House Flipper was a viral smash. You only need to look at how it crept up on everyone via Xbox Game Pass to see that – it was a high point in a slew of simulation games that took the mundane and made it excellent. There’s something pleasing about acting the handyman and tightening screws and fixing up window frames that feels like a good, honest day’s work. And House Flipper really understood that sensation.

But House Flipper strayed a little too close to reality in some aspects; it mimicked the horrible late-stage capitalism grind of having to earn your way to the top (boo!) and forced you to ride the wheel of capital until you had enough cash in your coffers to buy a place of your own. That’s all well and good as far as in-game objectives go, but it never let you free. It never let you dare to dream. That’s where House Flipper 2 comes in.

The sequel pushes more freedom into your plaster and dust-caked hands, handing you the proverbial key to your own little slice of heaven. From the off, you can do what you like – don’t appreciate the way that partition wall comes in and carves up your space? Then tinker with lot dimensions and terrain height, demolish walls and put in attractive supporting beams, instead. We all like things a little more open-plan, right? You can go a bit baroque and use free-placement, or adhere more to those Kevin McCloud-approved straight lines by snapping to the grid.

Need to get a level eye on everything that’s going on? Simply switch to the top-down editor and see things from a floor-plan POV, instead of the game’s now-trademark first-person perspective.

The fun doesn’t stop when you’ve finally got your walls erected and your coving laid down, though – developer Frozen District proudly boasts that it has in excess of 1,500 pieces catalogue of furniture available for use, so you can kit out your dream home in style. Are you going to go for Scandinavian minimalism, or some sort of East London Bohemian chic? The world – or, rather, the house – is your oyster.

But what’s the point of putting all that effort in if you’re not going to have friends around to show it off? Instead of getting your pals to look at your IKEA-encrusted £2100-a-month 1-bed sublet, why not show them your actual dream home instead; a detached house, with a porch, nestled in the heartland of America, decorated with flamingo-pink furniture and enough leopard print to make Elton John blush.

Make the most audacious house you dare, then send it to your friends and show off your style. And, as they say, ‘if you build it, they will come’: anything you build can be used as a template, trashed to within an inch of its left, and made into a ‘quest’ for your mates. Watch them struggle as they try and convert a rundown squat into an open-plan living space with that oh-so-perfect natural flow for entertaining. The developers are collaborating with the mod.io platform in order to make sharing content as seamless, easy, and fun as you’d expect from a game launching in 2023.

House Flipper 2 turns up the dial from the first game, recognising everything that made that game great whilst opening the door to more player creativity, better social implementation, and giving you more tools to use as you work your way from room to room. In an age where house ownership and crafty perfection are beyond many of us (RIP interest rates), you can do a lot worse than sinking a few hours into House Flipper 2 and enjoying the fantasy.

House Flipper 2 launches December 14 on Steam, if you want to build new houses – or flip someone’s off.