Have you ever rented an apartment? The promising idea of making passive income from real estate can turn into a nightmare due to inadequate tenants, grumpy neighbors and unforeseen disasters. The Tenants gives you the opportunity to step into the shoes of a homeowner and test your stress tolerance. We talk about the game from an online game developer Friv2Online in the review.
At The Tenants, under the patronage of your uncle, you enter the tricky business of renting and renovating apartments. A relative quickly introduces the basics, helps to buy the first room for rent, reminds you of the need to pay bills on time and collect rent from tenants, after which he withdraws himself, appearing only when you need to tidy up the apartment, fix something or, for example, eradicate cockroaches. Everything else is up to you.
Being a landlord is not easy. You will start in the slums, a poor area whose inhabitants do not have good habits. So, one of my first tenants was a woman prone to alcoholism. Fortunately, she behaved quite calmly, although in the evenings she liked to sing songs after a glass or two. She also regularly delayed paying her rent - probably "correctly" prioritized her expenses.
You can get rid of such tenants by influencing their desire to continue living in your apartment. For example, by calling a trumpeter who will annoy them with loud music. There is also a reverse motivation for decent tenants - you can send gifts to those, improving their location.
If you like a person - behaves quietly, does not swear with neighbors and does not cause problems - you can extend the lease with him for a month or more. Depending on its location to you, you can bargain; this mini-game is similar to the one in The Witcher 3: you move the slider, trying to agree on an amount that will suit both. Very amusing.
With the best tenants, you will not intersect at all: they will only remind you of themselves with messages about paying for the arena. However, things are not always so rosy in The Tenants. Periodically, you have to solve technical problems: call a master to fix electricity or repair plumbing, deal with cockroaches and rats. Yes, and the tenants have enough "cockroaches" in their heads: their habits and preferences can be recognized by watching them.
The part of The Tenants that is devoted to dealing with tenants is reminiscent of The Sims series, but there is another one that can be compared to House Flipper - well, or with the same The Sims in build mode. Your character can be hired to repair and design apartments; at the initial stage of the game, this is the main source of income.
“Repair” is a big word: an uncle comes and simply cleans the apartment, following your instructions. He can fix some of the broken furniture and electrical appliances, but nothing more. You will have to deal with the arrangement yourself.
And here The Tenants can tighten in earnest. If you've spent hours in The Sims and House Flipper choosing laminate flooring and wallpaper, you'll love this game, too. There is a lot of furniture and decor elements here, new items are gradually opening up, so you can turn around to the fullest. Although, of course, you will have to meet the given budget, fit in a limited area, and also take into account the requirements of the customer: someone likes vintage things, someone definitely wants blue walls, and someone hates retro style.
The process is captivating: often you want to ignore messages from tenants, and generally abandon this part of the game, focusing on repairs. Although this component is gradually becoming routine, it is too easy to earn the highest rating from the customer (know follow his wishes and buy things more expensive), arranging chairs and wardrobes in rooms is interesting.
The hero earns not only money, but also experience, which is converted into skill points, which can be invested in several development branches. So you get the opportunity to write longer-term leases, make your uncle clean up the apartments faster, open up new gift options for residents, and so on.
The Tenants has just left early access and there are still a lot of bugs in the game. However, it lacks the depth of The Sims, which is to be expected given the budgets of these projects. Before us is a game that you can stick to for several evenings and not regret the time spent at all. In general, more is not required of her.
