Slumlord Simulator is a turn-based management simulation in which a player starts with one slum, and from there can use the adjacant forested areas to make money or have the trees removed for further development which can make the player more money and allow for more adjacant lands to be either used in some form. Of course, nobody really enjoys the lifestyle associated with living in a slum, so tenants become restless after awhile and riot, which means you're going to have to invest in bodyguards, an armored car, and/or a bunker if you want to stay alive, all while buying your way to various goods and services which will then allow for the player to escape to Bermuda with their ill-gotten money within a set time limit. (One hundred turns for the hard level, one hundred fifty turns for the medium level, and two hundred turns for the easy level.)


It's nice that there are some graphics, even though this game could have just as easily been a text-based game. The graphics do their job when you click on the various developed (and undeveloped) squares to get a first hand view of slums, forests, and plains with a road running through them. The music on the other hand, isn't bad, but it's a failure on the grounds that the music does absolutely nothing to set the mood of the game. My advice is to mute the music, and play the D.R.I. song Slumlord.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1435067418


This game is pure evil! Raising rents and blaming it on a new "noise tax"? You can do that. Distill moonshine inside of the slum? You can do that, too! (For the most part, I find it better to use unpaid interns to improve the slum to collect more rent money.) Don't want to pay professional timber cutters twenty thousand dollars to cut down trees, yet don't have the patience for locals to cut down trees? You can do that as well by hiring goons to burn down forests. Put forested areas to use by setting up meth labs in them? Oh hell yeah! Cleared-out areas can also be put to use by building another slum, but you can also set up farms or factories which pay leases, but new slums built in cleared-out areas don't agitate tenants like having too many farms or factories. But if one doesn't have the money to develop a cleared space yet doesn't want the space to be occupied for the length of a farm or factory, cleared spaces can be utilized by either using the roads for illegal drag races or as runways for drug smugglers.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1435070111

The game puts no face on the tenants too unfortunate to have to live in your slum, which invokes the memory of Vincent Gardenia from The Super: "Will you stop about the tenants? Remember, they used to live in huts. They used to eat people. You feel better now? Hey, come on, who gives a (explitive deleted) about a few whiny kookaboos"?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1435067906


Despite all of the good evil fun, I got burnt out on this game really fast. First I played on the easy level, and then I felt like I was good enough to play on the medium level, and I beat the game there, too. Then I played the game on the hard level, and SA-PRIZE, I made it to Bermuda in less than a hundred turns! Then I decided to just play on easy and let the game drag on, and afterwards, the game just lost it's charm. That isn't to say that this game is bad, because there's other games like FTL and Star Merchant which I've had fun with over the years I purchased for being dirt cheap and good casual managers for when hardcore management games like Motorsport Manager get too tedious, and I was burnt out on those other two games, too. (I still go back to FTL and Star Merchant every so often.)

Despite having three difficulty levels, the only difference the difficulty makes, is how much time you have to flee to Bermuda. Otherwise, tenants become just as quickly agitated, just as hard to please, and riots are just as difficult to stop on the easy level as they are on the hard level.

Slumlord Simulator has no trading cards for this game. Certainly you would think that the developers could have come up with some humorous badges, but maybe the developers simply couldn't come up with emoticons depicting grotesque symbols of wealth or profile backgrounds of very sad looking slums.

Apart from the lack of trading cards, the Steam overlay does not work with this game, so unless you have magic powers like I do, you won't be able to upload any of your screenshots to Steam to show off to your friends like I can. (Just kidding about the magic powers! I found out how to upload screenshots to games that do not support the Steam overlay from another game that also doesn't support the overlay.)

Sorry Jimmy Dali, but despite having "Simulator" in the name, this game isn't a simulation in the true sense of the term, so you can't travel first person around your awful residence and interact with tenants by dropping Joe Pesci quotes from The Super.


You better wait until this game goes on sale, because you're going to be paying quite a bit for a game you're liable to get burnt out on very quickly. Even though it seems strange that this game gets a positive recommendation despite the negatives, Slumlord Simulator fills the niche of an economical game that one would play either to pass a little time, or because the player needs a break from their AAA game because it became too tedious. In case you don't remember The Super which I mentioned several times, watch this trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNagUc6w0XI


This review provided independently by ReviewExperts.

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At it's most basic, you're dealing with a bit of a visual novel that has more game like mechanics attached. Your goal is to acquire enough money to escape to Bermuda. To do so, you'll need to spend as little as possible and avoid doing anything at all.

