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Progress continues to be made on the Free Build Update.

SEPTEMBER

Month 16 of Landlord’s Super Early Access.

Apologies from us for missing a month. We were away visiting family in Lithuania for much of July, so there really wasn’t a lot for us to report on. 

Now we’re back and have been making good progress on the much anticipated Free-Build update.

Let’s take a look at what’s coming.

The Quintessential Construction Simulator

Exterior Wall Placement

Something we teased back in July’s newsletter was the Interior and Exterior wall placement. Continued work on this has meant walls can now be placed on roofs – allowing for the addition of multiple floors to your property.

Greg has also spent sometime reworking and polishing how wall placement works. It now utilises a much more intuitive “drag & drop” system, which you can see in action linked below (twitter link in image).

Work has gone into making wall-placement feel more intuitive. 

Ceiling Generation

Ceilings are generated whenever the game recognises a closed loop between exterior wall segments. Greg got bogged down with making sure this generation worked as expected and without issues, it took a while but the system is now solid and means the game can support the construction of multiple floors! Access to multiple floors will require the use of something that’s been anticipated for a long time…

Staircases

Planning on adding multiple storeys to your property? You’re going to want to order some staircases. Staircases allow access to the upper floors of your property. Place them on the ground and secure them with your spanner and you or your tenants now have access to a whole new area of the house!

With three different styles of staircase – each with multiple step designs and colours – you’ll also be able to match staircases with any of the furnishing styles you’ve decorated your property with.

Video example linked in the image below.

Catalogue Updates

“Staircases” and “Walls” pages have been added to the Q&Q catalogue. The Save & Load system now also supports both these features. Roofing is still to come but work on that will begin soon. More on that next month.

Quality of Life Improvements

For the Free Build update, we’re also looking at improving how comfortable the game is to play. For example, windows will now snap to the correct height, making them much easier to place. We’re also setting aside time to speed up roof construction, and implement grid-snapping for tile placement. We’d also like to add a better way to place items on the ground (one that doesn’t destroy the property!).

Other considerations we’d like to see make their way into the update are more involving ways to earn money, and more convenient ways to recover energy. If you have any suggestions for us, we’d love to hear them!

Community Spotlight

Mar (@midmodmar, commissions open) created an amazing rendition of the player character H. Abiff and local landlady Tamsin. Człowiek Elementu provides the meme magic with not one, but two original memes. Finally, ASkeleton sets the game record for highest wheel barrow stack. Bravo all! 

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The Landlord’s Super Soundtrack is now available for purchase on Steam.

JULY

Month 14 of Landlord’s Super Early Access.

This month saw the release of The Landlord’s Super Original Soundtrack, composed by Jeremy Warmsley. Available for purchase now on Steam.

Steps are also being made towards the release of the Free Build update. Though we’re not yet at the stage where we can provide a release window.

Tragically, we’ve also had to say goodbye to an old friend. 

The Quintessential Construction Simulator

Soundtrack Now Available

The Landlord’s Super Original Soundtrack, composed by Jeremy Warmsley, is now available for purchase on Steam.

Purchase now to receive 17 tracks, including the full in-game mix tapes and theme song, and support a talented and hardworking musician.

(Purchase Now!)

Free Build Progress Report

Development was slowed this month due to a house (and with it home office) move, but progress is now getting back to full steam. Here’s an overview of what we’ve worked on.

Interior Wall Placement

Players will soon be able to remove & place interior walls. Create an open-plan living space, or finally make that bathroom smaller.

Each Plaster Frame can also be resized using our new “Hot Bar” functionality (details further on).

Hot Bar

Relying on clicking the right mouse button to change the shape or selection for things such as the Trowel was proving to be annoying. We’d long planned to replace this solution with a hot bar system and finally, with the introduction of Interior Wall Placement, the Hot Bar is making it’s way in. 

Holding down the right mouse button for a short time will now open the Hot Bar (restricted to applicable items). From the Hot Bar, selections can be made to change the type or style or placement for the object the player is currently holding.

Objects that make use of the Hot Bar include the Trowel (for mortar placement), Plaster Frames (interior walls), No-fines Frames (exterior walls) and Plaster Board.

Exterior Wall Placement & Roof Generation

Along with Interior Wall Placement, we’ve now started work on Exterior Wall Placement. The aim of this feature is to allow players to remove and place exterior (No-Fines Frames) walls. Essentially, this will allow players to design the layout and size of their property. Making them both builder and architect!

