Hotel Renovator review – The tackier the better

Simulation games are a dime a dozen, offering players the opportunity to take on the role at various businesses and occupations they might not otherwise have the chance to do. Everything from Gas Station Simulator to the wildly popular Euro Truck Simulator series allows players to live out a new job without any of the pressure of real-world consequences, leaving room to appreciate the small things.

In the last decade and a half, there has been a real emphasis on buying broken-down properties and flipping them to turn a profit. However, that requires a lot of money that many don’t have, so games like House Flipper and its many DLC have stepped in to fill that gap. However, the next generation of these types of games is being released, and Hotel Renovator is an evolution of that concept.

While it’s not perfect, it does provide a lot of options for how you can build your business up through the use of a variety of interesting characters. Each new project will take multiple hours, but the final product always feels like something you and your guests can be proud of.

A daunting start to a hotel that becomes home

There are multiple ways to play the game, with Story Mode and the Sandbox both offering different experiences in how you approach the game. The narrative will likely be how many players start the game and the task of fixing everything up feels daunting at the start, with an impressive cinematic leading into the title. There are a lot of decisions to make and seeing how much you have to clean up is a lot when you first start your playthrough.

That being said, it’s all that more rewarding when you finish a room and you take a step back to get a look at your work. Clearing a room’s floors, walls, and ceiling can be a bit tedious and the game seems to recognize this as well, with some events clearing a room to keep the player from having to purge every surface. These events include things like concerts, hosting special guests, or bachelorette parties.

Having a concert take place in the lobby of the hotel as you destroy walls and furniture is a nice change and having the band clear the entire room is helpful beyond measure. It’s unfortunate you don’t have them providing that help in other parts of the hotel as well. Some of the more minor events are pretty heavy throughout the main game, so you’ll often need to take a break to resolve some new issues.

The different events aren’t all stale though, with some actually being uniquely interesting in their randomness. Sometimes being a hotel manager means chasing a chicken around the building after fixing a cracked pipe, and that’s just a part of the job.

Because of this gameplay loop between fixing up rooms and resolving issues in your hotel, it’s really easy to get lost in the gameplay for hours on end. To complete one of the minor rooms, you’ll likely be taking at least an hour and the larger facilities like the lobby will take even longer to perfect. It’s not a waste of time either, instead feeling really relaxing as you mindlessly complete the tasks of running a hotel.

Thanks to the ease of use, decorating is a really soothing experience that invites the player to be as creative as they want using a variety of tools. While some of the creations can look a little tacky, they come out looking like something you might see in the real life. Thanks to the ease of controls, you can put on a podcast or your favorite episode of TV and renovate to your heart’s content.

Destruction that leads to beauty

In order to create your new prospering hotel, you’ll need to tear down the walls, floors, and the trash that litters the rooms in halls. It appears that your relative Roy who left you the hotel wasn’t keeping up with it in his final years, so it’s up to you and one of the four assistants you choose to restore it to a successful business that will allow you to further expand and then upgrade more rooms.

Swapping through the wide variety of options to upgrade your rooms is a lot to take in, so the game gives you the options a little bit at a time. This makes the game seem really small in your first room, but it soon opens up as you unlock more areas and get upgraded gear. Unfortunately, meeting some of the room requirements are hard with the items you’re given early and forces you to use certain objects.

This feels really limiting, as one room required that the player use a bunch of ugly gold items to meet the quality score. These can be deleted after the room is booked, but it’s likely to affect the quality score and get you a lower score in the game. You’ll need to make sure to clean the rooms yourself at the beginning, which is a great reminder of old projects that you can improve with new gear.

The UI is a little frustrating to use, admittedly, with the mouse wheel being the only way to scroll through different options in the menu. Anyone who’s used a mouse wheel to scroll through options can understand how finicky a mouse wheel can be if you’re trying to get through options quickly. This makes trying to get through multiple options or colors of something a headache to do fast.

The game gives plenty of options to decorate with and it’s a lot of fun to add the small details to a room that really makes it feel like a place where someone could stay. Even if it’s not the most stylish thing you’ve ever seen, the different decoration mechanics work in a way that really manages to pull everything together in a really satisfying way.

Try Hard Guides was provided with a PC review copy of this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website! Hotel Renovator will be available via Steam and Epic Games Store.