Homescapes

Austin the butler has a problem only a match-3 board can solve: the family mansion is falling apart, his parents are considering selling, and every repair costs stars earned one puzzle at a time. Homescapes wraps renovation, interior decorating, and a gentle soap opera into Playrix's most successful formula — half a billion downloads and counting.

The structure is room by room. Beat levels — thousands of them, stocked with bombs, rockets, and the other usual explosives — and each victory funds another fix: new flooring, a sofa, the greenhouse plants. Almost every restoration offers design choices, so two players' mansions genuinely differ, and the story advances in small chapters between makeovers, with neighbors, old friends, and one very pampered cat woven through it.

Events and expeditions pad the calendar between rooms, and competitions pit your decorating budget against other players — those need an internet connection, though the main game happily runs offline. It is, underneath the charm, a long and carefully paced grind, designed in days and weeks rather than sittings.

It's free with optional purchases, including randomized items. If Gardenscapes' garden didn't tempt you but a fixer-upper mansion might, this is the same warm machinery pointed indoors — part puzzle game, part home-makeover show, with Austin fussing happily over both.