Most hotels have a “No Dogs” policy in place, so it may come as a surprise that there’s at least one hotel in the world that has a “Pro-Werewolf” policy. Here’s the kicker: Wolves are welcome, but humans are not allowed. Velcome to The Hotel Transylvania Social Game, a tower building/hotel management game for Facebook that dishes up fun like so many Halloween platters of spaghetti hair and gelatin brains.
Most hotels have a “No Dogs” policy in place, so it may come as a surprise that there’s at least one hotel in the world that has a “Pro-Werewolf” policy. Here’s the kicker: Wolves are welcome, but humans are not allowed. Velcome to The Hotel Transylvania Social Game, a tower building/hotel management game for Facebook that dishes up fun like so many Halloween platters of spaghetti hair and gelatin brains.
The Hotel Transylvania Social Game (“HTSG“) is based on the animated Hotel Transylvania movie that’s coming to theatres next month. Hotel Transylvania narrates Dracula’s troubles as he tries to run a five-star monster resort and keep his daughter from falling in love with an uninvited human guest. HTSG focuses more on building and maintaining Dracula’s hotel, so there’s no goopy love story to elbow in on your efforts to give your otherworldly guests the very best treatment.
In some ways, HTSG is a bit like Tiny Tower. You build your hotel floor by floor and room by room, but you can expand outwards as well as upwards. You need to maintain a balance of facilities to keep your guests happy: Rooms and beds are a must, but you also need to build lounges, dining areas, pools, and spas. When monster guests arrive, they hang out in your lobby and tell you what part of the hotel they want to visit. If that area is free, you can check them in. If it’s not, the monsters need to wait (don’t worry, they’re patient).
You need to manage your guests carefully, because monsters occupy rooms and services for different lengths of time according to their species. Ghosts and skeletons are in and out the door in no time, but werewolves, yeti, and gargoyles take their sweet time. The longer a monster hangs around, the more likely it’ll leave you a nice tip, but that’s not much consolation when you have a lobby full of monsters that can’t use the pool because some jerk gargoyle has plopped itself in there like a chunk of stone.
But building up your hotel according to the monsters’ needs is what makes HTSG fun. The game’s curious mix of time management and property building makes it one of the more addicting titles on Facebook. HTSG‘s personable cast of monsters doesn’t hurt its appeal, either. Werewolves scratch themselves as they lounge around, ghosts try their best to look scary, and skeletons bear a charming, perpetual grin. When your guests sleep, they dream about bones, eyeballs, and other spooktacular objects that vary according to the quality of the bed they’re in.
The fun does start to wear off a little before too long since there’s not a whole lot to do in HTSG beyond building up your hotel and serving your guests. You can expect to get several hours of good times from the game, though, especially since HTSG is pretty okay about handing out premium items and currency. Go ahead and visit Hotel Transylvania. Arm yourself with a steely knife if you want, but don’t expect to kill the beast.
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