Hotel Tycoon Resort

The general standard of hotels in the UK has improved significantly over the last decade or two. Where formerly you’d have to pay through the nose just to get a place that served properly brewed coffee in the morning, now even your average bed and breakfast supplies decent quality java.

All of which means it must be increasingly hard to be a hotel owner in 2010. Customers now demand a better quality of service for less money, and if you can’t provide that the chap around the corner will.

It’s not something I’d like to do for a living, then, but I’m more than happy to play a mobile game about it.

After a slightly odd start, in which you go to work for your girlfriend’s disapproving hotel owner Dad, Hotel Tycoon Resort soon kicks into a rhythm of developing a series of hotel plots according to his requirements. This usually involves ticking off a list of targets, such as building a certain number of buildings, attracting a certain number of customers and making a certain amount of money.

The only way to achieve each of these goals is by building, maintaining and upgrading the restaurants, Jacuzzis and tennis courts that will attract people in. You’re also responsible for building and maintaining the roads that link each facility to the hotel – where people go, litter follows.

Unfortunately there are a few niggling issues that keep this otherwise enjoyable simulation game from joining the elite of the genre.

These issues are small in isolation, but irritating in combination – such as the useless message system that’s simultaneously hard to read and constantly in the way. Even when you can read it, it fails to provide certain key information – like when your cleaning or maintenance staff have finished their contracts.

Also, the concept of spreading small amounts of money around at random, requiring you to chase around clicking on them before they disappear, is a slightly clunky conceit that quickly becomes tiresome.

But it’s the repetitive, slightly lifeless structure of the game that ultimately holds it back. You’ll eventually grow tired of starting yet another hotel from scratch, going through the same opening moves and waiting for increasingly agonizing periods to reach your goals.

Many of the core elements are present in Hotel Tycoon Resort for a very accomplished simulation game. Unfortunately, the structure connecting these elements is a little lacking and the dull patches come just a little too frequently.