Become A Historical Fixer Upper In Monuments Flipper: Prologue

Another simulator is on the horizon, and maybe Monuments Flipper: Prologue isn’t one you’ve even heard of, but it might be a new entry on your wishlist by the end of this post.

Games Incubator seems to be churning these sorts of games out by the bucket load, but each has a different take on the genre from the viewpoint of professions yet to be explored in gaming. Well, it’s kind of in the title, but what do you do with this title?

As may be surmised, Monuments Flipper: Prologue is about renovating the world’s monuments. After a couple of minutes of introduction to the world of AR, I was soon whisked away to the South of France to fix up a dilapidated building left to ruin. Naturally, the elements play their part, but as this is a simulation game, there’s a massive pile of rubbish scattered about, such as cereal boxes. Go figure.

This is where this differs from the likes of Castle Flipper and Ship Graveyard Simulator: you have AR up your sleeve or on your face. You’ll arrive at the location, size it up a bit, then switch on the AR for… well, not much. 

I was expecting the AR element to be overcomplicated – as if it were lifted straight from AC’s Animus, but instead, it’s easy to get to grips with. Monuments Flipper: Prologue serves as a radar to pinpoint items of interest and allows you to build and repair in AR. It’s not as high-tech as it sounds, and in some respects, these parts are a little monotonous; wiping down tiles – stuff like that.

The AR isn’t a gimmick, though, and lends itself well to gameplay. The highlight was the variety of tools from the wheel menu and some of the tasks like constructing scaffolding, laying down beams to repair a roof, and then fixing the tiles. It has that therapeutic element that many of these simulators have, and if you don’t mind repetition, you’ll be in your element.

But, here’s a big fat hairy but: the controls are awkward, and items appear/disappear. In that same roof repair scenario, I fell through the gaps a handful of times and interacting with the ladders and jumping said gaps was annoying. Falling through the roof with a 9ft beam and casually walking from the doorway without it clipping or falling out of my hands was worse.

Though this didn’t give Monuments Flipper: Prologue the most realistic look, it did mean that I could do one of the tasks of removing a door and disposing of it. The thing is, I did this as step two of two phases, and for some reason, the door disappeared, and I was unable to complete the objective. Leaving the area and returning didn’t make matters any better, resulting in starting again. Not good.

Other than that, Monuments Flipper: Prologue shows a lot of promise. The AR element is quite good, the tools selection and options very good, but the opportunity to travel the world and fix up historical monuments is exciting in my mind’s eye and thus looking forward to this. No word on the release date yet, but you can try the prologue for yourself, now that it’s on Steam.