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Million Onion Hotel brings joy in an otherwise awful world

New Pocket Gamer columnist Susan Arendt reveals your gaming antidepressant

Million Onion Hotel brings joy in an otherwise awful world
Welcome to the first in a series of columns on Pocket Gamer. We've sought out the best writers and most experienced gamers in the industry and given them a platform to speak their brains. Whether it's sharing recommendations for little-known gems, challenging accepted opinions or digging below the surface of the industry, you'll find something in this new series to get you thinking. Firstly, please give a welcoming round of applause to Susan Arendt, an online games journalist of many years' experience who regularly shares her views on cool mobile games on social media. Today, she wants to tell you why Million Onion Hotel will make you happier...
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Million Onion Hotel is not weird

It’s not even bizarre. Whatever level exists above zany, that’s where Million Onion Hotel lives, and man, does it own its strangeness with verve. Your logic has no place here. Only onions belong. And the mafia. Also robots. There’s also a giant bird. Look, don’t worry about it.

The thing about MOH is that beneath the what-the-hell-did-I-just-see exterior is a deftly tuned game. Mechanically, it’s as simple as can be: tap onions as they appear in a grid, and you’ll fill in a square. Complete a line of squares and score points. If you can complete two lines at once, you get a bonus. Complete *four* lines at once and see your points hit the stratosphere. You’re racing the clock, so you have to make the choice between completing lots of single lines as fast as possible or waiting for that one onion to pop up in exactly the right spot for you to complete several lines at once. All while asparagus pops up and missiles fall from the sky.

Why onions? Well, why not?

At their best, games transport you far away from your normal life, allowing you to escape to a place where you can triumph, or at least shape the world more to your liking. For a mobile game that requires little more than frantic tapping to achieve that kind of escapism is a tall order, but MOH’s bizarre universe is a quick ticket to baffled delight.

I have no idea what’s going on in the cutscenes, or what the secret of the soup is, but danged if I don’t want to find out.

And the game wants me to find out. It wants me to succeed. Each trip to the bonus level is met with a parade of mooing space cows, who, as the game explains, bring happiness from the depths of the universe.

There’s a constant undercurrent of encouragement and jubilation, even as missiles are destroying the playfield and robbing you of precious seconds. MOH believes in me. MOH is cheering me on. Score-based single-player games are usually at least a little combative with you, egging you on to achieve higher and higher point totals, but MOH feels fully collaborative. We are in this together, the hotel and I, as we strive to find more watermelons, send more asparagus spears into space, and stop more onions from falling asleep.

Million Onion Hotel is unabashedly celebratory of its nonsensical nature, and I find my spirits lifted whenever I cross over into its strange ether.

Its weirdness comes from a place of pure joy

Let’s be real for just a moment: pure joy is something sorely lacking in our current clime. Peruse social media for just a few moments on your mobile device of choice and you’re virtually guaranteed to come away feeling worse - angry, frustrated, sad, or confused. It seems like each day greets us with new ways for people to be awful, and it can be hard to remember a time when you didn’t feel crappy.

Million Onion Hotel is separate from all of that. It exists in a pocket of reality where each tap comes with a pleasant chime, and each completed line results in a silvery-sounding ring. Even bad sessions of MOH are small oases of absurd happiness. Playing Million Onion Hotel lightens my heart and puts a smile on my face, despite the fact that I never really feel like I have a full idea of what the heck is going on.

But hey, at least I rescued Chin Punch, the Hotel’s gentle and philanthropic concierge. That’s good, right? I mean, it has to be.

We'll be sharing more insight into indie classics next Wednesday and every week. Bookmark Susan Arendt's page now!
Susan Arendt
Susan Arendt
Susan Arendt is an industry veteran who comes by way of 1up, Wired, The Escapist, Joystiq, and GamesRadar. She's probably the reason everyone in your office is playing that new game on their phone.