Did you play Hotel Tycoon way, way back in the mid 2000s?
No? Well, you missed out! Back then, Hotel Tycoon was a fantastic Hotel simulator in which the player would be able to go crazy with hotel building and trying to keep guests satisfied. You could build them a range of different rooms, an arcade, restaurant, spa and much more to keep your hotel guests happy.
Managing the finances, designing low class or luxury rooms and ensuring a high reputation was maintained was lots of hard work, but extremely fun. Since Hotel Tycoon, there’s not really been a successor in the hotel building world.
Funnily enough, I was on holiday last year laying on a beach when the thoughts of Hotel Tycoon came flowing back into my head. I got really excited thinking there may be a Hotel simulation game that had been released without me knowing since the initial release of Hotel Tycoon however, I was left disappointed.
During my search on Google, I instead came across the Instagram page for Hotel Magnate. My eyes lit up… and since then, I’ve been following the developer’s every move. I regularly browse their website, I’ve subscribed to their email list and even joined their Discord server to have a chat more recently. The Discord server continues the accommodating theme which in its self acts as a hotel, for example with the “Lobby” channel and users being referred to as “guests”.
The game is being developed by Bastion Interactive and is well on its way to become my dream hotel tycoon game, and hopefully yours too!
What is Hotel Magnate?
If you’ve played any simulation/tycoon game before, you probably already can guess. Building and managing and marketing a hotel is the core principal of Hotel Magnate. Even though the game’s name suggests you can only build hotels you’d be very wrong to believe that! You’ll be able to build motels, a luxury resort paradise or an awful grotty shack in the outback.
Similar to the Sims, you can start out on an empty lot with nothing but grass to build on. Landscape and create your dream hotel resort, or perhaps a small inn or bed and breakfast to give your guests a great night’s stay before a business meeting in a conference suite.
What features are in the game?
The game looks to have a promising amount of exciting features to keep us entertained and racking up hours and hours of gameplay. Here’s a handful that I’ve picked out to give you a great idea of what to expect:
The Basics
- Create, decorate, furnish and finesse a beautifully constructed multi-level hotel with a user-friendly creation toolkit.
- Serve your guests and improve your clientele by improving your offer and reputation – it’s gonna require lots of hard work to keep every single guest happy.
- Manage your staff effectively. Your staff are another set of customers, keep them happy and they’ll keep the guests happy, hopefully…
- Keep a close eye on finances. Become a financial guru and have authoritative spending power to create a prestigious resort. Manage the prices of your rooms down to the cocktails your staff are serving and the amount of money the staff are pocketing. Don’t disappoint.
- Know the 4 P’s of Marketing? And no, one of them isn’t “pool”. Select a marketing strategy that goes swimmingly and suddenly, finances may just turn out to be a doddle.
Don’t Mess Up
You’ll have decisions to make constantly, after all, this is a tycoon game.
Making changes can cause a chain reaction throughout the hotel, affecting the clientele completely in some cases. Simple things like selecting your towel supplier can have dramatic consequences.
The example used on Hotel Magnate’s website is that if you even change the drink price to become too cheap, it could attract a younger clientele who are just around to party which in turn may damage your hotel rating and reputation. I’m hoping this mechanic in the game won’t be too extreme and be pretty reasonable and balanced, although this may take some time to perfect in BETA testing.
What Type Of Resort Will You Build?
Adding various facilities to your hotels like nightclubs and conference rooms may bring in different clients compared with a more fitness focuses resort with a spa and gym.
The detail even goes down to where these facilities are placed in the resort! Having a children’s play area near a bar could be considered a terrible idea or an incredible one from the point of view of the parents. This feature sounds very exciting and challenging. I love games that really make me think strategically about all of my actions, this is sounding very intriguing.
The full list of facilities I’ve found so far includes:
- Guest rooms and en-suite bathrooms
- Restaurants
- Kitchens and laundry
- Bars/nightclubs
- Conference rooms
- Pools, gyms, spas
- Tennis courts, playgrounds, games rooms
- Staffrooms
And this isn’t the full list, there’s a mention there’ll be much more for us to play around with in the game.
Manage Your Staff
These people are the ones that will work for your success. Under your great strong leadership, wise strategy setting and bold decision making, your staff will run around like ants working hard to ensure your guest’s morale is in top condition as well as your star rating.
Give your staff their own personal profile with the Bios feature. A good idea is to think of everyone you hate in life and name your staff appropriately, work them to the bone whilst paying them low wages.
Actually, maybe not that last part. As I said originally, keep your staff happy and they’ll keep you happy. Hire the correct staff with the correct skills for each job and meet their wage demands – if you think they’re worth it of course. If not, whip out the old fire hose and get them outta there!
Hotel Rating And Reputation
The main key performance indicator of a service-based business is what their customers are saying. In the hotel world, the rating is EVERYTHING.
Don’t annoy anyone, not even just a little, don’t pick them up and drown them in the pools – feature not yet confirmed in game… but seriously, don’t infuriate any guests. Once they’re back home from their stay, or perhaps even whilst they’re laying in bed in their room, they may just leave a nasty little online review which tarnishes your reputation forever. The more negative ratings you receive, the more you’ll be spending on marketing material to counteract the empty hotel you’re running as the tumbleweed rolls around outside.
When will Hotel Magnate be released?
According to the Hotel Magnate website, Q4 of 2018 to Q1 of 2019 although this seems very unlikely. As the development of this game has progressed, more staff are on board coding and designing to create something spectacular with the resource available.
If I had to guess, I can see this game being released for beta testing some time this summer. You can even get a chance to participate in closed beta testing by signing up to their mailing list.
HURRY!!!
Which platforms will Hotel Magnate be released on?
At the moment, Hotel Magnate is only being developed for PC, Linux and Mac. You can find Hotel Magnate’s page on Steam to find a wealth of information, screenshots and videos.
How can I follow the development?
There are some fantastic development blogs already to read over on their website. There you’ll also be able to sign up to their email list to hear about the latest developments straight away.
They’re also available to follow on Twitter, Instagram and are checking people in on their Discord server which you can be invited to on each email that’s sent out to their subscriber list.
Summary
Hotel Magnate is looking like the game I’ve been waiting to play for an insane amount of time. I’m surprised no-one else has attempted a Hotel Tycoon style game for a very long time.
The amount of features and strategic thinking required to play this game sounds really exciting and challenging without it looking like a chore. Fun, quirky graphics and the art direction the game has taken backs up the point that whilst you’ll really need to think about your decision making, it won’t be realistic enough to stress you out. I really like the idea of using the facilities to determine your clientele and style of the resort you’ll be building and am sure there’ll be many more factors included to really create that “tycoon” game feel.
Whilst this preview is very brief, you can find lots of commentary from the developers about what they’re planning to add in that hasn’t yet been talked about on their website – it sounds incredible from things like weather systems and other AI additions that’ll create a challenge with management. You’ll also be able to get sneak peeks of the furniture being added into the game and much more too.
I’m hoping the BETA testing isn’t too far away however, I’m very well aware that the developers are working very hard to add as much functionality into the game that will make it something special. We’ve waited this long for a Hotel Tycoon game, why not wait a little longer for something incredible.
