Simulator games have become a big hit over the past few years, with some being just a thing to jokingly play, like Hand Simulator, Construction Simulator, Thief Simulator etc. while others have become widely loved and have amassed a big following like Powerwash Simulator, Farming Simulator and Lawn Mowing Simulator.

Unfortunately, Estate Agent Simulator falls in the first category, a simulator game that doesn't really do anything new, doesn't have that satisfying gameplay loop and it's just there to have fun with in five-ish hours before you get bored of all the different "minigames" it introduces instead on focusing to get the Estate Agent lifestyle fun and engaging.

I won't be slamming this game since, there are players who love these types of simulator games that all basically play the same, just go out and break the game as much as possible. But if the game is called "Estate Agent Simulator" and you have a town in which you can gamble, race, buy a farm, participate in Storage Wars, and, since the time of this review, they also plan to add hunting, it puts the Estate Agent career in the background. Which is a shame since buying a house and decorating it so you can rent it out to people and then having a routine of going to all the houses you're renting and collecting money could be a fun premise, if executed properly, but it's really basic so far, which the developers might fix in the future.

The actual house renting process is fun, until you notice how simplistic it really is. Instead of the game rewarding you for taking the time to make the house look nice, you can basically buy 10 PCs and put them on the floor of the living room, and that increases the renting value way more that actually adding a bed, a shower, a TV etc. Also the "House Flipper" system where you clean the house before you actually put it up for rent is way simplified. Either scrub the dirty parts of the house, pick up the trash or use an insecticide on cockroaches. The most fun I actually had with the whole renting process is actually the haggling when renting and the actual rent pick up every day.

At the beginning of the game you wake up with your wife in your house. On the floor of the bedroom there is a briefcase with 40000$ in it, and for some reason you can talk to your wife and beg her to give you money every day. The wife doesn't really add to anything, she was literally my ATM every time I woke up. The dialogue is, of course, stiff and it's like an AI wrote all the lines. But hey, I won't go deep into this game since it doesn't take itself seriously.

I tried playing it for what it is, a joke simulator game, and honestly I had fun with it, but again, don't expect to keep playing this for long, after 5 hours I was spent and had nothing to do that felt fun. The loop was basically, buy a house, clean it, fill it with PCs until you reach max furniture, put it up for rent, rent it and then collect that rent everyday. Racing became boring really quickly, I didn't even try to buy the farm, casino was just a nice way to pass the time, but it can also get boring quickly, and Storage Wars only happened once a week so that was not worth it to wait for.

So, would I recommend this game? Depends. If you like these types of games, sure, go for it, but when it's on sale since I really don't think you're getting anything that changes the genre. If you're looking for a serious simulator game that you can get lost in, pass this one for now. The developers have been steadily updating the game, but I fear that they're going in a completely wrong direction with it, and instead of improving the simulating of an estate agent, they keep adding more ways NOT to play as an estate agent.

6/10