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!

Putting IKEA manuals into augmented reality, this phone app lets buyers scan their product’s barcode, then swipe to follow steps in realtime against the actual backdrop of the room being used for furniture construction. Developed by Toronto designer Adam Pickard, AssembleAR uses 3D modelling coupled with post-production editing to recreate the building experience.

Pickard was inspired by the IKEA Place app that allowed people to see what specific pieces of furniture would look like in their own home, as well as the frustrations sometimes associated with building the company’s signature flat-pack systems.

The other app, he says, “made me think about how this technology could be used for more complex tasks, the IKEA assembly manual seemed the right place to start. Even though it’s well designed, people often struggle with the self-assembly – it can even be so bad that there are professionals who can be hired to do it for you.”

Technically, while the focus of the app is IKEA, it isn’t an official product of theirs, and could be expanded to encompass other furniture makers. It does, however, draw on the IKEA manual aesthetic and process, adapted in Cinema 4D but rendered to look much like the original instruction sets.

As an added perk, though, swiping through the first few steps can show you how much space you’ll need to set aside in order to lay out construction materials and tools (since these illustrate the initial unboxing and laying out of parts).

Between swipes, each page details the elements (surfaces, legs, connectors, etc…) needed in a give step, designed using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. While others have adapted IKEA instructions to make them more clear, the focus of this app is to stick to the prescribed route but grasp it in a three-dimensional way.

The Guardian has launched a virtual reality app for Android users, compatible with low-tech VR devices like Cardboard (which uses your mobile phone); its first story is about solitary confinement, which you can dive into virtually. The preview makes it sound like a horror film, but for prisoners life in solitary can really be a living nightmare.

As The Guardian explains, “6×9 takes you to a virtual cell, telling a story of the psychological damage of extreme isolation. Right now, more than 80,000 people are in solitary confinement in the US. They spend 22-­24 hours a day in their cells, with little to no human contact for days or even decades. We invite you into this world.”

Throughout the enhanced story, six prisoners share personal experiences of life in solitary. This is to be the first of many new ‘virtual journalism’ efforts undertaken by the Guardian, and makes for a good prototype: the piece is impactful, relatively easy to simulate in VR (a single room) and highly relevant given growing concerns about prisoner isolation, especially in America.

Users without Cardboard or other virtual reality equipment can alternatively experience the story through 360-degree videos on personal computers or mobile devices. Whether this is a one-off experiment or the beginning of a new kind of audience integration remains to be seen, but so far the reviews of the app are overwhelmingly positive.