Whilst in theory the execution of this feature should be the same as Interior Wall Placement, there’s a couple considerations needed. One thing to consider is how we handle roofing? Do you have players build the roof themselves? Do you generate the whole thing? How does the game decide then, what should be a flat roof or a gable roof?

The current solution is a mixture of both generated an placement. Once a full loop of the exterior wall is completed, a flat roof mesh will be generated (pictured). Placement of gable frames will then be allowed on this roof, so players can design what parts of their roof will be gabled and flat. 

There’s still a lot of work left to be done on this feature, but it’s looking promising that customising the layout and size of the house will be possible soon. 

Farewell Simba

Tragically, this month saw the passing of our dear friend and companion Simba. Simba was a Chihuahua who loved sleeping under the covers and watching Daniel Day Lewis films. He was a funny dog, wearing himself out with excitement before a walk to then take himself home for an early bed. Rest in peace dear friend, you will not be forgotten.

Simba you were a huge part of Jalopy and Landlord’s, thank you for all your support.

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Furniture Update, out now on Steam!

JUNE

Month 13 of Landlord’s Super Early Access.

Last month we finally released the Furniture Update into the main branch of Steam! Combined with the positive support of our fans, a couple of sales and some really great streamers picking up the game, the update really got the attention it deserves. 

With that milestone complete, we’re sure you’ll be interested in what’s next. Well, for us, we’ll be spending a little bit of time moving home, but once that’s out of the way it’s back into the next update for the game. Read on to find out what the plans are there.

The Quintessential Construction Simulator

Furniture Update Now Available

The Furniture Update is now fully available on Steam. If you missed the announcement, or patch notes, you can view them here. The Furniture Update not only adds in 100s of new pieces of furniture but also includes new music, jobs, and mechanics further enhancing the Landlord’s Super game experience. It is the biggest content update the game has had since starting Early Access, making it a perfect time to jump back in.

Try it now

MODDABLE FEATURES

As the core of the game becomes more fleshed out, we’ve started to add in a few moddable elements to the game. This is a trend we’ll likely continue if it’s something the community likes. For now, the moddable elements in the game are as follows.

  • Blank Tape Audio Files
    • Fill the blank tape with up to 20 .wav audio files of your choice, listen to a podcast, or load up the first album you ever purchased!
  • Blank Tape Texture
    • With the audio loaded, change the appearance of the tape so you can show off what you’re listening to
  • Paintings
    • There’s currently 5 paintings featuring Ruta’s beautiful art with more to come. Each one can be swapped out for any .png image through the StreamingAssets folder.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Those of you who have seen the current roadmap will noticed that the next planned step is shown as the Supper & Tea update. This won’t actually be the focus for the next update. Instead, we’ll be moving straight onto the Free Build update. 
The reason for this change is partly that the Furniture update took us longer than expected, but mainly because we’re uncomfortable being a year on from starting Early Access and still missing an end game.
The plan then, is to start work on this update as soon as we’re done moving. Bug fixes will be at a break for now, as the work required for Free Build will require rebuilding fundamental aspects of the game.
If you’re not comfortable waiting for an extended period of time for the content update – and are prepared for buggy content – we’ll be opening up the In-Dev branch again as soon as it’s available to do so, releasing content in phases.
The first phase of this update will likely focus on the removal and placement of interior walls. With us finding a workable solution for this that still allows tenants to rent the property. Then moving onto foundation and outer wall placement (the struggle here currently is figuring out how roof generation will work, but we’ll figure that out as we understand the problems better).
Regardless, this is likely be the hardest and most demanding change the game has had since starting EA last year, so we please ask for patience and understanding while we’re working away at it. We never originally planned for this, but we really don’t want to let the community down so we think it’s worth the effort.
Other than interior and exterior wall and foundation placements (Finally! Bigger properties!), we’ll be using this update to add an end game loop and game ending state, more jobs, pad support and hopefully open up the way to start localising the game. Though this last point is dependent on whether script files are complete.

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHT

In this month’s highlight we look at the exceptional interior design skills of Kallecarlund’s from over in the Discord, and also from the Discord, Horn shows us a unique perspective of Ronnies Supply Store. Nice!

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We’re delighted in presenting you with the Paint & Decorate update for Landlord’s Super.
Available on Steam Early Access Now.

