Words by

John Rogers

Photo by

Supplied

Video games are a complex phenomenon. Simultaneously a multi-billion-dollar global industry, a modern form of mass entertainment, an emerging art form, and a lightning rod for cultural debates, their emergence can be hard to parse. But for many players, the appeal is simple — games offer a way to temporarily escape the rigours and anxieties of modern life.  

It’s funny, then, that the ‘life simulator’ genre is so popular. In these games, players carry out virtual real-life activities like getting a job, managing finances, getting married, having kids, buying property, and so forth. Life sims can vary widely in tone, from the eccentric, emergent, unintentionally comedic behaviours of The Sims, to dealing with animal neighbours in Animal Crossing, to the mellow repetition of running a farm in Stardew Valley.  

No Time To Relax is a colourful, anarchic, high-tempo take on the genre. It was made by Icelandic studio Porcelain Fortress, and based on multiplayer board game rules. Players have to dress, feed, and educate their character, go to work, decorate their apartment, invest in (checks notes) pork butts — and, conversely, handle illnesses, recessions, breakdowns, crimewaves, and more. 

“We drew inspiration from the games that we played when we were kids,” says Diðrik Steinsson, the studio’s head, and one of four co-founders. “There was one game in particular — Jones in the Fast Lane by Sierra. We played it a lot, and we wanted to make a game that was like a spiritual successor to that, to bring it to people who didn’t play it at the time.” 

More depressing than real life 

The version of life presented in No Time To Relax is grim and knowing, with an acerbic sense of humour. Players try to earn money, stay afloat, and achieve some kind of happiness — but the world pushes back, hard. The string of random-seeming disasters that befall them have results that are both cruel and hilarious.

“We definitely want to tap into the serious experiences everybody has in life,” says Diðrik. “You come fresh out of high school, and you’re thrown into the deep end. We want players to go through the same hardships that we all go through at that point in our lives. Like, you can’t just eat French fries all the time — it’s going to have adverse effects in the long run.” 

These comedic punishments have proven to be a core part of the game’s appeal. No Time To Relax has sold over 500.000 copies, and amassed over 2000 player reviews on the Steam online game storefront, leading to a sought-after “very positive” rating. “It’s a dream come true for us,” says Diðrik. “But the thing is, one of the top comments is a positive thumbs-up review that just says: ‘it’s more depressing than real life.’” He laughs. “When people are saying what a horrible time they had but still giving a positive review, that’s success for us.” 

A stream that changed everything 

But it wasn’t an instant hit. Its development was funded over a period of years by an assortment of investors and innovation grants, so a lot was resting on its release. “We probably got every grant in Iceland,” says Diðrik. “The release was extremely stressful. For the first two weeks, we didn’t sell anything. Like, around 30 copies. And we were like, ‘Crap, we made a bad game.’”

All of that changed when a small German streamer called Zelestion played the game on Twitch. “She had around 200 or 300 followers when she streamed our game,” says Diðrik. “And a week later, one of the biggest streamers in Germany, PietSmiet, streamed the game. I remember that I was looking at the Steam sales page while we were setting up a Dungeons and Dragons session, saying: ‘Something must be broken.’ Because the sales for that day alone were the same as the sales for the entire time it had been out.” 

But the numbers were correct, and the game had sold 3000 copies in just a few hours. It was a moment of opportunity, and the studio grabbed it with both hands. “I reached out to PietSmiet and asked if they were gonna play again,” says Diðrik. “They were, so we decided to surprise them. We made an event card of PietSmiet that would appear in the game. And when it popped up on the stream, it just totally just blew up their channel. The comment section exploded. And it snowballed from there. Other streamers picked it up, in Germany, and in Thailand, Brazil, and China. It’s still going on. And since then, we’ve sold around 500.000 copies.” 

The walk of life 

With a winning formula established, Porcelain Fortress have been working on a sequel entitled Walk Of Life, which players will be able to get their hands on later this year. The new game builds on the chaotic vibe that made No Time To Relax a hit, expanding the gameplay with new possibilities for the player. “People noticed you can kind of crack the first game after a while, and kind of ‘solve’ it by playing in the best way,” says Diðrik. “So the goal with Walk of Life is to add way more depth, add more wackiness, more ways to play, and more surprises.”  

After a few years of learning to play the development game, Porcelain Fortress seem poised to handle whatever weirdness life decides to throw at them. As long as pork butt prices remain stable. And if not? There’s probably a card for that.