15.1.2014

It is not possible to do a review of a property-based game without comparison to the behemoth of the genre, Monopoly. I will assume that readers are familiar with that game.I play-tested this game with my 9 year old daughter. This review is based on our experienceSet Up:Unlike Monopoly, this is not a game that can be played straight out of the box. First you have a one-off construction task to do. The game features large "buildings", which are put together from plastic and cardboard. Most of these take the form of a flat cardboard template, which is folded into a rectangular tube. The ends of this tube then insert into plastic end-pieces that form the roof and base.To put all the pieces together took us a good 30 minutes, and I would say that it is sufficiently fiddly to be beyond a young child on their own. Given that the pieces will be used throughout the life of the game, it will be worth the investment of adult time at this stage to avoid future tears of disappointment. Even so, I managed to slightly rip one of the cardboard tubes, fitting it into the channels in the cap, and one of the more unusual pieces (a plastic dome with a cardboard insert) simply would not stay together. Both issues were solved with a little sellotape.Once constructed, the pieces are surprisingly solid, and the tightness of the end-pieces (that makes construction tricky) also means that they stay together well. These buildings are definitely a "wow" factor for this game, compared to the little green and red blocks in Monopoly, with the tallest tower standing about 4 inches (10cm) high.Also worth noting that, despite my fears, all the hotel pieces went back into the box (with careful packing) without needing to disassemble.The board and other pieces:The game is played on a colourful board. The play area consists of a winding circular road, divided into marked spaces. Alongside the road are `properties' - areas representing different hotel resorts, with spaces marked for the corresponding hotel buildings to go.All the resorts are strongly themed, in Las Vegas style, and each has a clear dominant colour. The theme and colour is carried on through the buildings, an "overlay" which you put on top of the resort to "develop the grounds" and a `property card' corresponding to each resort which covers the cost of purchase, development and hotel charges. The clever use of graphics and colour meant that we never got confused about what went with what.The other pieces involved are 4 coloured tokens (one for each player to move around the board); a supply of "money" in different denominations; two dice - one a normal 1-6 die, and the other a special die for property development (more later); and small red pieces representing "entrances" to the hotels (also, more later)Game play:Players take turns to move their token round the road, throwing the 1-6 die. Each square on the board is marked with a symbol, determining the action that the player may (or must) take. These actions drive the actions in the game: purchasing a resort, developing a resort, creating an entrance to a resort.In summary, the game goes something like this:First phase is acquisition and construction. If you land on the right square, you can opt to buy a resort next to the square. If you have a resort and land on a development square, you can opt to build on the resort.Building is not the simple Monopoly process where, provided you have the money, you build what you wish. You need planning permission. This is where the special die comes in. You declare what you wish to develop, then throw the die. Depending on what comes up, you may be denied permission, allowed permission, allowed permission but at double cost, or allowed permission at zero cost. As with Monopoly, judicious but aggressive development is the key to success. More developed properties can charge more for "guests" (other players) to stay, and the rewards escalate as the properties develop.Once you have a resort and are developing it, you need to get some income. Apart from a "pass Go" type square, there is no other source on income (and for 2 players, the rules bar even this). Unlike Monopoly, players do not "land" on the resorts. Instead, resort owners develop "entrances" by placing a little red plastic rectangle at the edge of the road. Since each space on the road can only have an entrance on one side or the other, it is possible to largely "strangle" an opponent whose resort is on the other side of the road, by putting your entrances on many of the spaces before they do so. Entrances can be purchased once in each circuit of the board (at a particular point) or by landing on the right square you can get a free one.When an opponent lands against one of your entrances, they have to "stay" at the resort. The 1-6 die is used to determine how many nights, and there is a grid on the property card to read off the cost depending on how "developed" the resort is.So, the game progresses with players juggling money between purchases, with income coming in (or not) from hotel guests. I have always found Monopoly to be a bit of a grind after the initial flurry, and often the result is largely inevitable from early events in the game. Hotel Tycoon is a genuine roller-coaster by comparison. There are so many elements of luck - landing on the right space at the right time, landing on spaces that give free buildings/entrances, how many nights a guest stays. Playing with 2, our finances fluctuated up and down several times before the final result.Unusually, the game was genuinely entertaining played by 2 (again, Monopoly is far less so). With 3 or 4, it would be even better. With 2, we never had enough money or inclination to buy all the resorts, so we each had as many as we wanted/could afford. With 3-4, the competition and fluctuations would be even greater.Summary:Although it will never challenge Monopoly as the "classic" of the genre, I think Hotel Tycoon wins out on several points:- The hotel pieces are genuinely impressive - large and dramatic - and the board, etc. are all gorgeous and colourful- The additional elements of luck serve to greatly even the playing field for players of different ages and strategic abilities, and bring entertaining changes of fortune throughout- The game was relatively quick to play. The blurb says 40 mins, I would say it took us more like an hour and a half, but that was first play, so might speed up as we got more experienced/ruthless! Monopoly sometimes goes on for days!- There are several options given in the game instructions to vary the rules, to speed up or simplify the game. This gives some flexibility to match the gameplay to your preferences.My only concerns would be:- Careful construction needed at the start, with adult supervision/involvement, to avoid spoiling the hotel pieces- There are enough rules that you will need to refer to instructions constantly for the first play. Nothing is hard or complicated, and all quite well explained, but the nature of the game means there is some inherent complexity to get your head round (no different to Monopoly there)Overall, this game is a winner.