The Quintessential Construction Simulator

FURNITURE UPDATE NOW AVAILABLE

We’re delighted to announce that access to the Furniture update for Landlord’s super is now available on Steam Early Access. If you have Landlord’s Super already purchased and downloaded on Steam, your game will automatically update. For everyone else, you can purchase Landlord’s Super Early Access here.

The Furniture Update marks our arrival at Version 0.4, and our biggest single content drop so far. The Furniture update completely replaces all old furniture assets, introduces dozens more pieces, with 100s of variants of styles and colour. Add to that 9 new musical tracks from composer Jeremy Walmsley played on through the in-game cassette player, smoking, environmental overhauls, and new jobs to complete around the world. There has never been a better time to jump back into what we are committed to delivering as the quintessential construction experience.

Overview & full patch notes below:

FURNITURE

All previous furniture has been replaced with higher fidelity models and we’ve added dozens more non-essential pieces. Each furniture piece now comes in a variety of colour or styles, each has wear and tear simulated. This update means there are now hundreds of options to decorate your home with, and there’s still more to come.

NEW JOBS

Residents of Sheffingham need a handyman, do you have the tools to help out? Rebuild Tamsin’s wall, Lay Kashmiran’s foundation, repair the church roof for Totter. Each will provide a unique reward, or a cash bonus for repeat call-outs… 

CASSETTE PLAYER & MUSIC TAPES

9 new tracks, mixed into 3 music tapes, each waiting to be played on your very own in-game cassette player. Complement your working day by jamming it out to either Tamsin’s Synth-pop mix, Totter’s Ska collection or Kashmiran’s post-punk tape. Not a fan of those genres? Find the blank tape and build your very own mix-tape by adding up to 20 tracks to the game files. Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think!

SMOKING

The residents of Sheffingham can now smell you. This will affect how they perceive and deal with you. So, if after a hard days graft you find yourself struggling to convince Tamsin to pour you a pint of Super, you may want to consider taking up smoking for a short term hygiene solution.
User caution is advised however, smoking is hazardous to your health, particularly to your in-game character’s lung capacity. Smoke too much and you’ll develop an annoying smokers cough that’ll whittle down energy levels. Continue to ignore these warning signs and you may cause permanent damage to your health. You have been warned!

AND MUCH MORE

Split bricks with the Brick Bolster – a cheap alternative to the Circular Saw. New crouch solution that allows players to stand on their tippy toes. The Job Centre has had a refurb allowing you to skip time in their bathroom. You can open the doors and look inside Jimmy’s Reliant Runner Supervan. There’s so many changes, fixes and improvements! 

CHANGE LIST

Landlord's Super 0.4 Update (The Furniture Update)
Key Features & Changes
New Jobs available at the Job Centre
Job Centre has been rebuilt to look more period appropriate
Added bathroom (incl. Toilet) to the Job Centre, allowing skipping of time during mornings in Sheffingham town
Added Tamsin Wall Job
Added Kashmiran Foundation Job
Added Totter Church Roof Job
Under certain conditions, NPC are aware if player tries to scam them into paying for additional work
All Furniture items replaced and enhanced, with colour selection and full damage tracking
N.B The number of new furniture is currently low for focus testing purposes. Once we're confident of the stability of the available furniture, we'll begin adding new furniture in batches.
Added a Cassette Player & 3 Music Tapes - each with a unique sub-cultural theme
Added 9 new original music tracks by Jeremy Walmsley
Added Blank Tape, allowing players to play their own .WAV files in-game
Added smoking
Characters now react to player smell
N.B Smoking will provide quick and easy relief to smelly players who forget to shower. Be aware that smoking is very bad for your health, and this is reflected in various ways in-game. You have been warned!
New adjustable crouch height.
Players can now stand on their tippy toes
N.B To help ease of access to screws on certain types of furniture, players can now adjust their standing height whilst crouched. Using the movement input whilst crouched will mean players can adjust their height with more precision, albeit movement whilst crouched will no longer be possible. As a bonus, players can stand on their tippy toes if the stretch high enough.
Various environmental improvements and changes to support new jobs around the world
Added new tool “Brick Bolster”, a cheap addition to the Hammer for splitting bricks in half