Of course, this will make your tennants angry. Because it's going to take plenty of turns and money to get to Bermuda, you'll need to spend some of your hard earned cash on protecting yourself. Buying bonuses such as bunkers and bodyguards, you'll avoid being lynched by a mob.



Slumlord Simulator does a few things I loved. First, the tone of the game and the graphical styling maintain the dark slummy feeling you want in a game like this. The "one more turn" style of gameplay is also quite addicting. The options provided are varied enough, I never felt like there was a lack of options. Also, the game is quite difficult, requiring at least a few failed attempts before you'll be successful.



The game is a little bland in presentation. The graphics all meld together, making it uninteresting to look at. The options that are provided are sometimes disabled and if there were a mouse over to tell you *why* it was disabled, that would go a long way towards improving the ui.



I don't not recommend the game. What I played was fun enough, but I was given a key for review. Fun without opening the wallet is more fun than, say, a 7 dollar game. I'm not sure I'd skip buying a dinner or lunch to grab this game, but if you find it on discount or find yourself looking at a free copy then I recommend giving it a try.

Its a budget game so you don't expect it to be perfect, but this does fall down on being very repetative. You start with one slum surrounded by Land you can develop. As you expand your land you are faced with pretty much identical decisions for 6-9 tiles every turn. You've limited options and its a struggle to care.

Gave it a fair go, and meant to get back to the game but can't be bothered.

First five minutes were funny, after that it felt like work.

First of all, this isn't really much of a simulator, or at least not a freeform simulator. So if you're hoping for something that is akin to the multide of games which take their cues from sim city, this isnt it.

I did enjoy this game, though it is a niche of a niche experience. Its more akin to a puzzle that the player is tasked with solving as quickly as they can. Your goal is beat the clock by making the correct choices in the correct order, so you can collect as much money as you can without dying. Dying is based on random chance, and while you do have some control over this random chance, it can get very annoying. This is perhaps the games biggest failing.

I recommend this game, not because it is amazing, but because its unique enough that I think people will have fun. I had fun learning the rules of the game and applying my knowledge. This is a game for people who enjoy solving impossible puzzles or coming up with new solutions to a problem.

The game also is filled ironic and dark humor.

A full review is at: https://oldgrizzledgamers.com/reviews/slumlord-simulator-less-sim-puzzle/

Slumlord Simulator is one of those "lever" pulling games where you're tasked with balancing the consequences of your actions in regards to various variables. As with other games in this genre, the lever pulling and variables have to match the fiction in the players' mind in order to create a truly immersive experience. And in this regards, Slumlord Simulator feels quite uninspired.

A hilariously dark bad guy perspective, paired with a "1 more turn" gameplay mechanic.
Slumlord simulator is quite fun.
If you don't agree, I'm gonna raise the rent until you do!

https://youtu.be/LXGFT4cyEg4

Was a disappointment. I thought there would be a bit more involvement. But they literally just tell you a problem and you decide. Glad it was cheap. I wish there was more options.

is it even possible to beat this game because the most i have gotten is 150,000 then nonstop riots till i die

I'm not sure whether I completly lack the talent needed to beat this game or if it is just that damn hard. At first I started at medium difficulty, and thought this can't be that hard, maybe I won't succeed the first time but I'm not an idiot it won't take me too long. And now here I am. Humbled by having failed for the seventh time- and the second three on easy- in a row!!
This game is fun and for the price not bad.
But better be prepared to be lynched by your very own tenants-again and again!

Slumlord Simulator is a micro-game where you're put in the shoes of a piece-of-♥♥♥♥ trying to squeeze as much money as possible from his tennants while avoiding being lynched before he sods off to Bermuda. It's a mean little concept that I'l admit is interesting, but gameplay just feels very empty and repetitive.

There's only a handful of things you can do each turn, no real nuance in the choice between evil and evil, and the crescendo of hatred that inevitably results in the tenants rioting against you always feels very detached, not at all pressing. I was murdered without really feeling the pressure to change my methods.

Graphically it's ok, I guess. This is obviously a one man project. Some stylization would help though, and maybe some illustrations to convey the written scenes better. Looking at crappy houses gets tiresome after a while.

I feel some reluctance in giving this game a negative review, because it's not exactly an absolute stinker (like so many of these small projects are), but in good faith it cannot be recommended. Not at its price, anyway. This is a 50 cent title, not 3€. It's a game you fire up once, ride it wherever it leads you (most likely death at the hands of your tennants), and forget about it forever.