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- Sometimes you've just had enough of fighting aliens in your starship or liberating elves in yet another fantasy universe and you just want to return to the 80s and claw your way off the dole. That's the premise of Landlord Super. It's one of those obscure indie games that surface on Steam and let's just admit it, those games can be a gamble. You might unearth a hidden gem but you could just as easily end up refunding a game after an hour because it's just a heap of poo. Thankfully, Landlord Super is the former category, that's in the good category. I'm smiling all the way through because I really love this game's atmosphere and setting. It's been created with care and attention by a small team, British team, who know the 80s. I'm assuming they know the 80s, either that or they've watched a lot of 80s sitcoms. You play a dosser at the start, but a dosser with aspirations. You start out scouring the streets for litter, poking around back alleys of this fictional town called Sheffingham. As someone who grew up in the 80s, it's very familiar in a kind of a trope-y way. Signs dot the sides of buildings, like encouraging you to dub people in for benefits cheating. And there's a sign outside the unemployment office begging Maggie for a job. There's the local scrap merchant, who's a takeoff of 80s sitcoms like Only Fools and Horses. And 80s stereotypes like Scouse Jimmy, who you first encounter trying to rob the building site that you're working on, and a big black guy called Winston. Everyone of African descent in 80s TV seemed to be called Winston or Wesley for some reason. It's taking all of those 80s tropes and loads more that I haven't mentioned and it jams them all together. The result is an atmosphere that just constantly makes me smile. It's that kind of humor that I like. It's not in-your-face, it's not trying too hard to be funny, it's more satirical than slapstick. You just have to look around for the details like white dog poo. Anyone who grew up in the 80s will know why that's an inclusion. Why? You can pick up the dog poo and sell it to the scrap merchants, but why is it white? If you grew up in the 80s you know why. Likewise the inclusion of kids gloves everywhere. There's always kids gloves. The backs of chairs, the cushions on chairs lying about the place. The only thing missing that I didn't see was scraps of porn magazines in the woods. It's very bare bones visually but remarkably atmospheric for all that. I really appreciate the fact that it's raining half the time. So few games do that. I think I'm a depressive. I am British and rain is just a constant in my life. Dreary, grey rain. When I hear gamers complain about the sound of rain, oh, it's raining in the game. And most games, when they add rain, it's like 30 seconds of rain and then we're back to the never ending sunshine, just as a nod to different weather types. No, it should be raining all the freaking time. Life is miserable and crap. And it's proper dreary British rain. Huge drifts of it backlit by the streetlights. It's... they do an awful lot with the bare-bones graphics and very atmospheric in fact. lot with the the bare bones graphics and very atmospheric in fact. The seasons change as well they change subtly at first so you see flecks of frost on things and then eventually there's snow everywhere and you're trudging through it. The sound design is key to that it sounds really good and like you stumble back to your caravan after a few pints at the local, it's driving rain and then it's pattering on the caravan roof. This kind of weird idea of evoking something with all the tools that you've got as a designer and what games allow to create something so specific and so unique. A caravan in the 80s in the rain. That's why I was attracted to this game, it's so unusual. You wake up in the morning, there's shouts in the distance of the scrap people and people in the commons, the woods nearby shouting. You get the rattling engines of the Mini Coopers pootling down the streets, a haze of smoke in the pub after people have been in there all day smoking. The people designing this game have really decided we want to evoke this. All games sink or swim based on the passion of their creators and I get the sense with this game that the devs are 100% committed to adding every 80s quirk they can think of. It's definitely the atmosphere that sells the game for me and the setting. The question is how much of a game is it at this stage? It's still in early access. Actually a really competent one with some intricate building mechanics. It's a little hard to see at first, the UI is fairly bare bones, none of the NPCs have obvious quest markers, but as you explore and interact the gameplay slowly reveals itself. You find that you can sign on for benefits. There are also jobs you can do. Slowly generate cash that you then put towards tools and equipment to renovate the property that you've purchased. Not purchased outright, you've taken out a loan to get it in the hopes that you can install a tenant, start taking in the rent money and make your fortune that way. Or ultimately get off the dole and make your fortune that way, or ultimately get off the dole and make something of yourself through your own blood, sweat and tears. You know, you're gonna build the house yourself. You're gonna put a tenant in there. You're gonna make your money. It's an Alan Sugar, self-made man story. That's the initial game loop anyway. The pub know it all. Scouse Jimmy gives you directions and fairly detailed ones that are also recorded in a little notebook on your