Minor Changes
Furniture Catalogue reworked to accommodate new furniture
New improved water visuals
Can now open Jimmy’s Royal Runner Super van
Pub now fills with Smoke when Winston arrives
Added Cigarette machine to the pub
Tidied up the artwork for the toolbelt
Loose furniture now needs "Interact" input to be held in order to be picked up
Thrown objects now damage both the object they impact as well as themselves
Furniture won't show damage till it reaches below <75% condition
Changed fridge pivot point, making them easier to place
Sledgehammer no longer deals double damage to the impact point
Sledgehammer splash damage only applied to objects of the same type
Debris impact no longer causes damage
Furniture placed on walls now snaps to grid
Furniture placed on walls now also snaps into rotation
Half brick outside Tamsin pub swapped with full sized brick, allowing wall to be repaired without need for any orders

Bug Fixes
Fixed Totter’s eye makeup
Fixed performance hit on furniture placement
Fixed naming issues in the furniture catalogue
Fixed a bunch of areas where player footsteps wouldn't change to snow during snow conditions
Fixed minor "disabled" UI colour for the Shovel selection within the Tool Catalogue
Fixed issue where Plasterboard tutorial wouldn't appear in the notebook
Fixed issue where No-Fines could be damaged below zero
Players should no longer slide off roof when game is paused
Fixed Wheelbarrow disappearing if player went under the blocked bridge with it
Fixed typo "oppertunity" to "opportunity" in M&Sons letter
Fixed UI text becoming truncated on job slips
Fixed issue where couldn't place small tiles in corners next to each other
Table in tool shed no longer accumulate snow
Pub bathroom light now works
Fixed issue where game would think furniture is placed inside the property when it wasn't
Fixed issue where tenant wouldn't find a new favourite bed or sofa if many were placed but their original favourite was removed
Fixed Winston and Jimmy unable to show sadness
Fixed minor Junk TV visual issue
Fixed winter tree branch visuals

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Furniture Update access is now available through the Steam In-Dev branch

MAY

Month 12 of Landlord’s Super Early Access.

Landlord’s Super has been in Early Access for an entire year! Since entering EA a year ago, we’ve seen the addition of a number of features. Including painting, no-fines, new tools, wallpaper, flooring, carpeting, new jobs, tool shed, Totter’s scrapyard, and more. We’ve still got plenty to come, starting with the up-coming Furniture Update.

As it’s been a year, we just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has played during Early Access. Thank you for all the Steam reviews, for all the save data sent to Greg, and for all the bug reports and suggestions. You cannot imagine how helpful it all is, and we are truly grateful.

The Quintessential Construction Simulator

Furniture Update Now Available in Steam InDev branch

InDev access for the Furniture Update is now available. You can opt in here. 

What is InDev? InDev is short for In-Development. The InDev branch is even earlier access to content updates. Want to help out with early testing and can’t wait for new content but aren’t scared of bugs, crashes and save corruptions!? Then InDev is a perfect way for you to play new content, whilst helping to speed up the development of Landlord’s Super. 

The Furniture Update has been in the InDev branch for over a week now, so is pretty stable. But do be aware, it can still contain early and untested content.

(Opt in here!)

Furniture Update

Content and bug fixes are being added to the Furniture Update’s InDev branch on a daily basis. With this in mind, we’re looking at a mid-May release for the Furniture Update. This release will be tied to a 20% sale, so if you’ve been holding off buying, this could be a great time to dive in.

New Furniture is being added daily, 15 types of Standing Shelves made it in yesterday!

Mix Tape Channel

We added a Blank Tape to Landlord’s that allows players to add their own .WAV files to play in-game. You can add up to 20 tracks to the blank tape. A channel to for players to share their mix-tape playlists was requested. So we’ve added the #mix-tapes channel to the MinskWorks Discord. Got an in-game playlist you want to share? Head on over.

Community Highlight

This month’s highlight comes from u/ShorsIsExpTime over on the subreddit and nickisdoge through email. 

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The Job Centre is being given a face lift, and filled with some new jobs!
( Giz’a job Maggie )

APRIL

Month 11 of Landlord’s Super Early Access.

The Furniture Update is beginning to look like one of the biggest and most important updates we’ve done for the game so far. So much so that with all the additional content, calling it “The Furniture Update” might not make much sense upon release. Let’s take a look at all this additional content to understand why.

