Since it’s an odd-numbered month, the game idea of the month is a smaller game lasting one entry. This game is called Hotel Escape, which is a point-and-click escape room puzzle with multiple levels. I will not only go over the gameplay, but also about the add-ons.
Before I go over how the gameplay works, I would like to give a shout out to the apps and developers that inspired Hotel Escape.
Tributes to Other Games
- 100 Floors – by Tobi Apps: 100 Floors is a 2010s mobile game where your goal is to get to the top floor. Each floor has a different puzzle where if you solve it, you will open the elevator door. You tap on the green arrow to go up to the next floor.
- Inspiration by 100 Floors: While it’s more of a multi-puzzle game rather than some escape room game, some floors had escape-room elements. But one unique feature from 100 Floors is that some of the puzzles are motion-based or position-based. If you shake, tilt, or position your gaming device, something may happen. There’s also a level where you have to change the clock to match your device’s current time, a level where you have to mute your device, and even a level where you have to use the microphone to open. Another inspiration coming from 100 Floors is that there’s a tower called the Seasons Tower, which had Halloween-themed floors, Christmas-themed floors, and Valentine’s Day-themed floors.
- Doors & Rooms – by Gameday: Doors & Rooms and its sequels are also 2010s mobile games, where you have a room that you have to escape. You’ll have to look close-up at some scenes, collect items, dismantle them, combine them, or observe them, to find your way out of each room. There are different chapters with different rooms. If you have trouble escaping, you can spend coins on hints, advices, or escape guides.
- Inspiration by Doors & Rooms: This might be my very first escape room game I played. It may be a generic escape room puzzle, but one unique feature is that you can modify items by dismantling them or combining them. You may need to do that to get through. For instance, there’s one room where you have to dismantle a dove with a piece of paper, so you can get the paper with a picture of the key. Another thing worth mentioning is that some chapters have gimmicks or schemes surrounding all levels in the chapter. Chapter 2’s rooms were stylized like 100 Floors, Chapter 4’s rooms all had a losing condition, Chapter 5 rooms all had an extra puzzle at the end, and Chapter 6’s rooms show a complete scene after finding your way out.
- Diamond Penthouse Escape – by TeraLumina: Diamond Penthouse Escape, as well as the other escape room games made by TeraLumina, are games set in some room or house that you have to collect items, look for codes, and use the items and codes to escape. Along with finding your way out, there are also jewels (or bats in the haunted house game) that you can collect. You have diamonds in Diamond Penthouse Escape and Diamond Penthouse Escape 2, sapphires in Sapphire Room Escape, rubies in Ruby Loft Escape, and emeralds in Emerald Den Escape.
- Inspiration by TeraLumina Games: Not only are these the first escape room games that I enjoyed, but they also had the side gig of collecting gems to escape. Each game also had different schemes to finding your way out. One had collecting tokens, one had collecting gears, one had a scavenger hunt, and one had collecting four 4-digit codes to unlocking the front door.
- Room Escape: 50 Rooms – by Shenzhen Zhonglian Hudong Techonology Co.: Probably the king of escape room puzzles on today’s mobile market, Room Escape: 50 Rooms has not just has a few levels, but 50 levels per chapter. You’ll have to collect items and place them, view codes and input them to escape each room. But there’s also times where you have puzzles to solve, which can be tricky. If you have trouble, you can use one of your hints to find out where to look for the codes or items (or three hints to bypass mini-games).
- Inspiration by Room Escape: 50 Rooms: The one thing I would attribute to this game and other games by Shenzhen Zhonglian Hudong Techonology Co. is the mini-game puzzles within each room. If you solve the puzzles, you can unlock some drawer, cabinet, or box. And some of these games require you to collect the pieces to start playing.
Gameplay:
When you enter a hotel room, your goal is to open the main door to the hotel room. But to do that, you need to find the item(s) or discover the code to unlocking the door. You’ll have to search the room, collect and use items to reveal codes or gather other items, and use codes to unlock drawers or other doors.
