If there's one thing I know, it's that a game by Killer7 and No More Heroes director Suda51 is going to be a good time, or at the very least interesting. Pair him up with Swery65 of Deadly Premonition fame and you get Hotel Barcelona, a stylish, violent, side-scrolling roguelite about a woman staying in a haunted hotel possessed by a murderer.
The basic premise of the game is that you play as Justine, a US Marshall possessed by the spirit of a killer, and you need to fight your way out of a hotel where seven of the deadliest murderers in the country reside.
Contributing to the roguelite flair is your ability to have past iterations of yourself join you in future escape attempts, and they can do damage and distract foes. Kind of like a ghost in Mario Kart if it could throw shells at you.
In an interview shown during today's PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct, Swery65 explains how he landed on the style and genre for Hotel Barcelona. He says he looked back to the beginning of his career to add that old-school "hardcore spirit" to it, emulating the arcade games he and his mentors cut their teeth on.
Also discussed during the interview is how many of the game’s ideas came to be in the first place. Suda51 recalls a trip to Banff, Canada that he and Swery took where they hashed out most of their initial plans. They presented everything to Devolver for funding, but unfortunately the publisher refused, despite having worked with Suda51 on a game previously.
In a move that surprised Suda51, Swery decided to make the game at his own company, White Owls. "I was like, 'seriously?'" Suda51 says. He also adds that he was shocked at how hardcore of an action game it was, as he had only been providing light feedback for a while.
Since a lot of the game’s ideas came to the creatives while in a hotel in snowy Banff, it should come as no surprise that it’s also partially inspired by The Shining. Swery65's favorite weapons are the baseball bat and kitchen knife, which he says are "the weapons that Jack's wife used to attack him with in my favorite movie, The Shining."
You don't need to wait to play Hotel Barcelona, because it's out now on Steam.
Check out every game, trailer, and announcement in the PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct.
