Hotel Mogul

Summary

Who hasn’t dreamed of owning a hotel chain? Who hasn’t wanted to transform dingy pay-by-the-hour places into luxurious resorts? Have you taken a page from the books of Best Western, Hilton, and Ritz Carlton?

Then let us see what you’ve got! Hotel Mogul lets you prove your real estate genius. This app – penned by Alaware Entertainment – lets you create your own, virtual chain of hotels.

Is it worth the $2,99? Read on to find out!
 

The first thing you do is set up a profile. Your score will be kept here. And that’s all you need to do to get started!

The game starts off with a small intro about Lynette and the Golden Bau AG, who will guide you through the game and explain things as you go along. Once you’ve understood how everything works you have to construct a strategic story around the corporation.

The app offers 35 different levels; every level has a different goal. The first few levels are more or less tutorials (which you can’t skip), and the goal in each one is hardcore hotel mogul modus: build expensive hotels, and lots of them.

Start by building camping grounds and smaller hotels. You won’t make the kind of profit you’re after with these types of affairs though, so from level to level the hotels keep getting bigger and more expensive. You will need material, manpower, and plots of land in order to construct hotels. And just like in real life: that stuff costs money. You make money through your hotels. There’s also the possibility of pimping out your existing hotels—up to 3 stars.

In order to get the big bucks rolling in you will need more than hotels, though: start prospecting on cafés, malls, monuments, etc. In some levels there’s even the possibility to acquire sight-seeing attractions such as pyramids, which can generate a further income bonus.

In the last category there’s also the option of investing in service buildings (construction halls, real estate agencies, more monuments): use these to keep your employees in check, speculate on the real estate market, or simply attract more visitors.

Once you’ve reached the goal of a specific level – e.g. 3 business hotels and an income of $200,000 – you can move on to the next level. For each successfully absolved level you’ll receive a rating (a silver star); in order to get a gold star you have to reach the level goal within a restricted amount of time. And that’s the really tricky aspect, because the allotted time isn’t exactly generous (but do-able nonetheless), which means you’ll probably have to make several attempts and come up with a fool-proof strategy in order to get the gold.

Lastly, there’s also the possibility to score prizes for your profile, by doing commission work, like getting a gold star in at least 30 levels or grossing an income of 10 million $ in one level alone.

Bottom line:
I like this app on the whole. Trying to get things done within the time limit and the different levels definitely kept me glued to my phone for several hours. There are so many levels, and it never feels as though you’re getting near the end. After I had played for what felt like an eternity I had completed a mere 22 out of 35 levels.

Furthermore, there’s always more than one way of successfully completing a level, which really stimulates strategic thinking.

So, for all those of you who’ve fantasized about becoming a hotel mogul: here’s your chance to make your dream a (virtual) reality. Cool!
 

The app scored big time for its visual effects in my book. The story’s very clever, too. There are a lot of neat gimmicks and details, such as cars driving along the roads in front of the hotels. Unfortunately, I found a small part of the image missing from the right side of my screen—it seems the divesture wasn’t perfect.

Controls were really easy to use. I found the buttons to be a bit too small and not labeled very clearly.

Do you like elevator music? You’re in luck, the app can provide! Well, I didn’t find it as irritating as the World Cup vuvuzelas, but it got on my nerves nonetheless.
 

I experienced no problems or crashing with this app.

The time it takes for the app to load is also totally kosher.
 

Hotel Mogul can be downloaded for $2,99 from the Android Market.

I find this to be a tad on the pricey side, but it’s just about manageable for such an excellent game. Try it out, and if you like it, keep it.