belt which is another nice flourish with your hammer and chisel and screwdriver there with it. Basically look down to access them, a bit of verisimilitude and a sense of realism. There's also your condition to think about like your hygiene, no one will talk to you if you haven't bathed and you get sweaty when you're picking up heavy objects doing manual labor, your weight, you can't run properly, you can't do a full day's work if you become a bit of a chubber and there's your bladder, no 80s building game is complete without the ability to pop around the back of the pub and relieve yourself. Some of these stats don't appear fully implemented quite yet, not nailed down in terms of how they work. You'd imagine that you have to eat every day. I have to eat every day. No, in this game if you eat every day you soon become hugely overweight, too many calories, you can't run, you're waddling about the place with your wheelbarrow. I found this in the middle of winter I'd become hugely overweight so I was just shoving the wheelbarrow which you use to collect scrap in the middle of winter. It was painful for a little while there until I realised right I just need to go on a diet but that involves actually fasting not eating for like two weeks till your calories go down so that has not nailed in yet. The building mechanics though I really need to talk about them since they're a really important part of the game and probably the place where the most gamey stuff happens in terms of how things work and how you put the house together. They're extremely detailed requiring you to mix mortar, concrete, buy bricks, set them correctly, you've got to tile the roof, you've got to put up plasterboard, buy furniture, make it look nice for your tenant. I really didn't expect something quite this complicated. In fact you can easily go wrong and have to start again, case in point being the wall that you have to fix outside the pub. Your first introduction to bricklaying, I had to smash this down three times and start again until I got the hang of it. The mortar sets after a certain point. So if you get something wrong, the quest is not going to complete. And the only way I found to remedy this was to smash it down and start again, which means you have to buy more bricks, you have to work a bit more to make some more money just to get this side quest done, which actually doesn't reward you with money. The Scouse Jimmy tells you, do some jobs for people and they will give you money. Actually, the first few jobs you do, you get these mixtapes, which is nice. And I really like the music in this game. Another thing too, it's very period specific, some synth wave and then some grungy bands, very eighties, but it's kind of weird that it says do the jobs for money and then you don't get money. You do get money if you repeat them later. I think it should be the other way around. You get the money which you need early on and the mix tapes are a nice flavor thing a little bit later. Actually it led to me thinking well is it worth repeating these quests because the first time I did it I just got a mix tapes and I need money. I think if you switched it around get your money then get this as a little bonus. Anyway it doesn't give you many resources to make mistakes with and you will kind of create roadblocks for yourself if you get it wrong initially and you will get it wrong because you don't know how the mechanics are working you're just learning them at the start. It could be it's very unforgiving in that respect. Once you nail it literally in terms of hammering the nails into the tiles, I couldn't figure that out. Why are these tiles not sticking to the roof? Because you haven't hammered the timber in place. You do really get the sense of, wow, I have created this house myself from the ground up. I've done the foundations, I've filled in the bricks, I've created something that's livable for people. And there's a great sense of achievement. So those sort of core things that you expect from a game, and they're not always there in indie titles that are in early access on Steam, are there in this game. There's even an end game. You know, you work towards an end game where you can retire. But my philosophy has always been with early access that if it's been out for a significant amount of time, it's purchasable. People are asking for money to continue development. Then the review is justified. It's okay. You know, should you support this game or not? There are a lot of games that waste people's money, take money from people that don't deserve it. Does this game deserve it? Yeah, it absolutely does. And the devs are 100% committed to creating this world, this period piece, and really locking in some complex building mechanics, giving you a satisfying game loop that has an end game, that has a goal. There's a story here and you can reach the end of it. It's still in development, there are some problems and I would be remiss if I didn't point them out. Bugs and things, the wall I mentioned, half the time that seemed to be bugging out in terms of the placement of the mortar and the bricks. Once I'd moved a tenant into my house, suddenly all the plasterboard that I'd spent time putting up vanished and he started complaining that he didn't have any plasterboard. Well you did because it ticked it off from the list of tasks and I completed that before being able to put it on the market. So there are these things that will cause you to have to redo them. But essentially it is all there, the game loop is there, the endgame is there and you just have to work through those problems. It is an early access