Roguelike Report Card: Luck Be A Landlord

It’s been a busy time in JGlassland: a couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be a CA at GDC for the 4th year in a row, and I came back to an absolutely bonkers time at work. But I have never lost sight of this project, and I’m happy to say I’m back to drop a report card for one of my favorite roguelikes that I’ve discovered this year: Luck Be A Landlord.

Luck Be A Landlord is a very simple game developed by a one man team, Dan DiIorio. You play a tenant with a landlord who won’t stop raising your rent, and the only way to earn money is by playing a slot machine in your apartment. Every time you spin, you can add a symbol to the slot machine, and different symbols offer different bonuses depending on where they land or what symbols they are adjacent to. After successfully completing a round and paying your rent, you draft a special power-up that encourages you to pursue certain symbol combos or to play a certain style.

Necessitates Failure: B (6)

This is the lowest grade Luck Be A Landlord received in any category. While the game is quite challenging at higher difficulties, most players that are experienced at combo-building games should be able to fly through the lower difficulties. As far as I can tell, the game starts with all symbols and items unlocked, and since there are no resources that carry over between runs, failed attempts don’t contribute to long-term progress.

Where the game does succeed in necessitating failure is that it is only through trial and error that players learn which item and symbol combos work at which points in the game. Combos that easily help you pay rent early on may fall short later, and some that are highly profitable in the late game aren’t viable in the early floors.

Rewards Experimentation: A+ (10)

As mentioned above, this game does reward you for experimenting with different item and symbol combos. In the above case, it rewards you with the knowledge of what combos work or don’t work at various stages of the game. But one of the most fun aspects of the game is how many ways you can make the same symbol useful depending on the items you pair it with. The card suit symbols, for example, give more money when adjacent to each other, and their payout can be multiplied further if placed near Card Shark or Joker symbols. Alternatively, there’s an item that lets you remove all card suits at once for an immediate cash payout.

Luck Be A Landlord is, in my opinion, largely a game about choosing when to pivot to a new strategy. You need to assess your resources and figure out how to make the most of them, and that often requires the player to make an informed, but still risky, decision. As a result, players are often rewarded for finding clever ways to make their items and symbols synergize, the ultimate reward being the ability to clear an entire level’s rent in a single spin.

It appears this player is in the process of transitioning from a spirit/witch build to a flowers/suns/bees build.

Requires Variation in Playstyle: A (9)

Like I said before, this is a game about knowing when to pivot from one strategy to another. On early floors of Luck Be A Landlord you can often make rent by filling your board with temporary symbols that give solid payoffs and then disappear after a few spins, but that strategy is simply not viable in later rounds. You also have a limited pool of symbols and items to choose from after each spin/floor, so flexibility and creativity are key.

I docked Luck Be A Landlord a point is because there are some strategies that seem reliable to a fault. There are a lot of symbols and items that benefit builds focused around mining ores and gemstones, so pursuing a build based around that theme is always a safe bet for me, and there are strategies in the early game (toddler + candies) that seem pretty safe to play during the early rounds. Still, the amount of variation and the number of different ways to maximize your resources keep things fresh enough that I couldn’t justify taking off more than a single point.

This is the end point of a build that focuses on gemstones.

Nails the Difficulty Curve: A- (8)

This score is based strictly on higher difficulty levels, which is what I imagine most people play on once they’ve reached them. On these levels, the difficulty curve feels solid: the first few floors are reliably beatable (though you will occasionally fail them if you get bad rolls or play too greedily),and the challenge ramps up nicely as you go without ever allowing you to become complacent. Success isn’t guaranteed unless you manage to build an exceptionally strong board—which is difficult to pull off.

The few points this game does get docked comes from the fact that, in my experience, if you’re able to make it to the final boss you are more likely to win than not. By that point you’ve had a lot of time to collect the items you need and prune your symbols to be just the ones that will maximize your payout. The game attempts to counter this by having the landlord add stipulations that attempt to neuter certain symbols or combos, but I often find that you can just ignore most of these and still win.

Stickiness- A+ (10)

It is incredibly easy to find yourself starting a new game after the last one ended. Part of that is how fast you can jump into a new run: there’s no character select screen, no hub world, no decisions to make—just hit the start game button and you’re in a new game. The other part of what makes this game so sticky is the fun of pursuing elusive combos that you saw the potential for in a previous game but weren’t able to capitalize on. I’ve been chasing a win based around the flower-related symbols for several runs and just can’t seem to get it to work, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying.

This person has clearly been playing for quite a while, but look at how much money you can get from that flower!

Art Design: 1

The art is simple pixel style, but I find it highly nostalgic. Everything is neat, bright, and reminiscent of real slot machines—there’s something satisfying about seeing these cheerful symbols pop up. Whether it’s the bright red cherries, the cool smirk of the pirate, or the cute monkey face, it feels good to fill your board with these colorful icons.

Narrative: 1

This game could have very easily just said, “Make this much money in x turns,” and been perfectly good, but there is a small narrative that adds a humorous layer to the game that revolves around the titular landlord who keeps jacking up your rent making it more and more difficult to earn the money you need to stay housed. As the game goes on you are introduced to another character, a mysterious communist, and with their aid you eventually fight your landlord to the death.

Your landlord's email address is Landy_McLandlord@bouncy.mail.

It’s a small and silly story, but it’s fun.

Unique Twist: 1

It’s a slot machine—but a roguelike!

Total: 46 (A-Tier)

While 46 points drops it below the threshold for my S-Tier, it puts it near the top of my A-Tier. Luck Be A Landlord is a very simple but very satisfying roguelike that's easy to pick up and hard to put down. Lovers of turn-based gameplay can take their time measuring their decisions, but this is by no means a slow-paced game for those of us who like to keep things moving. With 20 difficulty levels, you'll find yourself plenty motivated to keep paying your rent and slaying your landlord, and with countless different combinations for generating cash it'll be a long time before you run out of ways to do so.