Landlord’s Super is Brilliant, Even if it Can’t Get Out of its Own Way

I try not to use the word “interesting” too much when writing about games. It feels like a word that has become devoid of meaning in the space; comparable to “visceral”, “bombastic” and “fans of the genre”. But for the life of me I can’t think of a descriptor that more perfectly fits Landlord’s Super than interesting.

There’s a lot to unpack here in this - I want to say “quintessentially British”, except my frame of reference for the Poms is limited to The Great British Bake Off and Brexit, so, take that as you will - building game that is equal parts sweating your ass off hauling bags of concrete and drinking piss at the local pub. There’s absolute diamond brilliance in this coal mine of an experience - a very, very specific game with thoughts and ideas tapping at the edges of your skull at every turn.

Building a house in Landlord’s Super is a task. The Sims, this is not. No sir. That is the north star of this experience if you will, the overarching goal of dozens of hours of slaving away. Brick by brick, wall by wall, you will build a home worthy of living arrangements and kicking back on the couch to watch a spot of tellee. But it’s not going to come easily.

The granular processes this game gets into in its construction are fantastic hooks. Take the slab, for instance. Your rickety, hole-ridden property has a square of concrete missing from its foundation that needs filling in. To do so first requires four corner stakes in the ground to mark the area. Second, pulling up your recently purchased hand cement mixer, you pour in some sand, aggregate, cement and water - how much of each is up to you, which will determine how strong your concrete will turn out - then manually set about mixing it. Afterwards, you shovel it into the space bits at a time, or pour it direct in if you can line it up right. This will take you many in game hours, and you’ll need to wait for it to set once you’re done. Oh, and one lot of mixed concrete probably won’t be enough for your tiny hole. Back to work you go.

This granular process is extremely compelling in a zen like way, and extends to other areas of construction. You’ll need to hammer in fresh tiles across the roof one by one, each of which are physical items that need to make their way up there to begin with (there is no magical pocket inventory you can place your materials - all objects are physically in the world around you). You need to prep grout and lay out each brick on the wall as you build it up. It’s meditative and very rewarding, in ways (I can only imagine) is a facsimile of the accomplishment you feel in real life when building something with your own two hands.

The problem is, everything costs money. From the basic tools on your diagetic tool belt to every material needed for every job to every piece of machinery required to put it together. And you, my friend, live in 1980s rural Britain - you’re poor ass ain’t going to be affording all the bells and whistles any time soon.

You start off with literally no money to your name and a dozen different vectors of needing to spend it. You can run, but your ability to do so will disappear if you don’t eat. You can pick up odd jobs around town, spending days slaving away in the bar’s kitchen washing dishes, earning bugger all but at least it’s something. Unemployment benefits give you less than $4 a day, which when a single door costs you $9 (plus $5 for the door frame) isn’t much to get by on after you’ve scoffed a $1.50 Chicken Mushroom Pie from the van down the road. Your best option is to wander the countryside picking up trash (and the occasional “discarded” fridge) and sell it at the scrap heap for some decent dough to at least get you started.

This hard limit forces you to engage with the other side of the game, its social sim-like elements. There’s a ton of character and joy to be found here - whether it’s downing a few pints or piffing the odd brick at the unemployment office’s window. As attractive as this is however… all I wanted to do was build. My own space was waiting for me, begging me to continue my shoddy patch work and furnishing dreams.

That, of course, is the point. This isn’t a game about building; it’s a game about being poor in 1980s Queens Country, being limited in your options but making the most of the life in front of you. 

Many other (frustrating) aspects of the game reinforce this fact. You can only carry one single item in your hands at a time, making carting anything anywhere tedious. You do have a wheelbarrow, which can fit a bunch of stuff, but it’s all physics based and… less than ideal. Your property is about as far as it possibly can be from town, meaning an egregious amount of time will be spent just running backwards and forwards either hauling one item or carting your wheelbarrow. Thankfully the hardware store will deliver your supplies, which you can purchase over the phone, but you’ll still need to unload them yourself by hand or with a pump truck (the purchase of which is another drain on your already limited funds). 

It’s very easy to see a version of this game that goes all in on the building aspect and becomes an absolute internet sensation. (In fact, that already exists.) I would absolutely bloody love a free build mode, where I could just toil away at my property using the intricate systems of Landlord’s Super to build to my heart’s content. But that’s not what this game is; it’s a very niche, very focused experience with a very specific point of view, which is commendable in its own way.

The ideas behind Landlord’s Super germinated from a very specific piece of legislation- the "Right to Buy" of the 1980s Housing Act. The act was a Thatcher led initiative that saw renters who lived in council owned (public) housing have the ability to purchase their houses at a steep discount on market value. Depending on how long the tenant had lived there, the discount could be up to 50% off.

Sounds good, right? Maybe on the face of it. In a world with an ever widening gap between the top 1% and the rest of us, the idea that home ownership could suddenly be within reach for millions that had all but given up on the idea is an enticing one.

However, as is with many poorly thought out pieces of legislation, history has borne out a more painful truth. Said properties were built on the cheap, and thus poorly constructed and filled with defects. These houses were redefined as “non-traditional” homes, requiring further government grants to be issued for rectifying degradation. In addition, it was found that as many as a third of all public housing sold under this scheme was then on-sold to wealthy landlords, transforming the once social housing into for-profit businesses, causing massively inflated rent spirals and reversing any good the original legislation purported to accomplish. In the end, the rich win out while the poor suffer.

The game of course doesn’t cover all of this history - it’s set in a single point in time, right as the legislation comes into effect - but using it as a launchpad for the ideas behind Landlord’s Super is a fascinating one. I sadly did not reach a point where I could call my house “complete”, far from it, but the idea behind finishing your house isn’t for your own benefit - instead, you, an out-of-towner, rent the place out to a local. A foreshadowing of a bleak future to come, perhaps.

Landlord’s Super, as you can see, isn’t really for everyone. It was barely for me, as while I found some shining wonder amongst the rubble, there was just too much bad busywork counterbalancing the good busywork. However, as games made from a very particular perspective with a very particular purpose in mind, it has plenty to chew on. I learned many things through my journey - what concrete is made of and how to create it; how to rort the unemployment system; what made Thatcher style politics such a stupid, short sighted way of thinking. It’s a game that is definitely, of all things… interesting.