29.12.2016

This was a nostalgia purchase. I remember playing this when I was young (or a very near version) and loving it – it’s a game that's similar in goal and principle to monopoly, but takes half the time.As a game it is great fun, my kids love playing it and caught onto the gist very quickly (they are 7 and 11) The hotels you can build are great fun, with lots of different models and styles which make a great 3D effect on the board. Games are generally fairly quick to play, although be prepared, you can be caught playing for a very long time on occasions if you keep landing on each other! It doesn’t take long to work out which sets are worth owning and building up as some sets are much better than others,so luck is key to get the best sets and biggest advantage!Be aware the buildings all come flat packed and you will have to build them yourself which is very fiddly and time consuming, so worth preparing before your first game or it’ll take forever to set up! Luckily once they are built they stay built (well theoretically, although they are constantly falling apart in places, I may have to resort to sellotape as it can get quite annoying!) So long as you follow the plan on how to store them away in the box, they fit nicely.I scoured the internet for the best price for this game and Amazon was by far the cheapest so I would recommend buying from here if you are after this specific game (it was the cheapest place when I purchased after comparing prices with other retailers (As of Aug 2016)The following is a brief description of the game:To play you have to try and buy the title deeds to a hotel plot and build up your hotel empire. You can land on various spots which give you the chance to build (if you own the adjacent hotel plot) or buy (if the plot has not been claimed you can buy the land, or if it’s been brought by another player but not been built on, you can buy it from them for half price) The luck of the dice is paramount if you want to build up your hotels and get "entrances" along the path to your hotels. The more entrances obtained (which are acquired every time you pass the yellow line on the board or if you are lucky to land on a free entrance square) You can also block opposing players from getting entrances to their hotels as only one entrance is permitted per square, so strategically placing your entrances to deny others placing them gives the game added strategic depth. As with monopoly, different hotels are worth different amounts when you land on them and some plots cost more to build on than others. Deciding which ones you want to build up and which ones are not worth progressing is great fun, we all end up with our favourite hotels we want to own! (mine is deffo Coral Reef and High Towers ;-) There is a lot of luck involved with the dice, if you wish to build you have to get planning permission by throwing the coloured dice. Green means you can build at the price shown on your title deed, red means you cannot build that turn, x2 means you have to pay twice the price shown on the deed (you have to pay if you have opted to build) and H means you get the hotel free. If you get very lucky with the dice you can literally obliterate everyone really quick, equally if you are unlucky enough to keep getting X2 on the dice you will soon run out of cash and be eliminated. Landing on free hotel squares and free entrance squares give a huge advantage too!The only rule which is a little dubious and poorly thought out is what happens when you have more than 2 players and one goes bankcrupt, the rules state:"If you are unable to pay your way, you must put one (or more, if necessary!) of your properties or plots of land up for auction. There is no reserve price and all players may bid. You must sell to the highest bidder. He receives the hotel (or land) as it stands, together with the Title Deed."This is a bit of a silly rule as if there are two players or more still in the game, the highest bidder will get the deed and any hotels on them, which can be worth thousands if there are lots of hotels. So technically if a player owes money to another after landing on them, any other player can bid for the bankcrupt players title deeds and hotels. Even if the winning bidder won with just a £10 bid, they get everything on the auctioned plot including build hotels which make it very disadvantenageous to the remaining players. We prefer to do our own rules and do similar to the monopoly rule - so when a player can’t pay they sell hotels/deeds to the bank at half face value until they are able to pay the debt. When fully bankcrupt they pay what they can to the person owed and the title deed returns to the bank ready to be landed on and brought by the remaining players.A GREAT FAMILY GAME WHICH IS ALWAYS ENJOYED, UNLESS YOU’RE LOSING