The Quintessential Construction Simulator

Furniture

All original furniture has now been replaced with their new models and colour variants. Creating new furniture is the most time consuming aspect of working on this update. With this consideration in mind, we’re likely to release into InDev with what we have now, and add more furniture with smaller updates as time goes on. Still, no date for InDev release yet.

Job Centre Facelift

As we’re adding new jobs to The Furniture Update (explained in the Tamsin’s Wall segment of this post), we thought it a good time to polish up the environmental art of the Job Centre. It now looks a lot prettier, and more period appropriate It also now contains a public toilet for players to pass time in town.
You can see the new Job Centre in action here.

Tamsin Wall can now be fixed with a rewards for doing so. (Watch here.)

Tamsin’s Wall

With The Furniture Update we’re beginning to address the lack of stuff to do whilst renting the property. Part of this is introducing new jobs for the player to complete.
The first Job we’ve implemented for players to complete is the repairing of Tamsin’s wall. Doing so the first time will reward the player with a unique item with repeated completions of the job resulting in a flat fee. You can see what this unique reward is here. The job is unlocked when the player has purchased a Hammer & a Cement Mixer.

Music

The Cassette Player and Tapes are now implemented and functional. The Cassette Player allows players to listen to music through the use of Tapes. There are 4 Tapes. Each Tape is unlocked by completing a unique job or task within the world.
One of the Tapes is blank, allowing you to add your own music through a folder in the game files.

One of the tapes you unlock will be blank, but don’t worry, you can add your own music to it through a folder in the game files.
(See it in action here.)

Community Highlight

Some Jalopy content from Die Ente des Ostens, and Cameron! has really brought Mar’s H. Abiff character concept to life.

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Furniture damage, one of many new features coming to Landlord’s Super

MARCH

Month 10 of Landlord’s Super Early Access.

The majority of February was spent modelling the huge number of new furniture assets (coming your way next update). Yet, progress has also been made on new music and some bold mechanical changes. Read below to learn more.

The Quintessential Construction Simulator

Furniture Work (Again, again)

Furniture update continues to take longer than expected. The main issue is just workload. There’s a lot of new furniture coming to the game with a lot of new functionality. We’re not just bringing you sofas, ovens and beds. There’s washing machines, radiators, medicine cabinets, washing baskets, dining chairs, grills, toilet carpets, over 100 types of kitchen sinks (That’s not even including bathroom sinks!) and much more. Every piece also has colour variations and damage models. So it’s a steady process. 

Some – not all – furniture will have enhanced damage models.

Better Damage

Not only is furniture getting damage functionality, but we’ve also spent time reworking damage a little. We noticed players are getting frustrated seeing their property deteriorate too quickly. To help relieve this somewhat, damage will now have to pass a certain threshold before it shows visible wear and tear (currently set to 75%). While we’re also working on how tenants damage the property, this is a good first step in ensuring your properties holds their value and stay beautiful for longer. 

Another interesting feature we’re adding is that scrap will drop from destroyed components. This will mean players have something to sell if a tenant completely destroys something. Scrap dropped from destroyed objects is also very compact, allowing players to cart around more value in their wheelbarrows. 

New particle and audio effects are also coming to compliment the improved furniture visuals. 

Crouch Reworked

Accessing low down screws or placing cement onto bricks higher than the player in the current game is a pain. One reason why is that players have no control over their standing height. In the furniture update, we’ve reworked crouch to address this. 

Holding the crouch input will enter crouch state as before. Now, rather than walking, using the movement input will change player standing height.

Players can lower themselves to the ground to get a look under kitchen sinks, or stand right on their tippy-toes to see atop hard to reach bricks. That’s right, you’ll soon be able to stand on your tippy-toes in Landlord’s Super!

Music

Jeremy is hard at work, more on this next month…

A new tool for you to play all your funky tunes on.

Community Highlight

More decoration this month, this time from @Nixinox over on twitter. And never one to let us down, Mar continues to impress with her wonderfully creative illustrations.

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Month 9 of Landlord’s Super Early Access.

January is finally over. We’re still in a perpetual lockdown over here in Old Blighty. Though the motivation wains, we dig deep and plod on. 

The Furniture update is proving to be a lot of content work. It’s a slow, gradual process, but eventually you’ll all be able to play with more sofas than you can shake a pint at. And if home furnishing is not your bag well, we’ve something else for you to look forward to…

The Quintessential Construction Simulator

Furniture is getting reworked with a huge amount of options.

