said before, you’ve got a higher land map, and you may landscape. Anything that you want - you can have any hills or pits, it’s up to you. The third is the whole store and the items inside of it. So the crème de la crème if this one is about interior design and exterior design. We’ve got other plans and a lot of items. Also, you can build your own roofs. I can say that we’ve got a really good roofing tool - you can change the pitch, change the sizes, colors, and so on. So, it works pretty well.
All in all, I thinkHouse Flipper 2’ssandbox modegives you the opportunity to create the house, or even something more, of your dreams. And as you said, you share it with Mod IO. And you may mark it as a job. So, you can share your job with other players, and players can play it and just complete your creations. Also, you can market this house as just a casual one, and the player can visit it, flip it. Yep, that’s it.
Q: How easy is it for players to share houses? I saw that the planned release for Xbox and PlayStation is next year. Is sharing houses something that might become cross-platform?
A: So, is it easy? Honestly, I just tested it yesterday because I really like seeing what the progress of this feature is, because I think it’s a really important one. Downloading and logging into the mod.io is really smooth.
We aimed not to give the impression to the player that they are outside the game, and that they are using an external tool. So, we made it as seamless as possible. You’ve got a QR code on the screen, you may just scan it and go straight to the mobile site - just log in with any account like Steam, Google, or whatever you want. The whole search engine in mod.io is built into the game, so you can just search for your favorite Mods and your favorite houses inside the game. So you don’t have to go outside.
Just the only thing that we’d like to skip and make it easier, is where to find this house. Because in your save files, it’s hidden somewhere in my documents and so on. We’d like to give the opportunity for the player to just click one button and have those files already zipped. But if not, then we’ll create some tutorials for sure for that, but it’s really easy. And I think it works pretty nice.
Regarding consoles,it will be cross-platform, but in some terms, because on consoles we are very restricted about age ratings. And it’s tricky because we have to take care of those things. Mod.io provides the feature to capture rated those mods. So, the players submit mods, and then we can just decide which one of those is good enough for consoles. And then we just mark them as release-ready for consoles. The guy from mod.io told us that it’s really common to give those updates once per month or once per week to new houses in the community. Yeah, it would be the best option, I guess, to follow that.
Q: Is there anything else that you’d like to add today?
A: Yeah, sure. I have to admit that we’ve got a really difficult time right now, you know, a lot of testing the game. Testing our ideas, like always, before the release - designers are testing UX features and so on. But I think we’re ready for this release. But a lot of work is in front of us.
Once, I read a quote from CD Projekt RED at the end of their art book - there was a quote, ‘Our story ends now.’ And no, no, someday our story ends now, and your story has just begun. And I just read it and I thought it’s different inHouse Flipper. InHouse Flipper, our story ends here, and our story as a flipper community and developers also begins here. So, at the release date, our journey has just started, but it is a different chapter. And I think that’s the best part of it, that we can cooperate with our community. Also, it works pretty well, so yeah, I’m just excited to see how it will work.
Yeah, I was excited to hear that there are more DLCs planned as well for the future – not at release but for the future. I think that was mentioned in the latest Q&A you mentioned.
A: Yeah, for sure, we’ve got a lot of plans. Because you know,House Flipperis a game that can be developed, as we joke, a bit forever. You as the player, when you come toHouse Flipper- the first thing all players have in mind is “I like to recreate my own house”, and each player in their house has different items, different styles, different everything, and then we just think that’s okay, so, work to do - a lot of work to do because those requirements are really high [laughs].
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House Flipper 2releases on PC on Jun 18, 2025, and is planned for release on PlayStation and Xbox consoles on Jun 19, 2025.
