Friday Fun: Theme Hotel

December 9, 2011 6:43 AM

Theme Hotel If you build it, they will stay the night. But you may want to turn off the music. Fun, addicting little "Sim Hotel" game, reminiscent of SimTower.
posted by PapaLobo (23 comments total)

It needs more Habbo. That is to say, it needs more 13-yr olds painfully trying to "sext".
posted by clvrmnky at 7:06 AM on December 9, 2011

I can't read the link due to big brother not letting me onto a gaming site. But is this anything like my dream to build a Simpsons themed Truck Stop?
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 7:09 AM on December 9, 2011

First I went with "Not the Savoy" but then I refreshed the page and called it "Hilbert's" only to find out that the amount of floors is limited.
posted by quoquo at 7:16 AM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

My hotel is half elevator, and still they complain! Do these guests just ride up and down all day?
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 7:46 AM on December 9, 2011

First I went with "Not the Savoy" but then I refreshed the page and called it "Hilbert's" only to find out that the amount of floors is limited.

There is still hope, if you can tweak the parameters to fit an infinite number of beds in each room....
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:48 AM on December 9, 2011

Is the pool closed?
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 7:53 AM on December 9, 2011

I went with Fawlty Towers, but then a moosehead fell on me.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:27 AM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is it like Sim Tower where once you set up something even moderately successful, you can just leave it on all night and come back and use the enormous amount of money you've built up to build whatever you like?
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:02 AM on December 9, 2011

So to whom do I bill the last hour and a half?
posted by humboldt32 at 10:35 AM on December 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I feel like there is some mathematical theorem of efficient elevator distribution I am missing out on knowing
posted by rollick at 10:47 AM on December 9, 2011

Actually, thinking about it, it's not the number of shafts that's the problem, is it? It's the average wait for each shaft. So if you have all shafts going from top to bottom, it doesn't matter how many you have, people are still going to have to wait a while for the lift to reach them. But how best to break them up? I wonder how real hotels and office buildings deal with this.
posted by rollick at 11:19 AM on December 9, 2011

Reached 4 stars. These stupid guests keep complaining about the elevators despite having 8 of them in a row :|
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:44 AM on December 9, 2011

I wonder how real hotels and office buildings deal with this.

Elevator planning and control is actually a hugely complex topic. One of the newer ideas is to use destination based scheduling, where the person enters the floor they want to go to directly into the system, and it figures out how to efficiently get them there in the fastest total time. The original SimTower game mentioned in the post literally started out as an elevator simulator, all of the other gameplay aspects were built on top of that to make an actual game out of it.
posted by burnmp3s at 12:39 PM on December 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

guests demanding evermore elevators
no more land to build on despite millions in the bank
rating dropping sharply
removed all elevators
fired most maids
guests cant leave their floors
hired useless engineers
guests complain about the stench
most machinery destroyed, fires everywhere
chaos, madness
send help
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:41 PM on December 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

I think the solution to the elevator problem here is not to have shafts longer than ten or so floors, and overlap them such that you can fit the rest of your rooms in. Guests seem to complain most about waiting around, and not about having to take a laboriously circuitous path around a horribly designed building. (So perhaps not a great simulator of real life).

I eventually ended up with a system of of two shafts next to a presidential suite (4 blocks long), mirrored every ten/eleven floors, amenities clustered in the middle, receptions on the ground floor, and suites making up any excess. The only complaints I got were from people who couldn't afford my VIP prices, but that's what you get at Hotel 1%.
posted by rollick at 1:00 PM on December 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Slight derail but I'll promise you'll get to your floor eventually:

One of the newer ideas is to use destination based scheduling, where the person enters the floor they want to go to directly into the system, and it figures out how to efficiently get them there in the fastest total time.

It's been a few years, but back when I used to do deliveries downtown, there were at least a couple of buildings downtown where the elevators worked that way. As someone who is non-obsessive about his own life but super obsessive about things like this, I couldn't help but notice that they always lots faster.


I think the solution to the elevator problem here is not to have shafts longer than ten or so floors, and overlap them such that you can fit the rest of your rooms in. Guests seem to complain most about waiting around, and not about having to take a laboriously circuitous path around a horribly designed building.

The guests obviously work in the building I work in now and are just expecting their vacations to be the same way. Getting to half the building from where I sit requires at least 2 elevator trips. But having worked in the building before the elevators were designed that way, I feel like things run much more efficiently overall, despite the circuitousness of the route. But again, I'm not sure if hotel users in the real world would feel that way.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:09 PM on December 9, 2011

HINT: When you get to two-stars, replace all of the elevator shafts with high-capacity ones. I started off with two reception areas, separated by two elevator shafts. Each reception area with a restaurant and laundry above them and six rooms. It was really easy to build out from there. I also took some loans early to get the cash to invest in more rooms and elevators and staff. Investing in customer comfort early on apparently rewarded me later!
posted by beaucoupkevin at 1:14 PM on December 9, 2011

I can't figure out if this is an homage to Corporation Inc or a straight-up ripoff.
posted by winna at 3:05 PM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yoot Tower (sequel to SimTower) by Yutaka "Yoot" Saito (斉藤 由多加). His blog (in Japanese) has a link for his iPhone app "The Tower."
posted by zippy at 4:15 PM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yay. I couldn't get an old copy of SimTower working recently. (Tried to make up for it with some Theme Hospital but eh, still mad at Theme Hospital for the bathroom noises.)
posted by Glinn at 5:14 PM on December 9, 2011

oh, thanks winna, another time sink. With fucking elevators.
posted by PapaLobo at 6:40 PM on December 9, 2011

Oooh I like this game! Reminds me of the Tiny Tower and the Kairosoft games for iPhone.
posted by addelburgh at 7:28 PM on December 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Totally worth it just to see them "dancing" in the disco bar.

I got around the elevator issue by building a couple of extra elevators that only go 5 stories up. Then, if there was congestion between other floors, more 5-story elevators. After all, if the elevator can only go 5 stories it can't take that long to get to you. This might not fly in a real building with people changing elevators 10 times to get to the top, but in a game like this, it doesn't perturb the people to change elevators - all that gets counted against you is their queue time.
posted by IndigoRain at 9:12 PM on December 10, 2011