Furniture Work (Again)

A significant chunk of January was spent fixing the issues introduced in the previous update. Outside of that, we’ve been working on producing the furniture assets. This is likely to be the case for the remainder of February too. There’s a lot of them!

Variety is the focus. We plan to launch with 3 furniture catalogues that the player can unlock. Each one with it’s own sense of style. There will also be plenty of choice in the design and colour for each furniture piece within.

Damage has also been considered. Each piece will track damage. Players cannot repair damaged furniture, though damage visuals won’t be visible till a lower threshold has been passed on the piece (probably <30%). The hope is that this will make it feel more appropriate to replace the furniture, as it’ll have lived a longer lifespan, rather than having a magic furniture-fixing kit. Kind of like a wear & tear system. 

Ruta has been hard at work concepting period-appropriate furniture.

Smoking

Alright Marlboro, man, it’s finally coming. The main purpose of smoking (in the game) is to act as a portable and convenient way to raise hygiene past the smelly threshold (30% – when flies start buzzing around the players head). No need to run back to the shower and clean yourself up after a hard day’s graft. Just light one up and the smell will be gone.

Why is smell important all of a sudden? Well, we’ll be adding unique interactions for talking to characters whilst smelly. Interactions you’ll probably want to avoid.

Be warned though. Smoking is a fool’s errand, and long term use may leave your character living with some nasty side-effects.

You may recognise the brands from another game we made… I think Eastern European cigarette brands make sense in the context that they’re probably knock-offs. 

Soon, take up smoking! But be prepared to face the consequences…

The Road Ahead

There’s a lot of ambiguity in the roadmap I posted in January. That’s partly because we don’t want to over-promise and under-deliver. There’s been some notable releases in recent memory where the success has come from simply over-promising. We don’t want to add to this trend. Of course, that’s not the only reason. There’s always a risk that the pressures of performance, time and money can threaten to cancel a feature.

Regardless, We’ve been noticing the same questions and concerns popping up. So we thought we’d try to concerns a few of the more common concerns and requests.

Tenants Destroy the Property too Quickly

Agreed. While this will inevitably be balanced at some point, there is a class system associated with tenants and house value. The solution then will come when “better” tenants are added. The better tenants won’t damage the property nearly as much as the Lout does, but dealing with the lout is the only way to work towards these better tenants. Patience on this one, trust us!

Energy Depletes too Quickly

Agreed. This is another one that will be solved ad the game naturally develops. Specifically Phase 2: Tea & Supper update. As the title implies, players will be able to buy ingredients to create lunches and dinners, or even brew a cup of tea for the purpose of refilling energy levels. No more going to the bed at 11:00am. 

There isn’t Enough to do Outside of Building

Again, agreed. The plan here is to add musical tape rewards given to the player if they fix up areas of the map (such as Tamsin’s Wall). We’d also like to add repeatable jobs, so there’s always ways to earn money using your tools. We also still plan on adding a Fruity (slots machine) to the pub. If these tasks don’t keep players busy enough, then designing and selling houses to the council (phase 3) will add endless late game content. 

Add a Work Radio to the Game

Jeremy is hard at work on making a bunch of new music. Rather than the original plan of adding a work radio, which we worry would become too annoying to carry around, we’re planning on adding a portable tape player and headphones which attaches nicely to the players tool belt. Then, where ever you are in the world, you’ll be able to list to a variety of unlockable tapes. Maybe even a blank tape that which allows players to put their own music on…

Community Highlight

An impressive decorator, this month sees community member Horn showing off the flexibility and range of the in-game painting tools. Noice!

Thanks again for your continued support. If you haven’t already, be sure to follow Ruta & Greg on twitter, and to join the discord!

Till next month,
Ruta & Greg

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Happy Holidays from Sheffingham (Artwork by @midmodmar)

January

Month 8 of Landlord’s Super Early Access.
Happy holidays and a happy new year!
We’re back from our winter break, and while it was quieter than usual in the MinskWorks HQ, we’re pleased to report that we’re well rested and ready to deliver you some more development updates. As the current public roadmap for Landlord’s Super is now complete, this month we take a look at what’s coming next in your quintessential construction sim. Landlord’s Super was also covered in PC Gamer recently, and a certain vehicle was found popping up in voxel-based destruction game Teardown.

The Quintessential Construction Simulator
An early look at the new furniture coming in the next update.

