Management sims are a popular breed of game. You immerse yourself in whatever business they throw at you, and Hotel Owner Simulator is no different. Starting out as a small-time owner, the game puts you into a 5-room hotel. The tutorial is simple enough and teaches you all the basics. The game seems to have 3 areas you focus on; the rooms, the guests, and the hotel itself. When you first jump into the first level of hotel, you are doing everything yourself.

Running Your Hotel

The game is broken into tasks each day, which includes collecting the trash, washing the sheets, and using your broom to clean the floors of the hotel and the bathrooms in each room. The rhythmic nature of this was very relaxing. As you progress in the game and you start to fill up your hotel, doing everything can be time consuming. This can be a detriment to helping your guests. Each time a guest wants something, they have a timer bar above their head where it can run out and that objective disappears. I did not see much in the way of detriment for this happening, but I also did not want to risk trying it.

Features such as hiring assistants and adding services, like an in-house restaurant, to your hotel unlock as to you as you level up. Every single task from throwing away garbage to serving a guest a sandwich gives you XP. As your assistants (whom you are paying) perform their tasks, you will earn that experience as well. When you do level up, you can add stat points into 5 categories: Bargain (room price negotiation), Humor (customer rating increase), Trade (cheaper items for your hotel), Guess (easier price projection for rooms), and Social (unlocks customer stats).

You have to make sure to earn as much money and XP possible as you literally do have to pay your bills. Luckily there are lots of ways to do that through daily objectives and tasks. They can range from talking to your guests to fulfilling their snack or restaurant requests. The game does a great job of reminding you with a side menu, which you can collapse with the push of a button. And eventually you can hire people to do all of these tasks.

Customers are the lifeblood of any hotel. Even large companies like Disney value heads in beds over many other aspects of their business. In Hotel Owner Simulator, it is no different.

The developers chose to categorize the customers very strangely. The categories are businessman, tourist, glutton, beggar, masseuse, and pimp; yes, pimp. The latter one may get you in trouble with the law and you could be fined. You can also hike the price up for them (which in your starter hotel is much less than what the fine would be). This whole risk and reward aspect of the game is an interesting one. However, you do have the option to not offer a room to them, which again does not seem to have much detriment to it.

Another fun feature with guests as you advance in the game is the chance to invite VIPs to your room. The devs took real actors and distorted their names such as Leonel DaVinci, and if you are really lucky, that VIP will make your hotel the one they always stay at.

What’s In a Room?

The more accommodations your rooms have the more you can charge. The game does a great job of what each of your rooms are worth. It is all based on what you put in them. The shop has a wide arrange of items for your hotel. From the beds all the way to the toilet roll holder you can customize your room anyway you want. Starting with a basic room you are really only able to fit so much in it. However, the guests do not seem to be bothered by clutter in the rooms. If your armchair blocks the entrance to your bathroom, it should not affect the guests review of you.

While the room building is fun, I do wish there were more features. For example locking into place and the ability to finely rotate would be helpful. This would make the room construction less tedious. One great feature is the option to save your room template so you can just load it into an empty room quickly. This will help you get your hotel ready faster for guests.

Each guest has stats. Combining what you put into the rooms and the stats of each customer turns offering rooms into its own minigame. When you offer the customer a key you are presented with a chance to adjust the price and negotiate how much you charge the guest for a room. This seemed like a strange function in a hotel game as usually hotels do have fixed prices. It is an option to just offer the suggested retail price. While this feature is a fun mini-game I cannot imagine having to deal with it at a larger hotel. Do not worry you will be able to hire someone to handle this as the game goes on.

Sights, Sounds, and Creepy Crawlies?

Hotel Owner Manager is not about how it looks and sounds, yet it does a great job of making you feel like you are running a hotel. Customers call when they want something, music plays in the lobby, and every asset looks like it was taken from a photograph. Sure the character models are not the best, but in games like this, you can look past that. It is very humorous though when your trash guy has no shirt on or the pimp with the recognizable hat walks into your lobby.

While your first hotel is not much to look out, the game starts with you dreaming of what you can achieve. With this build and the amount of time I had, I was able to get to the second hotel. This doubles the amount of rooms you have and unlocks features such as TVs in rooms.

This is where I started running into some bugs. When customers checked out from their rooms, they come to the lobby desk and pay you for the room. However, when I got to the second hotel, there seemed to be a bug where the customers would not come out to pay. I hope the developers resolve this bug, because it prevented me from making the money I need to advance.

I Lost It All, but There Is Hope

Speaking of money, for some reason the game also includes a casino. I am not sure why the team decided to include this, but I had to check it out. The two games you can play are slots and blackjack. After losing all my money, I had to figure out how I was going to pay the bills. I did this during the first hotel, and it only took me a few hours to make enough money to upgrade to the next hotel. With that said, it is a good sign for the replay value of the game. Lose all your money? Time to get the hotel jumping with guests.

Hotel Owner Simulator has a good foundation. With a little bit of love and bug squashing, the game could keep you busy for hours. The hope is eventually all you are doing in your hotel is talking to the guests.

Hotel Owner Simulator is now available on Steam.

Disclaimer: This is a review build of the game. It may not reflect the final version