Hotel Galactic News

Hey there, travelers! 🚀✨

On this special day of Saint Nicholas, we have incredible news to share – 100,000 wishlists on Steam! 🎉 It’s all thanks to you, our amazing and super-engaged community, who’ve been our biggest supporters from the start! This is the best christmas gift we could dream of!



The past six months have been a rollercoaster:
🌌 Our announcement at the PC Gamer Show in June, featuring the stunning trailer created in collaboration with Room8 Studio.
🌌 Kickstarter Campaign and forming our amazing community!
🌌 The first public gameplay showcases at Gamescom and Tokyo Game Show.
🌌 Playtesting sessions and our very first playable demo shared with influencers and first alpha backers.

Since we entered into full production just a year ago, Hotel Galactic has been flying high like SpaceX heading to the ISS!

Now, let’s make your holiday season even better with some exciting news:
🎮 New Playtest Demo – In the coming weeks, our most dedicated community members will get their hands on fresh game mechanics, including:

• A priority system for hotel management.
  

• The basics of farming simulation.
  

Join us on Discord to discuss these features and share your feedback! If you’re not there yet, what are you waiting for? :)

Later on, we will also run a massive playtests session for ALL Kickstarter backers.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
🪐 Plans for the New Year – We’re gearing up for the Steam Next Fest and the game’s Early Access launch. 2025 will be out of this world!

As all of us at Ancient Forge prepare to take a well-deserved holiday break, we want to wish you:
🎄 Cozy, joyful holidays.
🎮 Fulfilled gaming dreams.
✨ Warm moments with your loved ones!

Don’t forget to tune into our streams! Eleyne is handing out demo keys live, so hop in, chat with us about Hotel Galactic!

Thank you for helping us reach 100,000 wishlists and for being part of this amazing journey. See you in the New Year! 🎆
Happy Holidays! 🌟

Thank you, Ancient Forge

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.



[h2]Fostering a Family[/h2]

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.

[h2]What Makes Them Tick[/h2]

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.

[h2]The Inherent Challenge[/h2]

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.

[h2]It’s All About the Legacy[/h2]

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!



[h2]Bonus Development Highlights[/h2]
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

Hello, Travelers!

Today is the last day of our Kickstarter campaign. While the time for a proper "Thank You" message is yet to come, we are already incredibly grateful and overwhelmed by your support. Our Kickstarter is 115% funded now, and we still have 24 hours to the end!

Simultaneously, Hotel Galactic is climbing the ranks of the Top Wishlists! Just a month ago, we announced that we had swiftly moved into the Top 1,000 Most Wishlisted Games on Steam, and now we have crossed into the Top 500. This position continues to improve every day thanks to your support!



Sometimes it’s hard to believe that we announced the game less than 2 months ago!

As your interest grows and your enormous support helps us sort things out, it's time that we address the elephant in the room! When will you be able to experience Hotel Galactic?

The first opportunity is Gamescom 2024. Yes, we are going to Köln, to show you the first playable demo of Hotel Galactic! We will be at booth B-078 in Hall 10.1. If you plan to attend, come say hello and try the game! A month after that, we will show Hotel Galactic to attendees at the Tokyo Game Show!



Remember that today at 2PM EST and 8 PM CEST we have a live event with the Cozy Gamers community! Join us, ask your questions, or watch it later on YouTube!

P.S. During this event, we will show you 2 minutes of raw gameplay! Why not!


The end of the campaign is tomorrow at 5 PM CEST, so if you want to get Hotel Galactic at a lower, KS-exclusive price, make sure to do it in the next 24 hours!

Have the best week ever,
Ancient Forge team

Hey there, travelers!

Today, another SimFest on Steam has started. It is full of amazing games, and Hotel Galactic is among them! We are honored to join the selection of the best upcoming and currently released games from the sim genre. While exploring a variety of titles available during the Sim Festival, take a moment to look at our cozy, Ghibli-inspired hotel simulator.



If you are already here, you might want to visit our Kickstarter, where amazing exclusive rewards are waiting for you to obtain, together with Alpha Access to the game with digital bonuses and adorable physical add-ons.

As we are entering the third week of our campaign with almost 70% funded, we are presenting a new, exclusive set of skins to enchant your Hotel Galactic with flowery-rustical charm! Take a look at this amazing Rustic Daisy Set, a new bunch of skins available as an add-on for ALL Kickstarter backers.

We heard you, and as many of the backers who decided to support us and get access to the game’s Alpha playtests will receive the “First Visitor” skin, we wanted to dedicate Rustic Daisy to everyone who supported us!

Check our new Kickstarter update here to learn more about Kickstarter-exclusive, “Rustic Daisy Set” and join us on the last week of the campaign, as later this week we will reveal one more surprise for our community!



Stay tuned, join the SimFest celebration, and remember to click Follow, and drop a Wishlist to stay updated with all Hotel Galactic news!

Thank you,
Ancient Forge

Hey there, travelers!

Today marks a big milestone for Ancient Forge as we launch our very first Kickstarter campaign. We believe that Hotel Galactic will grow and thrive with an open and community-based production approach. Head over to our Kickstarter page, learn more about the project and consider supporting our development efforts!



To celebrate this special occasion, we’ve prepared the first behind-the-scenes video for you to meet the team working on Hotel Galactic. It might have been a little stressful for us, but we definitely want to stay involved with the community and we plan to release more-or-less regular video updates for you all. Watch the first Hotel Galactic Developer Interview Video here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
While we’re very busy with all the Kickstarter campaign preparations, the team is still making great progress on the development side. Right now, we are mostly focusing on polishing a nice and stable demo build for this year’s Gamescom.



And last but not least, if you’re in for more in-game footage, we’ve shared an exclusive preview build with a very wholesome YouTuber, Sarah Sunstone. Watch her take on the pre-alpha gameplay of Hotel Galactic:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

That’s a wrap for today’s update. Please head over to our Kickstarter page to learn more and support the project!



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