Furniture Work

We’ve got a few more days work left on a general bug fix patch. Once that’s out of production will be in full swing on our next major update; the Furniture Update.
The Furniture update will provide players with a bunch more furniture pieces to play with. These furniture pieces will come in a variety of colours & styles and can be ordered from a selection of new catalogues we’ll be introducing. These catalogues will be unlockable through helping the residents of Sheffingham. Repair Tamsin’s wall for example, and you’ll be rewarded with a new furniture catalogue – finally giving purpose to this action. 
We’re also looking into furniture damage. It’s currently planned that tenants will be able to damage furniture (wear & tear) so players will need to be responsible for replacing it if. 
We’ve only just begun work on this update, so expect another couple of months before it enters the InDev branch for testing. 

New Roadmap

Now that last years roadmap has been completed, we’ve put together a new one to show where our focus is for this year. As always, keep in mind that game development is an iterative process, and the roadmap is always subject to change.

New year, new roadmap!

How Minskworks snuck a snapshot of real England onto Steam

Jeremy Peel wrote a great piece over on PCGamer which covers how the themes of Landlord’s Super tie into 1980’s England. It features an interview with Greg, you can read it here.

Jeremy interviewed Greg for a piece in PCGamer

Community Highlight

This month community member Rjames’ has rebuilt the Laika 601 Deluxe from Jalopy in Teardown! Experience the thrill of crashing duroplast, now in voxel form! 
If you own Teardown, you can grab the mod from the mod page here.

Thanks again for your continued support. If you haven’t already, be sure to follow Ruta & Greg on twitter, and to join the discord!

Till next month,
Ruta & Greg

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We’re delighted in presenting you with the Paint & Decorate update for Landlord’s Super.
Available on Steam Early Access Now.

The Quintessential Construction Simulator

PAINT & DECORATE UPDATE NOW AVAILABLE

We’re delighted to announce that access to the Paint & Decorate update for Landlord’s super is now available on Steam Early Access. If you have Landlord’s Super already purchased and downloaded on Steam, your game will automatically update. For everyone else, you can purchase Landlord’s Super Early Access here.

The Paint & Decorate Update marks our arrival at Version 0.2, with focus on content that enhances the building gameplay of the game. The Paint & Decorate update introduces plenty of new features, reworked systems and bug fixes. Overview & full patch notes below:

PAINT & WALLPAPER

Apply wallpaper to secured plasterboard, or pickup a can of paint and express your artistic side with the paintbrush tool.

PLASTERBOARD

Plasterboard has been reworked to be much more intuitive. There is now a “one-size-fits-all” plasterboard solution which will resize to fit the placement area. Plasterboard also snaps into place now to remove unsightly seams. You can repair plasterboard by using one board on another. You can now also plasterboard all interior walls.

CARPET, FLOORING & TILES

Finally, cover that unsightly foundation with various types of carpet, floorings or tiles. Or if you’re feeling particularly eccentric, apply them to the walls.

STORAGE BUCKETS

Stop wasting cement mixtures! Store excess concrete, no-fines and mortar mixes in up to 10 storage buckets. Use the storage buckets to mix paint together to create unique shades, or simply add paint to you concrete or no-fines mixtures to change the colour of your houses walls and flooring.

AND MUCH MORE

Repair foundations, cut off nails with the circular saw, period-appropriate telephone boxes and plenty of bug fixes to boot.

CHANGE LIST


Landlord's Super 0.2.06 Update (Painting and Decorating)
New Content
Added Paint Brush Set
Can now paint plasterboard with the paintbrush set
Added Paint Cans
Added Primary, Ugly, and Pastel paint colours.
Added ability to add colour to mortar, concrete and no-fines mixes (Change the colour of your house!)
Added Mix Buckets
Added ability to store and mix mortar, concrete, no-fines and paint
Added Wallpaper
Can now apply wallpaper to plasterboard
Added Carpet & Flooring
Can now apply carpet and flooring to foundations & plasterboard
Can remove carpet and flooring with the Hammer
Carpet, tiles and flooring now contribute toward the property value
Added Tiling
Added 3 new phone boxes, each appropriate to the year the player is currently in (1983, 1985, 1991)
Added storage for wallpaper, carpets, flooring, tiles, paint cans, mix buckets
Added "door-less" Door Frames


