Don’t you love spending time with the family? Maybe getting together for a reunion or even spending the holidays with them. Oh. You don’t? Hmm. Well what if you could start your own virtual family, spending valuable holidays with them? You still don’t? Well, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you need to learn the true meaning of family time. And what better way to do that then to play Family House for Android devices?

The Basics

Family House didn’t exactly start out how I thought it would. You see, I expected it to start very much like The Sims, where you simply design a character and get going. Well, instead, things get a little…heavy. Whether they meant for that or not. For you see, you are greeted by a ghost at the doorstep who informs you that the house has been run down. The ghost then begins to beg you to stay and repair the house. Think it pretty much sounds like the beginning to a Stephen King novel? Well, yeah, I agree.

The Gameplay

So, after the whole creepy ghost madness, you get into more normal life sim territory. You dress up your little guy, give him family members and things to do. Your overall main objective is to keep getting money and using it to improve the house. How do you get the money? Through cleaning up various colored goop that somehow gets on the walls and a surprisingly large amount of garbage on the floor. Seriously there's only two people living there, how does this happen?

Is It Fun?

Family House isn’t quite the “Sims Lite” experience I thought it would be. There’s minor Sim-like things, such as starting a family and buying things for the house. But honestly that’s pretty much where the comparisons end. The game is more about building up your house and your family, doing menial tasks like cleaning walls to get coins. It’s not a bad concept, it’s just not quite what I expected. So what am I saying? I’m not sure.

The Bottom Line

Family House doesn’t do anything revolutionary, but is still a nice, relaxed game. It’s more of a game that you’ll be playing in small doses long term, rather than large sessions here and there. So, if you just want to visit your virtual family ever once in awhile, this game’s for you. But they may miss you. Like your real family does. OK, I’ll stop guilting you. But go call your mother.