I’ve described a few games on this blog as “love letters to X”. The Plucky Squire, for it’s joy in the physicality of art. Holocure to all of Hololive. It’s a fairly common idiom I haven’t thought much about until I played Landlord Quest, the first game that I think might be best described as a hate letter.
I don’t mean Landlord Quest is bad, I just mean that if you took a love letter, and kept the passion, but inverted the feelings, this is what you would get. If love letters are sent with roses and chocolate, hate letters are probably sent with a mailbomb.
Landlord Quest is a fairly short Adventure Game. And when I say short, I mean short. I feel fairly confident I saw the entirety of the game in about 42 minutes, and that was three separate playthroughs. I’ve never actually played an Adventure Game before, so it may have taken me longer then people who are actually familiar with the genre.
Because it’s so short, I don’t really have much to say on it that isn’t a spoiler for the experience. The art is good. I didn’t have to look up anything, which I’ve been told is some sort of psychic gold standard for adventure games, but there’s also on a single room, and a finite number of things to Look at.
I guess the one interesting thing I could talk about is that despite the game loathing Doug, from his bro-glasses and faux-cybertruck, I’m not sure I do.
There’s a few incredibly brief moments of him ruminating on his relationship with his father. They’re incredibly brief, and I think the intent is to show more that Doug is a useless nepo baby. I’m sure they work if you’re the sort of person who had parents that cared about you and your interests. I imagine if I was that sort of person, I’d be able to look at Doug and laugh, visualizing a chain of shit heads stretching back years eternal.
Unfortunately for the designer, I haven’t spoken to my father in what’s got to be closing in on 10 years soonish, so an attempt to paint him a shit brat who costs on his fathers coattails. Instead, it made me a bit sad for him. At least someone cared about him once.
Anyway, I think the credits for Landlord Quest do a better job of speaking to the games purpose then I could.
Landlord Quest is a short, and either horrifying or cathartic experience based on how you feel about landlords. It’s six bucks on Steam. It’s very well made for what it is, and it made me feel something.
I’m just not sure how I feel about those feelings yet.