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Going beyond just a simple hotel simulator, Hotel Galactic invites its players into a role filled with mystery, management, and a multitude of tasks to complete to build up a rundown intergalactic hotel into a bustling, beautiful hub of life and hospitality that tourists from across the galaxy visit to feel renewed, well fed, and taken care of. To accomplish this, developer Ancient Forge has employed the use of nostalgic anime-styled visuals, a hefty helping of unlockable and satisfying gameplay elements, and well-tuned audio accouterments to compliment it all. Through its bumpy beginnings, Hotel Galactic manages to set sail and take you on a trip that you’ll gladly continue revisiting.
Growth From the Ground Up
Hotel Galactic’s gameplay loop revolves around, you guessed it, running a growing hotel. Its overnight guests come from all over the galaxy in pursuit of a place to rest their various sized heads on fresh sheets, partake of their favorite local cuisines, and relax to entertainment that fits their needs. Your job is to make sure everything is in order to keep the daily arriving clientele happy. This is done by continuously increasing your hotel’s sleeping capacity, amenities, and more by researching new crafting equipment and functions of your hotel with a colored “goo” currency that you earn depending on which species of guest you serve and what they rate your hotel at the end of it. You’re also responsible for keeping the kitchen stocked with food stuffs, and with assembling the menu the guests order from. Using this system of dragging ingredients between different cooking and serving functions was a bit clunky to get the hang of initially, but when I figured it out, it clicked. Was it worth designing it that way? Unsure, but it’s interesting at the very least. I did enjoy the wild assortment of alien ingredients made available to my chef through farming or the merchant, and look forward to experimenting to my heart’s content with finding and preparing the most desirable and profitable recipes.
Keeping up with the daily tasks and making sure each room is outfitted with necessary supplies and cleanliness is the majority of what you’ll need to do to keep your guests (and staff) happy. You’ll do this by manually clicking on whatever needs fixing, cleaning, moving, packing, etc and directing one of your many staff members to perform that action. Alternatively, you can drag and drop those employees where they need to go. A lot of actions can also be done automatically, like preparing food, cleaning up messes, or collecting materials. However, none of the very important actions will be done without your guiding hand, and these actions are very clearly pointed out with helpful icons and a constantly available “Alerts” menu in the top left. That way, it’s on you if you forget to change those dirty sheets before the next guest arrives, or a hungry diner is left sitting at their table for hours on end waiting to place their order. This active participation kept things feeling alive during the goings-on around the hotel, and only before I started to unlock more of the game’s deeper functions like farming, more advanced cooking, and more varied room types did I feel things advanced slightly slower than I expected.
It took me a bit to figure out how to progress the main questline by accommodating certain guest types for their specific “goo”, but other than that slight holdup in unlocking a large part of the game, the pace at which new exciting features within the game was well done. I never reached a point where I got bored of what I was tasked to do within my corner of the galaxy before I was introduced to a new wrinkle in the routine, or a brand new feature. Whether that was with figuring out how to acquire new ingredients for recipes or being given the ability to grow my own, or earning new crafting tables to outfit my hotel with trinkets; all of my actions felt like they were building up to the “next thing.” There’s also a wealth of materials to collect, upgrade, or sell, and everything I did felt purposeful. Moreso, managing all of the storage space felt more fun than frustrating, with the multitude of stacked and labeled boxes eventually rivaling an Amazon warehouse after a few hours. All of this being said about the gameplay, I did feel sometimes that I could have used a bit more direction in what I was “supposed” to be doing next or how to accomplish it. There are quests, but some of the steps were a bit unclear and took extra clicking around and experimenting to see if something needed to be crafted with a certain table, or I needed to make sure I dragged an item to the right spot. I also had to figure out where certain blueprints were dropped by quest givers when I completed them, and that just felt like a bit of a miss when it came to the cozy nature of the game.
Artful Inspiration
Customizing your hotel in the way you desire also feels pleasantly artistic. The style of Hotel Galactic gives off a classic manga or anime vibe with every part of the hotel and floating island grounds, each type of guest that arrives, and the many unique characters you talk and interact with. It’s almost like you’re controlling a hotel plucked right out of a film from a golden era of Japanese media, but with its own special flourish. As your hotel rises (literally) upwards from its humble beginnings, so does your workload, but along with it your own personality and design choices emerge. Helped by Grandpa Gustav, who has his own growth to do, even in the afterlife he exists in, you’ll meet and talk with a vibrant and quirky cast that continuously gives you more to unpack, whether that be in baubles or background story. Working as a team to coordinate the refurbished and renovated hotel to appeal to individual species allows for some creative customization, too, that makes the design process feel worth the effort. For example, I loved how certain visitors will appreciate a glowing lamp that reminds them of home, or a radio they can dance around with their fellow guests.
Hearing from Here to There
While working within the Hotel Galactic the player is whisked through the many rooms and areas by music that features soft yet inviting instrumentals, along with sound effects that correspond to actions going on within each room that you’re zoomed into, and adapt to how close or far you are to the activity itself visually. It’s cozy, not overwhelming, and perfectly subtle; complimenting the environment and style to wrap up the whole package in a lovely way. Also, you get to hear the adorably foreign voice stylings of the visiting guests and staff as they keep themselves busy. Every little action or movement has a light corresponding sound, and they all blend together expertly for this type of experience.
In Conclusion
Sitting back and watching your little crafted hotel hum along was just delightful, especially upon realizing how much work you’ve put into getting it to where it is. Being able to pause or speed up operations at the push of a button made things truly comfy, as I was able to work at my own speed without feeling rushed. Hotel Galactic is still in Early Access, but has resolved some of the more pesky bugs that had to be worked out at its initial launch. From my experience, the game ran wonderfully even in ultra widescreen, and it never crashed or stuttered. Additionally, I played interchangeably between my Steamdeck and PC without issues with cloud saves or functionality. The roadmap to version 1.0 is also intriguing, as the developers plan to introduce more guest types, more functionality, and seasonal events. All things considered, though Hotel Galactic is a bit higher in price at its regular MSRP ($34.99) I feel like I could easily find myself spending 20+ hours on my burgeoning hotel establishment without feeling strained. The team at Ancient Forge appear truly dedicated to the success of their newest title, and that is reflected in the game and its current and future update plans. I’m looking forward to checking into Hotel Galactic for many gameplay sessions to come.
Thanks to the developer for a review key! Hotel Galactic is available on Steam, and plans to launch on consoles after Early Access.
