In 1904, game designer, writer, reporter, Georgist and feminist Elizabeth Magie patented The Landlord's Game: a scathing review of the contemporary trends of rent and land ownership (in the form of a board game). The idea was that players could understand the complicated web of "The Rich Get Richer" from a more simplified point of view. Fairness could be instilled in children when they play this game and realize how cruel the world could be if we let it. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, this did not work out. The world is still cruel because we have let it. Even more unfortunate for her, Parker Brothers made Monopoly in 1935, a game very much like The Landlord's Game, that quickly took the world by storm and became commonplace in American homes. Monopoly probably came to be due to some perfectly legal patent loopholes, but it's clear that a piece made to criticize greed eventually became a vehicle for it.

Perhaps Monopoly took off the way it did because The Landlord's Game is from the point of view of the owners of money and land. But what if it was from the point of view of someone who has no money?

Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland is a scathing indictment of greed and the acquisition of money, more ferocious and toothed than anything The Landlord's Game could conjure up. It is made to inspire the soul crushing feelings of a minimum wage 9-5 and it does it very well. Most games demand you grind to work your way up. Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland demands you grind to lift your pathetic leg up on the first rung of the ladder.
Everything, down to talking with npcs, costs money. And you, as the titular 35-year-old virgin Tingle, (who has very, very little to do with the series he originated in) have none of it. Want to look at things in a store? Want to ask someone a question? Better clock in and beat up some animals to do an imaginary coin flip to get an item so that you can sell it for a paltry sum of rupees.

Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland works so much better as a piece of critical art than The Landlord's Game because it is terrible. It is boring, it is bland, it is repetitive, it is exactly what having a job is like. And brother? i quit this job after two days.

I hate this game. I recommend it to not only Zelda fans, but anyone who enjoys art.