It's been over a few months since Walk of Life, the successor to No Time to Relax, got its full release here on Steam. Ever since then, we have gotten endless questions about whether the two games are really even that different.
The audacity!
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1910150/Walk_of_Life/"]
No but really, while on the surface the two might look similar, we've really tried to push the envelope with Walk of Life. Let's put the matter to rest once and for all. Here are some of the key differences between the two games!
Roles
In No Time to Relax, all players approach the game with the same goals. Longterm, this led to the game being quite solvable, meaning that after playing the game a few times, players will figure out the optimal path to victory. That's why we wanted to mix things up in Walk of Life with the addition of different playable roles.
Each role has unique abilities and goals that change the way the game is played. The Workaholic has a higher incentive than most other roles to work as many times as possible thanks to the work combo bonuses, while the Artist role doesn't want to work at all, and instead focus their time on creating artwork to pawn off. What a poser!
With 9 playable roles, and more on the way, our playerbase is still figuring out what strategies are the strongest, and how to push each role to their very limit. Very nerdy.
Attributes and Scoring
Health and Happiness are super important in No Time to Relax as they have a huge impact on your score at the end of the game. These attributes don't fluctuate a lot, and are instead built up as you play the game. It doesn't matter if you've been unhappy most of the game as long as you end it with a lot of happiness.
As we all know, health and happiness are (sadly) not something you can just ignore most of your life only to really get them in order at the very end. With Walk of Life, attributes now grant score at the end of every round, incentivizing players to keep a close eye on them at every moment. They are also used as currency for certain actions, meaning you can't keep working or studying if your happiness is at the rock bottom.
Overall, the change has led to deeper gameplay and moments where you can laugh at your friends as their life spirals out of control.
Traits
Traits are a new mechanic in Walk of Life that grant players certain positive or negative effects. They can be obtained from a number of things: from selecting a role, owning pets, special furniture, from completing education, and working at specific location.
For instance, every job location in Walk of Life has an associated job perk, such as the staff shower at the gym or eating free fries off the floor at Clucker's. Yum! Meanwhile, owning a cat will increase your lottery chances while owning a dog will grant you an increased salary from working. Learning how to obtain and use these traits has led to a lot of depth and allowed for some funky new playstyles.
More Impactful Events
Weekend events in No Time to Relax are a great way for us to funnel some humor straight to the players while simulating how many annoying curveballs life throws at all of us every week. However, after reading them through once or twice, most players will start skipping them entirely.
In Walk of Life, players are given a choice event every round that allow them to have a say in their destiny (although it will sometimes lead to similar destinations!)
We also liked the impact that the Crime Wave had in No Time to Relax, so more global events were added to shake things up for everyone. These include heat waves, giant sports events, and even a battle between giant monsters!
New Game Settings, Modes and More
In addition to all the aforementioned there are way more options to choose from when playing Walk of Life than No Time to Relax.
Simultaneous Turns game mode allows all players to act at once, cutting down gametime drastically for longer games.
New Maps alter not only the layout of the map but also add unique locations, whether you are playing in Calicornia, Chailand or the upcoming Schnitzelland.
Challenges let you tackle unique missions that change the objective of the game, and can even be tackled with friends, adding a co-op element to the game.
Modifiers let players tune the rules and difficulty of each game to their liking, allowing them to do stuff like starting the game with a car or randomizing the map layout at the start of every game.
There are more differences we're not gonna get into in this blog since our attention spans are limited thanks to the advent of the Vexphone. We hope that if you haven't given Walk of Life a chance yet that you will in the future, we really believe it's a must-have for any lovers of No Time to Relax!
