Architect Life: A House Design Simulator review

As a kid, I’d often build elaborate model houses using everything from playing cards to LEGOs. Today, simulations like Architech Life: A House Design Simulator strive to provide a similar experience, without the burden of having to disassemble your creations and clean everything up. Shine Group, the developer behind games like Quantic Pinball and applications that help to port Unreal Engine-based games from PC to console, hopes to indulge your inner architect. But at present, Architect Life is just as likely to frustrate as it is to fascinate.

Of Dream Homes and Control Complications

While the title attempts to provide an intuitive interface, the control scheme has its share of problems, especially when it comes to precision building. Using a mouse and keyboard allows for adjustments, but certain actions, like snapping walls or placing items at specific angles, feel clunky. Even worse, the on-screen button for snapping appears to be an up arrow, while the in-menu keymapping doesn’t even list a command for snapping. After a frustrating episode of trial-and-error, I discovered that the left shift button was used for this tool.

Meanwhile, rotation habitually requires more clicks than necessary, while tweaking the position of decorative items can be exasperating when the camera refuses to cooperate. Additionally, zooming in too far sometimes causes objects to clip or vanish behind interface elements, making close-up work a chore.

Camera control is another aspect that occasionally impedes the creative process. While the free-flying camera allows full navigation around your model house, it lacks anchoring and can shift when adjusting elevation. Although I’ve always easily rotated and moved pieces in AutoCAD, turning and positioning in House Design Simulator is a chore. Although control quirks don’t completely break the game, they do detract from the experience, often resulting in compromises with your designs. Although it does offer controller support and that input system doesn’t have too many concessions, constant fiddling with the camera makes it just as cumbersome as using a mouse and keyboard.

Structure and Visuals Moderately Pass Inspection  

Outside of placing walls and floors, Architech Life does provide an engaging structure for various projects. The game’s progression system tasks players with completing design challenges, managing budgets, and fulfilling client requests. The result feels like a career mode, with drip feed of rewards for completing contracts. From earning new tools, textures, and landscaping, there’s a respectable sense of progression, at least when things work.

One contract asked for a multistory home, but House Design Simulator didn’t seem to recognize that my work had a second floor. Still, if you’re seeking structure, there’s a multitude of projects to take on that range from rustic cabins to modern high-rises. And if you’d rather just have architectural autonomy and build your dream home, there’s a sandbox mode to fulfill your ambitions. But when I dove into the sandbox to recreate a fascicle of own home, House Design Simulator’s input issues made things unnecessarily arduous.

A True Fixer-Upper

Architect Life’s visual presentation may not rival high-end design software, but it’s clean and mostly functional. Wood, tile, and stone are rendered with enough fidelity to make each material distinctive. Although the game’s lighting system isn’t close to being photorealistic, it can add a bit of warmth to interiors. On the upside, decorative objects are plentiful, helping your designs look a bit less sterile, while environmental objects can contribute a bit of greenery. The game isn’t a technical showcase, but it usually allows you to focus on your architectural tasks without the visuals obscuring the process.

With some comprehensive tweaking to its control schemes, Architect Life: A House Design Simulator could become a flexible platform for building your digital dream homes. At present, input imperfections and camera peculiarities hamper the experience and make fine tuning too frustrating. With patching, Shine Group could turn this into a retreat for virtual architects. However, at present, House Design Simulator lacks a proper foundation.

Architect Life: A House Design Simulator was played on
PC with review code provided by the publisher.