24.11.2013

The aim of `Hotel Tycoon' (up to 4 players) is to make the most money by buying land, gaining planning permission, buying hotels, and buying hotel entrances to allow charging other players for their stay. The last remaining player is the winner - the rest are bankrupt! Any preconceived ideas that `Hotel Tycoon' is some sort of 3-dimensional `Monopoly' should be cast aside - this is a much more demanding and adult game than traditional `Monopoly' where as well as the `Chance' type of interventions with good and bad consequences it involves more strategic planning of what to buy, what to build, and how to exploit competitors. It therefore has the potential to be more satisfying - but the publicity claim of 40 minutes for a game is unlikely to be achieved!Initially it takes at least this amount of time to assemble component parts which are part plastic and part card with illustrations to show how they fix together.Locations are self-evident from the board and there are 8 different hotels with varying numbers of buildings. (Artika, Reine, Dragon Gate, Zebra Lodge, Reef Resort, Uptown Towers, Coconut Beech and Al Kalif). In addition there are 30 plastic hotel entrances and 8 cardboard recreational facilities adjacent to hotels. Each hotel is provided with a title deed displaying the cost of land, repurchase cost, cost of building, cost of entrance and cost of recreational facility. The 4 player pieces are in the form of coloured plastic aeroplanes, and there are clearly marked positions for a control tower and hanger. Money is provided (dollars!), together with a normal die (1-6) and a special die to determine whether or not planning permission is granted, whether players can freely build, or whether some payment must be made to the bank.The bank gives a first batch of money to each player, and subsequently $2,000 is paid every time they cross a red line adjacent to the hanger. The start is marked by an arrow and players take turns to roll the die in traditional board game manner and follow the meandering route of `squares' around the 8 hotel sites. Squares contain a picture indicating how the player may apply for planning permission, purchase land etc. with a chance of building free or gaining a free entrance! On passing the yellow line next to the control tower a player may buy a hotel entrance for each site, and it is possible to compulsory purchase land owned by another player if nothing has yet been built on the site. Straightforward explanations on rules are given in a leaflet plus the title deed for each hotel which states costs and shows the order of construction.All this is not as complicated as perhaps it sounds, but beware the recommended lower player age of 8 years may be expecting a bit much. The pictures and vivid colours of the box makes `Hotel Tycoon' appear a child's game - it is not - it is a cut-throat competitive game for those old and savvy enough to be able to wheel and deal. Relationships may be strained by rules allowing debt collection, forced auctions, extra entrances and variable costs - making the game fulfilling (and literally rewarding) - and maybe a bit addictive - but not for the faint hearted.

1.1.2014

My kids love this. It's a bit like monopoly in that you go round and round the board, collecting money as you do so. Another similarity is that you buy properties and build up hotels. Unlike monopoly the game is big on visual impact, with hotels being themed on various idealised versions of hotels around the world, a Reef Paradise, a Grand Parisienne hotel, A Beach Lodge, Manhatan Towers, etc etc.When the game starts you get straight into action, buying plots to build up your empire. These plots can be snatched away from you until you build on them though. The build process is dice controlled - you are either allowed, declined or pay double (or best of all free!) during the planning process.

16.11.2017

A bright and colourful game that's a bit more friendly than its older cousin Monopoly.Hotel Tycoon is more focused on the property development side of the Monopoly style games, without the use of cards it becomes a case of dice rolling luck and how best you handle your funds while developing your buildings.The last game we played was interesting and proved that even if it looks like you might not have the advantage, that can change suddenly, as the last 2 players turned from the one behind having 1 property to winning the game because they had their money saved up (dice rolling luck helped too) and bought up the leaders properties as they were going bankrupt.Just shows that unlike the games

21.12.2013

Well, we gave this a good play-test, and it was fun. The hardest part was putting it all together beforehand - and even then, the results weren't entirely satisfactory (hence the lowish score for durability).The game-play is broadly like Monopoly, and the objective, similarly, is to bankrupt your opponents. However, it's much faster. The claimed 40 minutes may be optimistic, but other than the stalemate situation where you end up with two players pretty much balanced, it all comes to a head fairly quickly. Whilst with Monopoly, I disliked the game because of the sheer brutality towards other people that is really necessary if you set out to win, with this game, it's pretty clear that a lot of the outcome is down to luck,

27.12.2013

I was thinking of buying Monopoly for my 9 year old, and Hotel seemed very similar but having no prior knowledge of it I was a bit worried it wouldn't go down to well and be a bit complicated.I needn't have worried, because despite the quite complicated sounding instructions, my daughter got this straight away. So well in fact she fleeced me twice in a row. We've only played it with the two of us, and it works fine providing one player doesn't stumble upon bad luck to early on. However I think it would be much fun with the maximum four players...with oppotunities for cut thoat bidding wars!The game does take a lot of initial set up with 28 buildings needing construction, we actually enjoyed this part too though.

