Hey there, travelers!
Welcome to the first in a brand-new series of in-depth devlogs from our development team. We’ll be giving you an exclusive look into the world of Hotel Galactic, its production history, the gameplay details, sneak peeks at concept art, upcoming content, and more as we build towards our Early Access launch next year!
For our first piece, Ancient Forge’s CEO and Creative Director, Dushan Chaciej will dive into the intricacies of the employee system, that is the folks running your establishment.
Fostering a Family
As a good hotel manager, it’s not just about taking care of your guest needs, wants, and issues - you’ll also need to create a nice and functional environment for your workers. When your employees are happy, they do a much better job at serving customers, and ultimately, everyone at the hotel benefits and becomes jovial!
Employees in Hotel Galactic are basically your own little colony of people, and you’ll need to consider them as such whenever expanding the hotel or thinking of new guest amenities. Without well-trained and stress-free workers, your business will never thrive.
What Makes Them Tick
Hotel employees come with a plethora of different stats and subsystems. Much like the guests visiting your island, employees also have needs they’ll try to fulfill, even in desperate situations. They need to sleep, eat, use the restroom, and even have some fun from time to time. On top of that, if their Comfort need drops below a certain threshold, they’ll refuse to perform any tasks issued by you.
So first off, to increase your workforce capacity, you’ll need to build more Sleeping Quarters and follow that up with crafting enough Employee Beds to meet your current demand. Then, wait for the Employee Ship that comes ‘round every Sunday or so, carrying quirky aliens ready to take up new opportunities.
Potential hires come in all shapes and sizes, literally. You can choose from the small, silly Pingtons or the big, bulky Dvergs, each with unique stats (like appetite or temper), skills, and special traits. All alien races will be available as both employees and guests in Hotel Galactic.
Careful selection becomes crucial if you want your hotel to keep running smoothly. Some candidates will come already pre-trained or they may even bring some useful items or equipment. Those guys will probably show up pricier than the newbie folk, so make your choices depending on the stage of the game you’re at.
The Inherent Challenge
Sooner or later, you’ll find yourself juggling a tricky balance, but don’t worry - neither the world nor Hotel Galactic demands perfection. You may find out that guests don’t really love the presence of your employees when they’re not being served. At the same time, your employees have a lot of tasks to do around the hotel, even if you’re not expanding it with new rooms and upgrades. One sure way to drop guest ratings is by having a few too many workers hovering nearby as they fulfill their personal needs.
(Early concept art for the employee panel)
For example, in the early stages of the game, you may want to save space and resources by building a single restroom for both guests and employees. However, to avoid unnecessary drama, it’s best to construct separate facilities for your workers to use, keeping them out of high-traffic guest areas. Similarly, you’ll want to keep employee Sleeping Quarters away from public spaces.
You can also manage schedules, allowing employees to relax and have some fun during the day when most guests are tucked away in their rooms. That’s right, night time is service time, while the day is usually when most travelers retreat to their rooms to rest after all the excitement. Of course, this comes with trade-offs, as that time could otherwise be used for crafting, gathering resources, or tending to plants and animals on the Farming Island. It’s all up to you, but as always, keeping the right balance is key to maintaining progress at a solid pace.
Since employees have separate sleeping quarters, separate restrooms (hopefully), they also eat a little differently from regular guests. Instead of ordering their preferred meals at the hotel restaurant (whew, imagine how much work that would be!), your workers rely on pre-prepared food rations. You can stock these in advance, and when needed, they’ll grab a snack from the stash. As the game progresses, you can upgrade the ration prep machine and learn new recipes to provide more nourishing meals. Because in the end, a well-cared-for team is what turns a group of workers into a real family.
It’s All About the Legacy
You’ll spend a lot of time fostering your employees’ well-being, training them and helping them become masters of their crafts. While no one really dies in Hotel Galactic, your employees do age over time. When they get older, you can expect them to move slower, take longer on the various errands around the island, and stop learning new skills as quickly. When that time comes, you’ll be highly encouraged to send them off into well-earned retirement.
However, all the time you spent nurturing them won’t be in vain! First off, depending on how much a worker has grown, they’ll leave you a parting gift upon retirement. But more importantly, there’s also the Mentorship System.
The Mentorship System works in pairs, allowing you to group up skilled employees with newer hires. Students will spend part of each day following their sensei around the hotel, learning from their experience. In turn, older employees provide a special boost when mentoring their younger colleagues. Of course, if an employee isn’t quite the right fit, you can always dismiss them before they reach retirement. Don’t count on any parting gifts, though!
We’ve already covered quite a bit, and we haven’t even touched on equipping and outfitting your favorite workers. Because why just perform better at your job when you can look fabulous while doing it? Guess we’ll have to go over that in the next devlog!
Bonus Development Highlights
To top it all off, we’ve put together a number of highlights from the past few weeks of development. Won’t spoil all the beans, but if you dig a little deeper, you might just uncover something exciting on the horizon 🏝️🐖🤔
We have more exciting updates and reveals in store, so stay tuned! Drop a wishlist if you can, and together, we shall forge a new era of simulation games!
Thank you,
Ancient Forge