The AAA gaming space has seemingly left me behind for a number of reasons. The time-sink required to complete games, the terrible writing by “how do you do fellow kids” adults, and the focus on monetization and micro-transactions make so many AAA games feel gross to play. That’s why I’ve been gravitating towards the indie game space more and more since beginning writing for this site and others. SUMMERHOUSE from developed Friedemann and publisher Future Friends Games is a sort of micro-game that managed to suck me in in a way that games with larger scope and bigger budgets haven’t.
Loading up the game alongside my partner I figured it would be a cozy little adventure that we could jump into for a little while between larger games that we’ve been working through. I was correct about the cozy aspect and wrong with considering SUMMERHOUSE as a small filler game because before we knew it we had managed to sink about three hours into the game in only our first time playing. When a game can manage to grab you without you even realizing, you know you might just have something special on your hands.
On the surface SUMMERHOUSE is a very simple concept, and one that happens to activate my dopamine receptors hiding someplace deep inside my brain. The title is a city building simulation on a micro scale. Think Sim City, but instead of a massive town or world you create a singular home or small main-street in a limited space. The concept comes from those long-lost feelings of a seemingly never-ending summer afternoon spent in some faraway place. Maybe a small bed-and-breakfast you stayed in, perhaps the cottage of a grandparent or family extended family, or that small vaguely European town your parents took you to as a kid.
SUMMERHOUSE shines because you aren’t building and designing a clean modern McMansion in a lifeless SIM CITY-style world. You are instead creating lived-in homes, apartments, restaurants, and shops from the small collection of tiles that you have to work with. One thing that kept us playing was this lived-in feel that SUMMERHOUSE excels in ad finding unique ways to use the limited objects at our disposal. The game also doesn’t lay out any rules in terms of creation or goal. Your only task is to simply create in one of the games four main locations simulating various environmental zones.
Because of this you will find yourself creating your own atmosphere to match the loaction. The pace of the games also promotes relaxation, and pairing that up with your favorite lo-fi soundtrack and you can easily lose hours creating the sort of place you’ve dreamed of visiting. It’s really incredible that something like SUMMERHOUSE can be created by a single person. While the state of AAA gaming might be heading towards a crash, the indie game space shows that artistic expression and passion still exists and should be rewarded. SUMMERHOUSE doesn’t ask anything from the player and yet gives so much back in terms of what it can offer you.
Still, SUMMERHOUSE isn’t without issues or limitations. The games lacks a lot of quality-of-life improvements that games of this genre have had for a while now. The objects to play with are limited and lack any sort of rotation to place them in the way you want. Several times there was an object that would work better if rotation on them were enabled. The limited options in objects also means there is a limited scope of builds you can create. You’ll eventually run out of unique styles of homes to make, and while unlocking new objects does exist, you will be wanted a wider palette to play with.
With something like SIM CITY you are playing on the macro level and the details often don’t get seen. SUMMERHOUSE has the problem of focusing on the granular, meaning that the lack of options for selecting object colors or patterns and the lack of environmental effects (think chimney smoke, lighting, and animal life) also means the world feels a little less lived-in than the game wants. Still, these are all things that the developer could add or expand on in updates or in future projects. We have to realize that SUMMER HOUSE is less than $5 for something that will give you hours of enjoyment, especially if you like tweaking and creating. I just want more of it which is much better than wanting it to end sooner like a bloated AAA title.
At the end of the day SUMMERHOUSE is an experience that asks nothing of you but offers a lot to those willing to partake in its chill vibes. The best way to describe it is like those lo-fi playlists on YouTube that exist only so you can relax and unwind. Allow yourself the chance to breathe and explore your own creativity in-between all that shooting and competitive gaming you are used to. You might just find out that a few minutes in SUMMERHOUSE might be the perfect getaway you need from a world filled with stress and the demands of responsibility.
“SUMMERHOUSE is a game that asks nothing of the player but offers a lot in return”
J. Luis is the current Editor-In-Chief here at GAMbIT. With a background in investigative journalism his work encompasses the pop-culture spectrum here, but he also works in the political spectrum for other organizations.
J. Luis is the current Editor-In-Chief here at GAMbIT. With a background in investigative journalism his work encompasses the pop-culture spectrum here, but he also works in the political spectrum for other organizations.