In a typical hotel room, there are a total of six views. In the main area, there are four views. One of them faces the window, one of them is the front view of the beds, one of them faces the hall to the hotel room door, and the other is the front view of the TV and dresser. And in the hall, you can either face the door (which is needed to escape) or face the bedroom (which is needed to enter the bedroom). When exploring every view, you can click/tap on a drawer or a point of interest. This will open a pop-up window for a close-up view. You can close the window to get back to exploring the room.
You also have your inventory, which stores items that you have found and collected in the room. Some of the items require combining to use, but others are ready to use. They can be tools, keys, or missing pieces that can reveal a code, unlock a door, or unlock a mini-game.
As for unlocking drawers or doors (or special cases like using an occasional laptop), there are three types of locks.
- One of them is a simple key lock where you need to use a key (like a token) or a series of keys to unlock. Some require putting the keys in the correct order.
- Another is the simple code lock where you put in a three-space code, four-space code, five-space code, or six-space code based on the observances you’ve used. Those are like 3-letter words or 4-digit numbers. There are even some combo ones (like matching the shape and color).
- The other locks involve solving a puzzle, like a slider puzzle or a lights-out puzzle. Some of these puzzles are even motion sensitive, where you will have to shake, rotate, or tilt your device to solve the puzzle or simply unlock the drawer. This might be needed to collect some items as well.
When you unlock a door or drawer, you can find hints to another code or items. Once you unlock the hotel room door, you are free to leave, and thus the level is complete.
Hotels:
There are ten hotels in the game, and ten rooms per hotel to escape, giving you a total of 100 rooms. However, if you do not purchase any add-ons, the most rooms you can escape are 36 rooms, which are coming from the six hotels from the base game. This is the main game. If you finish all six rooms from one hotel, you will unlock another hotel.
The six main hotels are:
- Training Motel
- Inn and Out
- Sea Resort
- Tropical Inn
- Five-Star Hotel
- Diamond Desert Suites
If you have purchased the Seasons Pack, you will unlock Holiday Lodge and Fall Vacation. If you have purchased the Sci-Fi Pack, you will unlock Game Night and Hotel of the Future. If you have purchased the Suites Pack, you will add four more rooms to each hotel, giving you ten rooms per hotel.
Gimmicks and Themes:
All ten hotels have a gimmick in every room. They also have different themes.
- The Training Motel is an exception, for that all rooms are basic. However, every room will have a helper character named Allison, who will give you hints if you seek her help on how to play Hotel Escape. She will even help you on the four added rooms as part of the “Suites Pack”. There are also fewer steps to escaping each room.
- Inn and Out is another generic hotel with no gimmick, other than the fact that every room requires maintenance to escaping.
- Sea Resort is your first themed hotel, which is the nautical theme or underwater theme. Two things all rooms have in common are an aquarium and a treasure chest. The goal of every room is to unlock the treasure chest, which will reveal a key or a code to unlocking the door.
- Tropical Inn, a Florida-themed hotel, has basic gameplay, just like every other hotel in the game. Not like the other hotels, every room ends with one extra puzzle to solve to unlock the door. When you get to the end, you will have unlocked the puzzle. If you solve the puzzle, you have unlocked the door.
- The Five-Star Hotel, a Southern-themed hotel, has the gimmick where you have to find all five stars inside the room. If you collect all five stars, you can place them on the main door and leave the room. All five stars also have a different number of steps to obtaining, where one of them is easy to spot, but the others are hidden in different ways.
- Diamond Desert Suites, a Southwestern-themed hotel, is centered on cooking in every room. If you give one of Allison’s daughters the food she seeks, she will give you a key to escaping the room. But you’ll have to gather the ingredients and make them in the kitchen.
- Holiday Lodge is a mix between the Christmas theme and the Winter theme, where some rooms are about Christmas, and others are about the Winter (including a Mardi Gras-themed room and a Valentine’s-themed room). Regardless, every room is a scavenger hunt where you must find six or ten items (depending on the room’s size) and place them in the drop-off box. Get all items, and you will unlock the door on your way out.
