It’s been a while since I played a game from InutoNeko, my favorite indie developer. They make insanely addictive idle games all set in the world of Ishwald and featuring the same cast of characters. The inutoneko tag shows all the games I’ve played from them over the years, including some I dropped quickly but will have to revisit once I run out of their games to play.

Unfortunately they haven’t released anything since 2024, which is a bit worrisome because their releases used to be yearly. That said, they claim they are not dead and showed a video of their next game, so we’ll have to wait and see. In that same post, it says they also had a bad experience with their Steam publisher (Starship Studio?), who isn’t responding to any of their messages. That really doesn’t bode well for any future localization efforts, which really sucks because I love their games and wish more people could play them.

The current game I’m playing is Kaiyou Hotel Uminekotei (海洋ホテル☆海猫亭 /  The Sea Hotel Umineko☆Tei on Steam), which is in theory a hotel management game but in practice is just a shop simulation like most of inutoneko’s other games. It’s a “sit on your butt and do nothing” simulation just like the very similar Kaiyou Restoran Uminekotei, and very fun for that.

Story: Eve’s parents own the Uminekotei Seaside Hotel. Although she’s supposed to run it, she has been completely ignoring it and focusing on the Uminekotei Seaside Restaurant, where her crush Fil (who low-key detests her) works. A bad review in a local magazine makes her realize that her parents will be pissed when they return from their trip to find her mismanaging the place. Moreover, the son of the local five-star hotel stops by to gloat and develops an instant crush on her. Somehow Eve comes to the conclusion that improving her hotel’s restaurant will make him back off (spoilers: of course it doesn’t) while getting her off the hook with her parents, so she gets right to it.

Lore note: random and only relevant to Ishwald series fans: bizarrely enough, this is the game where Eve first starts to develop feelings for Aito (and vice versa?) even though in some of the earlier games, they’re already married. I’m guessing it’s a screwy timeline thing or something like that, IDK. Or maybe fans complained that their marriage was too sudden because they really seemed to loathe each other in some of the games. Anyway, side stories are completely optional in this game, so it makes no difference to the flow of the game’s story.

Gameplay: First off, abandon all hope of actually running a hotel in this so-called hotel management game. It’s a management sim in name only: Inutoneko completely ignored any actual hotel mechanics and instead allowed Eve/the player to make all their money by running a store and selling items to the general public. Sure, most major hotels have shops and dining areas open to the public and make money that way, but it’s still a tremendous wasted opportunity, in my opinion.

Not that I know anything about running a hotel, but duh, that’s what the game is for. Make me worry about things like occupancy rates, conferences, laundry, room service, inspections, utilities, maintenance, taxes, staffing, cleaning, amenities and facilities, security, shrinkage, pricing, seasonal demand, etc. This is all off the top off my head, I really don’t know much about hotels but I know it shouldn’t be the same as running a jewelry shop or a restaurant or any other ordinary shop. Basically Kaiyou Hotel Uminekotei plays like all the other Inutoneko games, which is both comforting and disappointing at the same time.

BTW, when I say you can ignore the running a hotel part, I really mean it. You can do like I did and make most of your guests sleep in the stables throughout the game, and it won’t affect your ability to become a 5-star, then 6-star, then 7-star hotel in any way at all.

How the game actually plays: You send adventurers to forage for stuff which you sell, or use to craft other things, which you sell. Some things can also be used to boost the store, e.g. flyers to attract more customers. The expiry dates on items have been removed in this game, so you can put up expensive foods and jewels for months until someone buys them. Demand indicators have been removed as well, but from trial and error and experience, I can tell that food sells the fastest while garbage sells the slowest, who’d have thunk. Every month has 30 days, and there are no seasons so you don’t need to worry about seasonal events or cooling/heating bills.

When you make enough sales, you get the chance to invite a super VIP to stay at your hotel. Most likely in the stable, harhar. You ply them with the items they ask for until they’re satisfied, then they give you a star. This is the most difficult and annoying part of the game, at least at first. But also the most satisfying once you get the hang of it. The regular VIPs and super VIPs ask for a LOT of free gifts. It almost feels like they’re out to bankrupt you or something, it’s really crazy.

