Happy Family

Ever wanted to raise a family, including the parents? Help a family make their way through daily life in Idle Family from Moondustries. The family consists of a mom, dad, brother, and baby sister who just moved into a new house. Decorate different rooms to improve their mood and assist them in completing tasks. Though cute and sweet, I do wish this game were much longer.

Sweet Home

Like The Sims, you name each member of the Idle Family whatever you want. Afterwards comes decorating. Players tap a room to buy furniture and decorations with cash. They’ll also need to select which parent gets a job to earn the money needed. Jobs include actor, scientist, and cop, and each comes with daily tasks that help move up the corporate ladder. Those tasks, called Life Goals, cost hearts, and the family earns hearts at home. Life Goals include simple things such as minding the baby and exercising. The more decorated a room is, the more hearts are earned by whoever is in that room. Players need to upgrade the furniture at a higher cash cost to gain hearts faster, as Life Goals will get more expensive. I managed to reach level ten in each family member’s Life Goals before being stopped. Sadly, there was no more game to play.

The game abruptly halted my progress with a notice saying, ‘thank you for playing, updates soon.’ Considering it only took me a day or two to reach all three level ten Life Goals, I was rather disappointed. I’d wanted to see how far I could take the family in their daily lives. Hopefully, the developers will add more content to Idle Family soon. I also had a few other minor issues with Idle Family. I didn’t like that the family doesn’t collect hearts when sleeping, or that their faces never change. Just because they’re sleeping, doesn’t mean they can’t still earn hearts. The developers should’ve just left the night out entirely. Thankfully, you can watch an ad to skip nighttime and move forward to the next day. And no matter what happens in their lives, the family never stops smiling. It’s cute at first, but then it just becomes creepy.

Dysfunctional Unit

Though an adorable game, Idle Family comes up short. It’s literally not even finished. You can only play so long before the game runs out of content and forces you to stop. Regardless, earning cash to spend on decorating the house is a delightful pastime, and so is spending hearts on Life Goals. You learn more about each family member the higher the level of Life Goal. Here’s hoping the developers will add much more content to the game so we can see the family grow more.