Golden Krone Hotel

We stumbled into the Golden Krone Hotel quite by accident. It's a roguelike in the proper sense of the word, and we learned of its existence because of some digging we were doing into the world of ASCII roguelikes. You can, if you wish, play Vulgat's new game as you would Rogue itself, with minimalist visuals that express themselves using keyboard characters and nothing else. Doing so would mean you miss out on some cute graphics, though. Golden Krone Hotel has basic but fun pixelart visuals, and while they're not best-in-class by any means, they're expressive enough to aid your decision making, and that's really what it's all about at the end of the day.

In a unique twist for the genre, sunlight plays an important role in the gameplay. If you're a vampire, walking through beams of light will hammer your health bar, but if you're a human then taking out windows as enemy vamps arrive is a legitimate tactic. It also means that, depending on your current state at any given moment, the environment can be significantly different and your approach needs to be reactive to what's going on around you.

Combat is relatively simple; you can either bump into enemies and hit them with your standard melee attack, or use a gun or magic spells from a little further away. The key thing, as always, is picking your battles, and there's no shame in stocking up with spells and potions that give you options in battle. If you're being chased by an overwhelming gang of beasts and you can't find a staircase to take you up or down a level, a teleportation spell might give you the breathing room you need, or invisibility might help you slip away from danger into the shadows.

There are other elements that make Golden Krone Hotel relatively easy to pick up. You can unlock, for example, a number of "costumes" that give you a slightly different starting build, guiding you in a particular direction while also not being too prescriptive. You can start as either a human, vampire, or werewolf, and each one requires a different approach. You level up three abilities over the course of the game - strength, dexterity, and intelligence - and these also feed into the way you tackle each run. Different costumes also mean differing potions and spells unlocked from the start, giving you different tactical options from the get-go.

Speaking of potions, perhaps our least favourite thing about roguelikes in general is random potions, because you never know what you're going to get, which always struck us as counter-productive in a genre that promotes smart thinking in every other respect. Vulgat has come up with a really elegant solution to this long-standing headache of ours, and here each unknown potion is limited to one of three options, so you've got a 33% chance of getting the effects you want if you're forced to glug one down at a key moment. Better still, you can find books in the environment that narrow things down, increasing the odds of getting the desired outcome (you can also learn new spells and upgrade them via books).

It's not quite perfect, though, and once or twice we were left scratching our heads after an untimely end; the reason behind each failed run could be better signposted. Having said that, the tips on-screen are helpful and remind you to constantly reevaluate your actions at any given time. Elsewhere we have to say that the procedural generation can, at times, throw up some very oddly constructed floors to explore.

The design choices that promote accessibility in Golden Krone Hotel might suggest that it's a casual game (and maybe it is within the sphere of roguelikes), but overall you still need to pay keen attention to what's going on around you. A good number of our deaths came simply because we weren't paying enough attention to either our surroundings or the notifications scrolling down the top of the screen. It sounds like a no-brainer to say that players need to be mindful of their surroundings, but that is most certainly the case, and it's worth evaluating your situation even when you're at death's door because often salvation is as simple as swigging a potion already in your inventory.

Roguelikes are normally borderline inaccessible for newcomers, and while Golden Krone Hotel is by no means a simple game, some smart choices in key areas mean that those new to the genre will find their feet pretty quickly. It's not perfect, with some haphazard procedural generation the game's biggest issue, but otherwise this is a lovely little roguelike that perfectly balances traditional elements and innovative features. The theme's pretty unique too, and anyone looking for something a little different to play this Halloween (and beyond) would do well to check it out.