However, those are basically the boss fights of the game, and satisfying super VIPs is the only to get more hotel stars. Plus they give a lot of SP, recipes, VIP tickets and other stuff you need to progress in the game. Luckily, as you keep playing, you unlock items and recipes that take the pain away, e.g. some items block VIP skills, others act as substitutes for whatever expensive goods they want, etc. The items are powerful enough that the late game super-super VIPs were actually easier than the early ones, because I’d had time to get more staff/friend skills and items. I still had to stock up about 999 of everything to beat the last one, but the outcome was never in doubt.

That’s it, more or less. There are a few complications along the way, mostly when it comes to staffing. Eve being Eve, you can’t expect her to do any most of the work herself, so her operation depends almost entirely on staff. Hiring and retaining better staff is the key to getting better items in the store, attracting and serving VIPs effectively, keeping the store surroundings clean, etc. Unfortunately good staff are EXPENSIVE!!! The better they get, the more they cost.

Avoid the trap I fell into of trying to hire too many staff members too soon. Avoid appointing any staff as leaders, as that will attract more expensive recruits for some reason. I had to go heavily into debt (with a 20% interest rate!) to pay them many times, and it was insanely stressful even though Kaiyou Hotel Uminekotei is just a game. I don’t need that stress in my games, it’s bad enough in real life.

Apparently your staff will start quitting if you fail to make payroll, but I always managed to in the nick of time, even if I had to sell good items I was hoarding in order to do so. However, at some point it all got to be too much… and I fired everybody 😔. Then I started from scratch with cheaper employees and a much slower pace of growth. It really sucked for a while there, but in the end it paid off. Here’s a mid-game game staff roster:

Look at that wage bill of £287,406 a month, holy hell. And that wasn’t even their final form. By the end of the game my staff had S+, Z and Z+ in all skills and I was paying them millions! But I was also earning multiple millions every month with ease, so I didn’t even bother checking my end-of-month balance sheet. This is why fiction is so awesome 😍.

And it’s also why I wish Kaiyou Hotel Uminekotei had let me grapple more with the backroom difficulties and stresses of running a business in the hospitality industry. Did it suck while I was suffering? Heck yeah. But did it feel good once I pulled through and became mega-successful? HECK YEAH!!

What I liked

🏨Gameplay process is easy to understand, easy to pick up and play even if you’ve been away for a bit. Some sims are crazy complex.
🏨No elements of randomness so you can get 100% items and recipes with time. It’s nice knowing from the start that you’re going to win and it’s just a matter of when.
🏨No missables, no hidden characters or gimmicks.
🏨Character stories tucked away so you don’t have to engage with them unless you want to.
🏨Clear sense of progression with the hotel stars, staff stats and monthly financial statements.
🏨No penalty for deliberately tanking my hotel by firing all staff, essentially starting afresh.
🏨One-time reset for friend skills so you can choose the most helpful ones.

What I disliked

🗑️Hotel gimmick was completely wasted. This is my main complaint
🗑️Music was a bit repetitive, especially since it’s the same tunes from the other games
🗑️Game is too similar to other Inutoneko games
🗑️Events were also repetitive, only like three types just rotating
🗑️The loan stress is real. One of the writers must have been through it, haha 😅

So that’s really what it boils down to: I had a tremendous time with this game and pulled several all-nighters over it, but I think it could have been so much better and deeper. Just a few elements extra like, for example, seasonal demand, a variety of events, and having to manage customer satisfaction would have made things even more interesting.

That said, there’s a lot to be said for keeping things simple. Thanks to how straightforward and simple the gameplay loop was, Kaiyou Hotel Uminekotei is the… first (? Second?) Inutoneko game that I’ve 100%’ed. Some of their games depend heavily on random luck or obscure mechanics, but here it was just a matter of when, not if you would unlock new recipes and maps. Drop rates of all forage items were consistently high, and as usual you could just buy items once you’d sold enough of them. As the most forgiving and rewarding Inutoneko game, IMO it would have been the best candidate for English localization to wins lots of fans for the series but ah well, it is what it is. Highly recommend it if you can speak Japanese and like simple, rewarding idle games.

Moving on: I started Persona 5 Strikers but I hate the battle system :’-( I’ll give it another hour and report back.