Home Street review: First look
If you're looking for a Sims-like mobile game, and your phone is too outdated to play The Sims Mobile, I suggest you give Home Street a try. (Nothing personal, by the way. My phone AND tablet are both too outdated for Sims Mobile, and both of them are less than two years old. Sims Mobile's system requirements are a bit ridiculous.)
Home Street's main advantage, to my mind, is that it was built by the same team that built the Sims Social Facebook game. I liked that game a lot, and I was sad when EA shuttered it. (I never did manage to build a dragon...)
Home Street is a free-to-play mobile game for iOS and Android. It is your typical time-gated (a.k.a. "Click and Wait") mobile game, but its complexity and surprising richness elevate it well above the competition. Instead of just designing a garden (like Gardenscapes), or just designing a home (like Design Home), you can design a home, customize your character's appearance, visit friends, join player communities, interact with people in the town at several different venues, complete quests, develop careers, skills, and hobbies, and participate in seasonal and weekly events.
My initial impression is that Home Street is indeed a lot like Sims Social. The menus are a bit bewildering at first, and the mechanics take some getting used to, but I like this level of complexity in a mobile game. I get bored with mobile games easily, so the more it has to offer, the more likely I am to keep playing.
I'll continue to offer updates, tips and tricks, and more in-depth reviewing in the weeks to come. And if you're playing, hit me up!