Reviews / 26 March 2024

Let’s Look at: SUMMERHOUSE

A tiny building game about beautiful lived-in houses. No rules or restrictions, just pure creativity.

SummerHouse is a cozy and wholesome building game created by developer Friedemann, who wanted to capture the feelings of the summer days of his childhood. For a lot of people, summer afternoons will bring feelings of warmth, enjoyment and nostalgia, which is exactly what SummerHouse aims to replicate. There are no goals, no time limit and no right or wrong.

Once you begin, you are able to choose from four different landscapes for you to start your build. These range from a luscious valley, a bustling street in a city, a desert themed area and a countryside with snowy mountains in the distance. I find each other landscapes to be beautiful and can give you motivation and inspiration for many builds.

There are a lot of different building blocks you can use to create, and each type of blocks are divided into different sections so it is easy to find what you are looking for, such as walls, roofs, doors, windows and greenery. Alongside all these building blocks, you can also change the time of day and weather to give your creation a new feel. For example, you can change a day time, sunny creation to an atmospheric thunderstorm night time build. This really opens up plenty of new ways to be creative.

The items that you use in your builds change their colouring depending on your chosen landscape and what colour of walls you are using. This means that every item you choose will automatically fit the colour scheme and vibes you are aiming for. For example- the rocks you can use will be grey with green moss in the valley landscape, but orange with brown tufts on top in the desert landscape.

Another lovely feature that I enjoyed is that when your are creating new buildings sometimes new building blocks are formed which can involve different animals or people. There will be moments when you can see people in the windows of your building or have chickens or other animals appear in the grass around you.

The design choices used in SummerHouse are simply sublime, from the simplistic graphics to the dreamy colours. I feel that these aesthetics really make the game feel relaxing and special. There is also a minimalistic and relaxing soundtrack which fits with the cozy vibes of the gameplay.

SummerHouse is another perfect example that games do not have to have deep storylines and complex controls to be a masterpiece. I have found taking time out of my day to build houses has become a pleasure and I have been using building as a mental escape after a stressful day. I am really grateful that games like SummerHouse exist as I believe that they are a great way to help players to feel comforted.

I played SUMMERHOUSE on Steam with a gifted copy from Future Friends Games. The game is available now on Steam. While my copy was gifted, my review remains unbiased.