Sometimes you just want to smash things with a sledgehammer or wrecking ball. While it would be more profitable to scout the house and deconstruct anything worth taking first. Sometimes the rage runs free.
There are two main kinds of jobs you can get in Deconstruction Simulator. The first type you are helping someone with renovating a space in their house by removing objects and walls. Then you have the kinds of jobs where you get to tear the house down to the concrete slab it’s on!
I don’t know about you, but I prefer the second type of job. Early on, though, before you get some better permits and build yourself up a little bit. You get a few of the easier jobs. A lot of the time, you are just busting down a couple of walls and taking apart some future for the client. If you are taking down a house, it’s more like the size of a trailer, which tends to be made from brick. Which sells quite nicely when there are contracts of people buying some.
I can’t tell you how hard it was not to play the role of a robber on each site I walked onto. While I'm sure that if you are removing the entire house, you could take everything. On the more constructive jobs. Outside of getting fees if you are in the game mode that has it. You could just steal everything. It was oh so tempting.
Relaxed mode of having an unlimited workday and no fees was the game mode I went with. Like a lot of these types of games. The time clock stops at 18:00 in this mode. At that point, not only can you keep accepting contracts. You can even return to the job site you are working on. It’s a bit dark outside when you do, but you usually are close to finishing the job anyway.
This game ends up having a decent amount of humor. From right off at the start to reading the descriptions of each job you take on. It even goes on further if you look for it as you are clearing a site.
At the end of each job, it’s like you are returning to your thief lair, where you've been storing all the goodies. As you progress along, you can even expand the warehouse where you are storing all those toilets, couches, bricks, lumber, and even the windows that you pried out with a crowbar yourself.
For whatever reason, I could not stop myself from bringing back any TVs I found. Even when the job was just having me demolish the bathroom for an expansion. It was rather funny, I'd sometimes hear the police sirens in the game. Almost like they knew I was up to no good.
You can also buy more storage units and move everything around. I could not wait till I could afford to get more space. Your starting area gets a little cramped while you are waiting for the right buyers to start offloading all the stuff you hauled back from different job sites.
My favorite part was when I took anything worth taking and hauling it back. It was time to do the heavy work. Smashing anything remaining from kitchen cabinets to entire walls. Till I had this massive mess left.
As you might expect, with such a massive debris field. There was a noticeable FPS drop when you don’t stop occasionally and clean up the worksite. It was still more than playable, and I'm kind of shocked I have yet to crash in the game.
Part of every contract is clearing up the site before you leave. It is sometimes worth a lot more than destroying the house was in the first place. Thankfully, all this rubble would end up making me a couple of hundred bucks hauling it back to my warehouse. More than covering the cost of gas.
Sometimes it seemed odd that someone wanted their house torn down. Other times, it was quite clear, and you could almost smell how awful a place like this was with the moldy walls. The customer wanted me to pack up and ship their bed. When I picked it up, there was even mold on the bottom of it. When there $50 of profit to be made, I kept my mouth shut and shoved into the van for them to receive.
While smashing and destroying everything with a sludge hammer is fun. Sometimes you just don’t want to spend all day destroying a house. You need something with a bit more power to it. Thankfully, there is a more powerful option.
It costs $600 to rent out the wrecking ball for a job site. With quite a lot of the jobs you take on, you're not paying enough to make it worth using. It sure makes quick work, and it’s rather satisfying seeing all the pieces of plywood, insulation, and parts of an oven go flying off into the distance.
I often did not blow the $600 to make a job that easy. As for anything extra I had, I'd put it into upgrading tools or, more importantly, getting a bigger van and truck for hauling stuff away from. Once you get away from the starting vans, you at least have good enough space to last you a little while. So, you are not making so many trips back and forth between the warehouse and the job site you are on.
When I was not out smashing things to bits or taking stuff apart with a screwdriver. I was back at the warehouse, poring over the buyer order section. A lot of the time, you make more from what you looted than what you were paid to destroy. You just must keep in mind that you usually are only getting about half of an item's stated value. After all, you are selling slightly used goods. Mostly all legally obtained, maybe.
Overall, quite a fun game when you just want to mostly smash things to bits. Sure, there are moments when you need to disassemble items for customers if you choose. For those who want to play the game more of a min/max for profit types. You can sit there taking all the plywood, wooden boards, lights, ceiling fans, and desks that you want. After a while, however, your warehouse is bursting with too many items.
A packrat would almost lose their mind in this game once they realize just about everything they can take apart in some way other than the flooring and take back to the warehouse.
I also had quite a few funny moments, like the screenshot above. Where I've destroyed most of a house. Yet there is some piece still hanging in there. While after a while, you learn what tends to be the pieces of the building holding up the walls, and which stuff you can somewhat ignore. There is always that moment when an inner wall, or a beam somewhere, is holding up what little remains of what used to be a house.
Screenshots were taken, and content was written by @Enjar about Deconstruction Simulator.
Disclosure: A review copy of the game was received for free.