game. It's very directed, which is weird to say. I don't know why I expected something else, but it kind of feels a little bit like a sandbox, maybe because I've played others of these bare bones, graphically type of games. It feels like a sandbox. You can wander the streets, talk to people, but it's really not. It's very directed. It's very focused and they need to do that. It's a very small team I think they're Bristol based. This game is published by the Yogscast Which fits into that kind of humorous type of thing that They might publish so yeah, it's in that vein But I did find the fact that I couldn't want a more bit of a shame I like the richness of the 80s world that they've evoked. I wanted more of it. More NPCs to chat to, more side quests, more of the world to explore. For the first few hours, it's great when you discover all the hidden nooks and crannies and the people and the little tongue-in-cheek humor. But afterwards, when you really get down to the building, it can become something of a chore when you're just ticking off tasks in your notebook. I would have really liked the opportunity to break into more houses, cause more of a stink around town. If that's the way we're going, kind of, you're a bit of a doss, a bit of a wide boy. I would have liked to get into more 80s sitcom style scrapes. You do do a couple, like Jimmy, the first thing you do is scourge Jimmy as you break into a house, but that's the only time it happens. There's a police station, you can get arrested for signing on while you're working or being drunk and disorderly, but there's really no point that I could see in doing that. You can make much more money selling scrap than signing on or doing odd jobs, and I don't know why I would be getting blind drunk. That kind of stops me from progressing in the game. So for comic effect, I suppose you would do that. And I'm bound to think maybe some of these things are there because if this is a game that's linked to the Yogscast, maybe it's to do with streaming. We can have a laugh just getting drunk. But in terms of game mechanics, why would I do that? It would just hinder my progress. And in games, I am looking to progress. I'm not looking to entertain an audience. Those kind of things just would get in the way of me being able to do a good day's work the next day. Maybe I'm boring. More incentive to take risks, risks perhaps if there were benefits to criminality or Something I could take a shortcut if I did this the illegal way rather than grinding jobs Then I might be more inclined to risk getting arrested. Maybe, maybe. It's a great diversion from the usual type of game I play. These creators that have a unique voice and a sense of humor I think it's one definitely worth supporting in early access. There's already enough here to keep you entertained for multiple hours, but I do hope the flats in the distance becomes someday explorable. They can be seen and the devs must know people want to go there. One of the first things I did was try to get under the bridge towards the flats. No, you can't get that way. There's so much potential to add to what is already here. I do understand that you have to keep things limited to avoid feature creep, because you have to be directed, you have to be focused. That's the downfall of so many things in early access. The the devs are not on the ball and focused. And these devs are, they're probably not going to add so much of this stuff, but I want it, it doesn't stop me wanting it. I think there might be in a strange situation in that the strength of the game is actually the setting, the world, the humor and not the building mechanics. I think the most time and effort has been put into the building of the houses, and there is a mechanic that is gameable. You know, it's a gamey thing to put something together, create it, sell it, and that's the game part of it. But actually, the thing that interests me more is exploring the world, and I don't know how that would manifest, linking it back into being a landlord. I can think of all kinds of things that could go wrong. There's already the idea of squatters in the game, different kinds of tenants who are going to cause problems. There are storyline options there, but whether it's a story based game or a building game, that's a decision, isn't it? And I'm just going to be interested to see what they decide in the end, when it comes out and what kind of game they end up with. It's the devs decision on where to focus. But the point of this review is to say that is it worth paying for in early access at this stage in 2023? Yeah, there's already enough game there to be satisfying. You're going to have fun with it. You're going to be playing it for a while, the building mechanics will absorb you, learning them, getting them right, lining things up, making it all work and ultimately working towards how you can say I finished the game when you get to that end goal of a retirement property. So there's enough here to fulfill that, but it's also still in development and because of that I think it's well worth supporting. So yeah, if you're looking for an interesting diversion from the usual game tropes and you fancy going back into the 80s, an 80s sitcom, I would really recommend Landlord Super. Please check out some of my other reviews on the channel, I am just playing games and reviewing them mostly at the moment, so I hope you'll be interested in some of my opinions elsewhere. I'll put some up here for you to click on that people seem to have enjoyed. I've been Napier, and I'll see you next time.
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