For those who enjoy fixing and flipping homes, this video game could be a dream come true, virtually speaking, letting you purchase rundown shacks and turn them into market-ready models.

Players in House Flipper can buy dwellings that look ready for the scrap heap, then “hammer, drill, nail down, screw, and do what needs to be done to mount, fix or clean up stuff,” all without lifting more than a few fingers.

Those interested in working out some frustration will be happy to know that demolishing walls and fixtures is part of the gameplay, too.

It hews close to reality in that the game goal is the same as real life: profit. Instead of a final boss, there is the final sale, though that’s optional for people who want more flexibility and less economics. And, of course, the fun doesn’t stop there: flip one house and you can start on the next.

If this seems like a strange game concept, consider how popular shows like Behind the Design, Flip or Flop, First Time Flippers, Rehab Addict and the like already are — sure, some watch them for tips, but others for entertainment. And if farm simulators can be a hit, why not House Flipper?

At the same time, it’s a bit dystopian, arguably, targeting a younger generation without the same financial resources as the last one to buy (let alone sell) their own homes. For $20 on Steam, it sure is a cheaper hobby either way, and a bit less risky, too.

Spanning 40 years of gameplay and 40 different games, this new volume dives into the design and history of dozens of virtual realities, acting as a travel guide to imaginative places that only exist in cyberspace.

Game developer and writer Konstantinos Dimopoulos’s upcoming book is called Virtual Cities: An Atlas & Exploration of Video Game Cities and features classic virtual environments from Fallout to Silent Hill, including some that overlap in uncanny ways with reality (like New Vegas). Maps and illustrations will accompany commentary from the author, who has a PhD in urban planning and geography and designs spaces for games, making him well-suited to explore the layouts of these places.

“Video games allow us to construct and visit believable imaginary cities, provide us with glimpses of ancient urbanism, and let us immerse ourselves in the wildest utopias and darkest dystopias of our possible futures. They are an unprecedented canvas for experimenting with the urban environment, and an utterly unique medium for experiencing cities both imagined and real in truly immersive ways.”

“I would describe game urbanism as a relatively new and truly intriguing area that allows for exciting research possibilities,” says the author. “Convincingly abstracting an actual urban setting into something both economical and believable can be very taxing.” But it has its rewards, too. “Tackling a truly exotic virtual city set in, say, outer space and inhabited by a variety of species, or attempting to imagine a fantasy town in an intricately crafted Tolkien-esque world can be immensely satisfying.”

The places have to be believable, following internally consistent rules that resonate with reality, while also being fantastical to experience. “A city can helps amplify a game’s atmosphere with its dark narrow streets and tall eerie buildings in a horror offering, provide with unique routes and good hiding spots in a stealth game, or even be used as a huge canvas for environmental storytelling.”

In a game with deserts, people will build places to shelter and get water, he recalls of one project. “The dev team went on and satisfied this almost mundane set of needs by having fresh water flowing over the roofs of the settlement in a network of connected, tiled pools and open canals that made sure all the digital denizens of the place lived in cooled buildings, and could easily access water,” Dimopoulos explains. In the end, each challenge is different, which is what keeps players coming back, too, when the cities within games are convincingly cool. The book, meanwhile, aims to unpack everything from the design process to user experience, and may hold lessons for real-life urban planners as well.

A new PVRR (Pet Virtual Reality Research) technical brief targets the hundreds of millions of global kitties who might enjoy a romp through a virtual playscape. For starters, be sure to watch the compelling promotional pitch below:

Isobar, the brainchild of this operation, boasts their brain-monitoring and emotion-measuring capabilities. Thee brief reports that they have partnered with Zoos Victoria to detail the stakeholders and potential benefits of their emerging tech. After all, they ask: why should only “big cats” get to have all of the fun?

Per the paper, “PVRR utilizes EEG and EKG technology to monitor cats’ emotions to certain stimuli. The methodology accounts for the fact that cats see less color, but see better in the dark than humans.” Their tests involved showing cats swimming fish, low-flying birds and other objects and scenes designed to evoke a response.

Actually reading the brief, though, you might be both amused and skeptical — it did also, after all, come out on April second, which may be more than coincidence (really, though, you should read it yourself to learn more).

More from the design team: “We pioneered a patent-pending process that is referred to as ‘W.A.H.T’- whisker attenuation and haptic telemetry. this groundbreaking addition to the computer vision and sensor platform has allowed us to leverage software algorithms to understand the ‘tells’ each feline has related to their whiskers and be able to accurately understand when a cat experiences one of the following states: (1) TD: totally disinterested, (2) D: disinterested, (3) MD: mildly disinterested and (4) CNP: cat-nipped – a term we’ve been using to express the same brain activity seen in highly stimulated cats when under the effects of catnip”

Of course, this may all sound silly to us right now, but wait a few years and household pets may well while away lonely days at home being fed by robots and goofing off inside simulated playscapes. According to the PVRR brief: dogs are the next target audience, so: stay tuned, canine fans!

When the hydrophobic NeverWet spray came out, it promised to waterproof everything, but users found they had mixed results in applying it to things like clothing and touchscreens – it discolored shoes and left films on devices. Then someone thought to create a stencil and tag sidewalks with the stuff, and a new type of visible-when-wet graffiti was born.

Since an initial round of stencils came out in Boston, others have gotten even more creative with the stuff, creating hopscotch boards and other water-activated drawings.

Recently, a series of works inspired by the popularity of the augmented reality game Pokémon GO have allowed people to throw gameplay-inspired water balloons to reveal characters on sidewalks.

Rainworks in Seattle has created an array of humorous messages and interactive games that only show up when the city’s famous fog turns into a downpour. Others have made poems and short stories spelled out light-on-dark against drenched backdrops.

Of course, the potential applications are endless – businesses could use the same strategies to offer rain-specific happy hours or other discounts to passers by, signs that only show up when wet. Graffiti artists could add new secret layers to their murals that also only appear in the rain. Fun in the sun is great, but this approach encourages people to get out on cloudy days … then rewards them for their efforts.

Pokémon Go has hit the ground running, breaking game release records and getting people out of the house and onto city streets. This new drone promises to take the game even further, allowing aerial access to hard-to-reach spots. Designed by TRNDlabs, the Pokédrone lets users slot their smartphone into a controller, then steer the small drone to the target location, extending reach in real life.

The tiny four-prop toy addresses a persistent problem with game: sometimes the spots players need to get to (or at least: get a phone-connected camera to) IRL are located above water or in the middle of roads, either hard or dangerous to reach. Its creators promise it will make the tagline of the game a reality and let you “catch ’em all.”

This design solution release comes amidst an onslaught of press around the game, from stories of player-related accidents and muggings to uplifting tales of people getting out and meeting strangers on the streets.

Relying on data from Ingress, the Pokémon game is still a work in progress, but supplemental projects like the drone above may prove helpful in fixing its problems and filling in its gaps.

It is hard to say whether Pokémon-as-such will retain its popularity over time, but so far it seems to have broken down the wall between console gaming, mobile games and urban exploration. As such, it is opening a (virtual, real and metaphorical) door for similar interactive technologies aiming to gain ground.

Who knows, maybe the next iteration of the game (Poké-Man Joe?) will let users seek out other players and digitally “capture” them by conversing or swapping data, a kind of meta-Pokémon as it were aimed at generating not just urban but human interaction.

Meanwhile, the game is already helping people rediscover their civic surroundings, getting them to engage with architecture, parks, plazas, monuments and memorials in new and compelling ways (at least when they glance up from their screens).