27.12.2013

Hotel Tycoon plays in a similar way to monopoly, but there are plenty of differences. I've played this with two and with four players, and it didn't really work with two - particularly because two of the rules (No more collecting new money whenever you pass the equivalent of Monopoly's go when it's down to two players, and auctioning off hotels when you can't pay a bill, don't really work in a two player game).The board and components are very attractive. The hotels take some time to assemble before first play, and don't always stay together brilliantly well unless you add a little glue.Unlike monopoly, once you own a property and have put buildings on it,

27.12.2013

This game was played for the first time on Christmas day despite having ordered it some time before. The goal of the player is very similar to Monopoly in that the aim is to buy property in the form of plots of land upon which the player will develop buildings. In this sense the game is a lot less diverse as there is only one property type. The fun is high tension and this is great as it creates real competitiveness amongst the players. For children I have rated educational value as four star as there is a good element of numeracy, working out costs of buying and building on property, paying and then receiving change change from the bank, but as far as literacy goes it is of little value in my opinion.

2.12.2013

I played this game with my two children aged 8 and 10 and they really enjoyed it. It's a variation on the monopoly concept whereby you build hotels and charge people rent, but it is much faster. On lands which are undeveloped you have to sell the deeds to whoever lands on the appropriate square at half the price you paid for it, so it keeps the game open and even as properties change hands quite a pot until you get hotels built. The cover estimates the game takes about 40 minutes to play, I would say this is about right and right until the last few moves it was pretty open over who was going to win, this is helped by pretty much allowing you to develop straight away, as long as you land on the right square.

12.1.2014

Ok you can't really match Monopoly because it's a timeless favourite, but this is definitely up there as a take on the concept. At first, the instructions seem very complex but honestly, who says Monopoly isn't complex? Building all the 3D buildings takes some time and patience, but it was well worth it because the game was thoroughly enjoyable. On our first go, I played the roll of banker and instruction monitor/giver, clarifying what the game square symbols meant, and my daughters (8 & 9) played against each other. Once the first game was over we had a good grasp of the instructions and on subsequent games only needed occasional glances at the instructions, so in comparison to Monopoly again,

28.11.2013

I played this game with my two older children, aged nine and eleven. They enjoyed the construction of the game board, building all the 3D hotels and playing the actual game.It's like a version of Monopoly, where you move your piece (a coloured aeroplane) around the board, but you have to have planning permission before you can build. You can add hotel entrances and further develop each hotel. When another player lands at your hotel entrance you charge them money.According to the instructions the game is supposed to last about forty minutes. My children usually spend at least twenty minutes of the game arguing with one another! It takes quite a long time to play the game anyway,

31.1.2014

We love this game already. My husband loved the original one growing up but they're a fortune second hand so I decided to go for the new version (bargain price) for his birthday and he's pleased with it.You have to build the hotels and they're a little bit fiddley, and it's tricky to get everything back in the box afterwards but we like the game.It's kind of similar to monopoly, you roll a dice, move round the board, different spaces mean different things eg buy land, free entrance etc, it's easy to pick up (I'd say children need to be at least 6yrs but probably older as it can drag on), and you could set a limit of an hour to see who the richest is, or carry on for 2-3 hours until all bar one are bankrupt.

28.12.2013

Probably the best thing about this board game, once you've got through the one hour pain of putting them together, are the hotel buildings which are Vegas-stylee themed and add to the fun of playing this strategy game.It takes a little while to get to grips with the rules which involve buying deeds and building up hotels and accruing money, but once you know how to play it's good fun and has just the right balance of strategy and chance. I would say the age guidance of 8+ is about right. It's a well made quality game, although the pieces are a bit hard to fit into the box and are prone to falling apart (due to being made from cardboard with plastic add ons). If you like games like Monopoly then this is sure to appeal,

15.12.2013

I know a few people have said this and I have to be honest I tried really hard to look at this and think "This is a completely different game" But even on opening it and looking through the instructions its pretty obvious the aims are the same. Yes there are dollars to collect and the high rise buildings give a different effect to it and overall its a pretty entertaining game (Even if you do have to trust someone as the banker)Just like monopoly there is no real age limit to the game so it does make it very much the family board game especially as it does teach the kids the value of money when you make them cough up the cash (Makes a change)

Hotel Tycoon - Reviews

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