Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Innkeeper (management)

Innkeeper by Marvin Apacible is a management game that has the player running an inn. It provides quests to give the player objectives to achieve. In addition to that, it has a nice story told in dialogs.

Incidentally, the inn only opens during the day. Visitors do not stay overnight. It is possibly because of the local rumors of Aswangs, which are mythological creatures in the Philippines.
Typical day at the inn.
As expected of a management game, the player earns money to purchase facilities in order to earn more money. In addition to that, serving customers awards the player with XP, which may be used to purchase upgrades. These upgrades unlock abilities and amenities (as it is called in the game). The latter allows the player to build special rooms to entertain customers and earn more money.
Spending XP for upgrades.
Unique to the game are the different types of customers. Each customer has certain expectations. There are amenities that they would like to use. In addition, there are room furnishings that they prefer. The receptionist can be instructed to direct certain customers to certain floors and/or room types. Management of this feature is necessary to assign customers to rooms that best meet their requirements.

By meeting the customers requirement, they will have a better time and will give a better rating at the end of their stay. Better ratings would lead to more customers. Certain quests also require certain conditions related to the customers' ratings.
Each customer has their requirements.
The hotel is staffed by family members. Each family member is recruited by completing a quest. Each of them has their own stats, which make each of them more suited to certain roles than others. Despite the staff being family members, they still have to be paid daily wages.
Fortunately, their pay is cheap.
Family members are not the only feature to unlock. New types of customers will start coming once certain requirements are met.
New customers are unlocked by fulfilling requirements.
As mentioned, the story is told through dialogs. There is a main story and a side story. Each of those stories are advanced by completing quests. In addition to that, there are references to popular Internet culture and other Flash games. Also, once in a while, one of the characters will tell about the Aswangs.
Dialog!
Innkeeper has enough features to give the player a challenge. The references the game makes are entertaining. In addition, graphics (made by Studio Dereka/Nengachi) are cute and the music (by Kevin MacLeod), calming.

Further at the bottom are a couple of spoiler screenshots.
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Last chance to stop before the spoilers.
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Unlock Hipster.
The method I used to unlock Hipster.

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