SlumlordMaxx: Deed Hoarder

Maximum extraction. Minimum accountability.

Coming to Steam · Early Access

— Official property notice —Property management dispatch

A satirical roguelike deckbuilder about the worst landlord in town: you.

You are a landlord. More precisely, you are a stack of shell companies wearing a landlord. Buy crumbling buildings, let the repair requests pile up, dodge the inspectors and collect a hand of shady tactic cards. Every month the Ledger Roll types out, line by line, exactly how much you squeezed out of the place.

The goal is simple and ugly: own at least 4 buildings, push your SMI score past 6,000, and from Month 10 a hedge fund will buy the whole mess. The problem is that everyone else is keeping score too.

SMI is the SlumlordMaxx Index, the game's score.

The monthly cycle

How a month works

15-month runs, on paper, in 4 escalating phases: Acquisition, Expansion, Pressure, Endgame. Qualify and you can cash out from Month 10; refuse to leave and the game lets you stay, it just makes it worse.

  1. End the month.

    The buildings get a little worse. Rent comes in. The bills go out.

  2. Read your notices.

    Tenant complaints, inspections, market offers, press calls and full-blown crises arrive as official paperwork. There are no good options. There are cheaper ones.

  3. Visit the Fixer's Market.

    Buy tactic cards, buy more buildings or, once you qualify, accept the hedge fund's offer and cash out.

  4. Roll the Ledger.

    What you actually did this month is scored as Extraction Plays and combos, then multiplied by your cards, up to a x4 cap.

— Closing the books (Month 9) —

The Portfolio Sweep
650 SMI
The Regulatory Capture
2000 SMI
COMBO: The Clean Sweep Empire
+1200 SMI
SYNERGY: Loophole Master
+0.30×
… and the rest of the month
Subtotal
5395 SMI
Multiplier
×4.00
Event choices
+1060 SMI

This month: 22.6K SMI

From a real run, shortened. Exhibit D below has the whole page.

Consequences

You summon every boss yourself

3 bosses, and none of them come on a timer. They come because of what you did.

  • The Grand Audit: a grey auditor in glasses between towers of paperwork

    — The Grand Audit —

    Comes for landlords whose buildings rot past the point of plausible deniability. Answer the evidence before it piles up.

  • The Tenant Uprising: a crowd of angry tenants with raised fists

    — The Tenant Uprising —

    Comes for landlords who evict one family too many, or let the anger boil over. Settle the portfolio building by building, or watch the rent strike spread.

  • The Journalist: a reporter in a trench coat reading his notes

    — The Journalist —

    Comes for landlords who make the news. You get 5 responses to keep the story from running. Or sell everything in a Fire Sale and disappear.

Your first run only meets the Audit. The other two have to be earned.

One way to cash out. One way to run. Five ways to go down.

Evidence locker

Exhibits A through J

Real, seeded play captured from the game. Click any exhibit to enlarge it.

  • The city map in Month 9: five buildings in mixed condition, the Monthly Brief and the risk meters
    Exhibit A. The city map, Month 9: five buildings, one condemned, and the risk meters running hot.
  • A tenant notice about a bed bug infestation, with the tenant's portrait, patience bar and options
    Exhibit B. A tenant notice: every option tagged with its score and its risk.
  • The Fixer's Market with three tactic cards for sale and property listings
    Exhibit C. The Fixer's Market: tactic cards for sale and the property listings.
  • Closing the books for Month 9: extraction plays, combos and synergies adding up to 22.6K SMI
    Exhibit D. Closing the books: 22.6K SMI for the month.
  • The Permit Pretext notice: choosing whether to renovict a tenant
    Exhibit E. “The Permit Pretext”: deciding whether to renovict a tenant.
  • The Grand Audit boss fight, round 2, with evidence and defense cards
    Exhibit F. The Grand Audit, round 2: evidence on the table, defense cards to play.
  • The Journalist boss fight: the investigation meter and the responses left
    Exhibit G. The Journalist mid-fight: the investigation meter and the responses left.
  • The Tenant Uprising boss fight: negotiating at one building
    Exhibit H. The Tenant Uprising: negotiating building by building.
  • The Exit: the win screen after cashing out to the hedge fund
    Exhibit I. The Exit: cashed out to the hedge fund.
  • The Black Book's run history table
    Exhibit J. The Black Book's run history: wins, an escape, a walk-away and boss losses.

Itemized statement

What's in the box

QtyItem
52Tactic cards in 4 rarities, from The 1987 Lease to The Invisible Hand. Hold 8 at most, and only 1 legendary.
20Extraction Plays in 3 tiers, plus the combo plays below, that score what you did, not what you meant.
18Combo plays. Scored like poker hands, then multiplied by your cards up to a x4 cap.
104Event cards (45 tenant, 14 inspection, 16 market, 16 media, 13 crisis), arriving as official paperwork.
10Tenant archetypes, each with patience, a backstory and a breaking point. Some leave quietly. Some organize.
6Hidden property stats (structural, electrical, plumbing, heating, mold, pests) that decay every month whether you look or not.
7Scenarios with different starting conditions. You unlock 6 of them by how you play.
40Unlockables in the Black Book between runs, including an IP Shop with 12 permanent upgrades paid for in Influence Points.
10Scrutiny levels. Every win, the city looks a little closer.
30Achievements on the Rap Sheet, in-game badges that judge how you played; 4 of them stay hidden until you earn them.
84Local-news headlines that react to what you've been up to. The paper never quite prints your name.
∞Moral Creep. The game counts every tenant you have ever displaced, across every run. Portraits gain faces, then names, then backstories. At 500 displaced, the Receipts screen lists every one of them. It never touches your score. It just remembers.

A satire, not a how-to

This game is not on your side.

SlumlordMaxx is a comedy about the mechanics of bad landlording. It is built to make you good at something you shouldn't feel good about, and then hand you the receipts. Every building, tenant, company and town in it is made up.

The fun is real. So is the discomfort. That's the point.

Early Access

The whole game is playable.

From your first building to the hedge fund exit. We expect to tune the balance in Early Access around what real players actually do.

  • Windows 64-bit
  • Single-player
  • English
  • Full controller support

Coming to Steam · Early Access