- Fall Vacation is a mix between the Halloween theme and the Fall theme, where some rooms are about Halloween, and others are about the Fall (including a Day of the Dead-themed room and a Thanksgiving-themed room). In addition to unlocking the door, you have another requirement to escaping each room. That is to collect all the hidden candies in each room.
- Game Night is an 80’s themed hotel. The gimmick of each room involves a mini-game where you compete against the computer player. You must collect the pieces and use the codes to unlock the game. If you win the mini-game, you will get the key to escape. Lose, and you will have to start over the entire level.
- Hotel of the Future is a future-themed hotel. In every room, you have a limited time to escape before all power shuts down. If the power goes out, there’s no way out. You can collect “time tokens” to extend the time to escaping the room.
Another thing worth mentioning is that the more expensive a hotel room is in reality, the more difficult the level is in the game. And its difficulty is built on the number of steps needed to get out of the room. The Training Motel is easy as pie, but Diamond Desert Suites is expert-level. And when you unlock the four additional rooms to each hotel, you will have four harder rooms.
Suites Pack Differences:
Every hotel has a difference between the main rooms and the “suite rooms”.
- In the Training Motel, the only addition the “suite room” has is a wall arch and a table behind the arch. The bathroom (which you never enter) is also behind the room.
- In Inn and Out, the “suite room” is slightly larger, as you’ll see a coffee table with a sofa and a chair.
- In Sea Resort, every suite has two rooms. One room is identical to the main hotel rooms, while the other, which you’ll start in and escape, has a kitchen near the entry and a living area near the window.
- In Tropical Inn, every suite has two rooms. One room is identical to the main hotel rooms, while the other has a kitchen closer to the front and one bed with a dresser and TV.
- In the Five-Star Hotel, the suite is made of three rooms. One is the small living room with kitchen, one is the smaller bedroom, and the other is the larger bedroom. The gimmick is also different in the suite rooms. In the main rooms, you have to collect five yellow stars and leave. In the suite rooms, you have to collect the red star, orange star, green star, blue star, and purple star, and place them in the correct order to leave.
- In Diamond Desert Suites, all rooms are suite rooms to begin with, but the “suite room” from the Suites Pack is a two-story room rather than a one-story room.
- In both Holiday Lodge and Fall Vacation, the “suite rooms” have two different rooms, similar to the Sea Resort and Tropical Inn. Holiday Lodge have bigger living areas, while Fall Vacation have bigger kitchens.
- In both Game Night and Hotel of the Future, the “suite rooms” are a lot larger than the regular hotel rooms.
Add-Ons:
It doesn’t end here. As the above section implies, there are purchasable add-ons. The four add-ons are:
- Seasons Pack – unlocks the Holiday Lodge and Fall Vacation hotels.
- Sci-Fi Pack – unlocks the Game Night and Hotel of the Future hotels.
- Suites Pack – adds four more rooms to each hotel.
- Challenges Pack – adds a three-star system to each room, which provide additional challenges.
I already went over the Seasons Pack, Sci-Fi Pack, and Suites Pack to an extent, but I haven’t covered anything about the Challenges Pack. Rather than adding more hotels or rooms, it adds objectives in every room. Obviously, you’ll get one star for escaping the hotel room. The other two stars are rewarded if you complete the other objectives.
For the six base hotels, one of the two objectives is that you must beat the best time. If you can escape the room within fewer minutes and seconds than the target time is, you will earn another star for each room. The other four hotels have different objectives in this matter:
- In Holiday Lodge, you will earn another star if you collected all the necessary items in the exact same order they are listed.
- In Fall Vacation, you will earn another star if you have collected every candy in the room before unlocking the door.
- In Game Night, if you have won the game, you can replay the game with the NPC. If you win again, you will earn another star. You have only one chance in winning a second time.
- In Hotel of the Future, you cannot collect any time tokens if you want the other star.
The third star in every hotel has the same objective, regardless. And that objective is to collect the six jewels hidden in every room. The jewels to find are the ruby, the sapphire, the emerald, the topaz, the amethyst, and the diamond. If you collect all six of them before leaving the room, you will earn a star.
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