Changes
Removed Jimmy license plate
Can cut off nails with the Circular Saw
Plasterboard
Plasterboard has been reworked to make it much simpler, easier to use.
 Can only order one size of plasterboard, which will auto-resize to the preferred size for static walls, or allow player to resize for player built walls.
 Plasterboard now snaps into place automatically.
 N.B. The above changes were made to allow players to easily line up plasterboard "flush" with one another, so as to avoid any unappealing seams with painting. I was also really unhappy with how awkward the task felt before hand, and this implementation feels much more enjoyable overall. 
Bricks now have outline rendered when aimed at with the Circular Saw equipped
Increased the damage threshold for bricks and shingles
Some changes to how Cement Mixer highlights foundations to make it much more obvious of interaction options
Can now repair concrete foundations with Storage Buckets, Shovel, and Cement Mixers (so long as they are containing a Concrete mixture)
Can now load empty cement mixers with shovel mixtures
Added nail removal animation and audio
Hammer can no longer be used on screws. (While I figure out a fair way to have hammer interact with nails, the previous solution meant the screwdriver was basically useless)
Resized some of the windows and window walls to help them fit nicely with tiles, the game should auto adjust your windows for you on first load.
Mesh optimisation for brick mortar.
Tenants will now damage carpet, tiles and flooring before damaging the foundation beneath
Tenants will now damage plasterboard, tiles and flooring before damaging the no-fines or brickwork behind it
Lowered likelihood of tenants damaging the roof 
Added save file location button to the front end
Roof task now updated when tile is hammered loose
Can now use the trowel to pick up mortar and no-fines from ground piles (puddles)
Using the trowel on wallpapered walls now removes wallpaper
Using plasterboard on a placed, secured & damaged plasterboard will now repair it
Empty cement bags are now collected and placed into the skip when tenants are moved in
Splash damage of sledge hammer reduced by 40%
Energy consumed using sledge hammer reduced by 40%
Splash damage of sledge hammer now deals reduced damaged based on distance from impact 
Rewrote how bricks are counted by the game to make it much more accurate.
Removed the Chimney till it's actually implemented in the game 

Bug Fixes
Urine now shows correct colour based on what the player has consumed
Urine puddles now show correct colour based on what the player has consumed
Increased max pool instance of pee & puke puddle particles by 10x
Pee and puke should no longer glow
Fixed issue where Mitchell would continue to think the property was un-liveable
Fixed missing fence collisions at Totter's Scrapyard
Fixed issue where players could get stuck on black screen when moving tenants into property while having unpackaged deliveries in the garden
Some minor optimisations to shadows
Conducted a general optimisation pass
Fixed save corruption caused by picking up the wooden pallets outside of Kashmiran's house
Fixed issue where damage visuals wouldn't show correctly upon load
Fixed a bunch of UI issues tied to the Tool Catalogue
Fixed issue where could place ladder on top of one another in storage (This requires removing all stored ladders first)
Fixed missing grass footstep audio for patch outside the property
Fixed issue where players could get stuck washing dishes or sitting on the toilet
Fixed shovel contents mesh normals
Fixed a bunch of issues with the Cement Mixers
Fixed issue where walking speed wouldn't return upon leaving the cement mixers
Furniture placement optimised and improved
Fixed toilet seat folding issue
Fixed a bunch of player animations
Fixed several bugs with storage
Fixed issue with plasterboard not adding to the value of the property
Fixed an issue where tenants would start to lose satisfaction daily, even if there wasn't any issue
Fixed an issue where tenants wouldn't damage player-placed brickwork
Fixed issue where tenants wouldn't damage shingles
Fixed issue where shingles breaking wouldn't always mark the roof task as incomplete
Fixed some issues tied to tool collection and storage
Fixed issue preventing some plasterboards (windows mostly) from being repairable
Fixed minor rendering issue with plasterboard repair 
Fixed brick task not always registering as completed 
Fixed issue where no-fines rubble would appear in the game world when waking up
Fixed counting issue with roof task 
Fixed being unable to place storage buckets at on their storage space
Fixed issue where tenant would tell you off for breaking something when they are out of the property
Fixed issue with ladders, wallpaper, paint cans, etc being collected breaking storage
Fixed wonky bricks registering as competing brick tasks
Fixed Large mortar not causing bricks to be placed wonky
Plasterboard placement should no longer be blocked by furniture