After inheriting a building from your beloved grandmother, you decide to open your doors to renters and become a landlord. However, you soon find out that this neighbourhood is filled with some incredibly strange folk, and it is up to you to keep them all happy. I don’t think anybody is ready for Grandma Left Me A Building!
Moving In
I played Grandma Left Me A Building: Prologue, the demo version of the full game, and it allowed me to play through a full month of in-game time. During that playthrough, I faced several interesting problems to solve, with the main one being where to place the tenants.
When booking tenants into your building, you are given a profile with a brief description and a list of their “quirks”. This lets you judge how well they will get along with other tenants and decide whether to welcome them into your community. When your new tenants arrive, drag their moving box into the rental unit to assign them and see how things go.
Although this sounds easy enough, your tenants will change their opinions of each other, for better or worse. You have to figure out how best to resolve the inevitable fallout from those changes.
The More Things Change
I faced several funny events that gave me options ranging from calling exterminators and paying for things to ignoring them entirely and hoping they go away. As a result, your tenants respond to these choices, raising or lowering your reputation depending on the solutions you choose. These events seemed random, but they increased in frequency as you had more tenants.
These events, along with shifting tenant opinions, force you to rearrange rental units and expand upward to keep everyone happy. This seems to be the core gameplay loop of Grandma Left Me A Building, and I was really getting into the swing of things when the demo ended. It’s very much a management sim and puzzle game in equal measures as you navigate each new problem.
Your turn in-game is tracked in days. Each day you get new events, challenges, rent and bills to deal with however you choose to. You can then finish your turn in your own time by pressing “end day” to progress.
Endless Potential
You can upgrade your building with utilities like laundry and Wi-Fi. These upgrades increase your building’s reputation and attract new tenants to your apartments. In some cases, events will require you to buy upgrades as tenants move in and decide they want new facilities.
The number of upgrades available in the demo suggests that a single run of Grandma Left Me A Building could take a couple of hours to complete without any serious price hikes. Even so, it still has strong replayability thanks to the random nature of tenant applications and events. You could also switch up your strategy on who you allow in the building to see what would happen.
What You Need To Know:
- 30+ unique tenants across 4 social tiers.
- 300+ distinct character interactions.
- 100+ unexpected events.
- 20+ building upgrades.
- 6 different staff types.
- Trait-based tenant interaction system.
- Different tenants based on your building’s reputation.
- Drag-and-drop tenant placement system.
- Happiness-driven dynamic income system.
- Multi-level upgrade system.
- No time pressure, plan at your own pace.
- Hand-drawn cartoon art.
A Complete Complex
I was drawn to Grandma Left Me A Building by the artwork and just had to know more. It’s a predominantly 2D landscape with paper-doll characters who walk around their apartments. You use the mouse to click through menus and scroll up and down the building to check on everyone. The pop-ups and user interface are clear and easy to read, and the tutorial does an incredible job introducing the different mechanics.
The various monster designs that I uncovered were equal parts cursed and awesome. They were incredibly varied, and I’m looking forward to finding more. There was also a clown for anyone wishing to avoid them.
Every aspect of Grandma Left Me A Building feels well thought out, with charming details and pop-culture references hidden in every application and unit. The character descriptions and events are often quite humorous, and the sound design was perfect for hours of cosy gaming.
Give Me More
Once you break it down, Grandma Left Me A Building doesn’t have a complicated gameplay loop, but I found it enjoyable and engaging. It reminds me of games like Papers, Please, where the charm lies in the details, not the challenge. I’ve already had some thoughts on how to tackle future runs and am interested to see what challenges are hidden in the achievements.
An undo-last-move option wouldn’t have gone unused. I had to restart after wasting a load of cash moving tenants around on my first run, but I learned from it and came back stronger. Even so, it wasn’t too unforgiving, and you are given some time to recover if you tip your balance into the negative.
If you’re looking for a cute, quirky puzzle game, Grandma Left Me A Building is worth a look. The full game comes out November 13th, and you can add it to your Wishlist now.
Platforms: PC
Publishers: Playway SA
Developers: Overbaked Studio
Played On: Steam
Key Provided By: Keymailer
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