Luck
Be A Landlord

Luck Be a Landlord (2020) is a simulation game where you collect symbols to build the ultimate slot machine, win lots of money, and defeat capitalism. You choose the tokens like deck building games, then have repeated attempts to win money like a rogue-like game. It stands out for all sorts of reason, the combination of genres, the bright visuals, but mostly for how it's a slot machine game that gives enjoyment rather than takes money.

Play starts a few days before your rent is due with a mostly empty slot machine that only pays out a few coins per spin. But unlike a traditional slot machine, here you you feed the machine symbols that then appear on the reels and determine what you can win. The trick is working out which symbol combinations to choose to maximise your chances. As you progress it's a scramble to obtain the valuable symbols (or symbols combinations) so you have a chance of earning enough money to keep the landlord at bay another day.

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Some symbols have an obvious value, they give more money per spin. Others rely on synergy and don’t pay much unless they land next to each other on a spin. Many of these bonus payouts result in at least one of the symbols getting removed from your collection, which means you are always trying to build and maintain a pool of symbols that work well together, and adapting to what is available adds another layer of strategy to the game.

The result is a game that appears to be about gambling but is actually about the increasing pressure of paying the rent. But every time you pay, the landlord increases it. Even with a strong strategy to match these increases with profits, eventually the cost overtakes you and you are evicted.

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Our examiner, Angela Hickman Newnham, first checked Luck Be A Landlord 22 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 10 months ago.