Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer review – sweet but empty

Nintendo's domestic design sim is as cute as you'd expect, but although the lights are on, there's nobody home

In life, there are things you just know you shouldn't do. Never eat the yellow snow. Never trust anyone who is rude to waiters. Never take on one last job before retirement. And, of course, the golden rule: never, ever go on Grand Designs if you don't really know what you want, where you want it and whether or not you have the budget to build it anyway.

Grand Designs is a show in which Kevin McCloud joins a series of couples as their ambitious home-building plans are crushed beneath the caterpillar tracks of fortune. Every single episode follows the same plot. A happy couple describes their perfect house, Kevin raises his eyebrows, then they embark on the project anyway. A year passes - then we see the couple, now a shadow of their former selves, squatting in a concrete house-shell, taking it in turns to wash themselves in a stagnant puddle. For some reason, they always decide to have a baby at this point. Then Kevin says: "I told you so". This makes for entertaining viewing.