Hotel Barcelona sounds like a dream indie collaboration: a 2D side-scrolling action title from the joint creative minds of Suda51 and Swery65. Although they've been friends for decades, the pair had never worked together prior to this, and a game about serial killers, parodying B-movie horror, is a match made in heaven for the pair.
As you may guess from their respective catalogues of games, this is an eccentric duo, so it should come as no surprise that as we sit down with Swery65 to talk about the title's development the origin story for the game is similarly unusual. Indeed, its entire existence can be traced to an off-the-cuff remark made during a No More Heroes talk show the pair attended in Tokyo in 2019.
House of horrors
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"Ever since we first met and got to know each other the two of us have always wanted to collaborate together, but there's never been the opportunity to do so," explains Swery65. "At a Travis Strikes Again talk event I participated in with Suda in 2019 he gave lip service to the crowd and said, 'Hey, we should do a collaboration! The game will be Hotel Barcelona, I'm announcing it today!'"
At the time, nothing of the game existed beyond the name and the random ideas the pair bounced back and forth in front of the event's audience. Even though news reports enthusiastically reported on the possibility that the pair could work together, nothing had actually been decided at this time. They'd joked before the talk that they should surprise the audience, but they hadn't discussed whether the game they 'revealed' would ever be anything more than a joke. Things only got more serious a few months after the talk.
"When I first heard the title I thought it sounded cool. I wanted to see what shape this game would take," Swery65 continues. "A few months later, he was like, 'Why don't we do this idea for real?' He came up with the base idea and character, and then we had a conversation where I said I wanted to come up with the design for this game, so we went away and started for real on the game from there."
The pair have very distinct styles; Swery65 is known for horror titles such as Deadly Premonition and The Missing (whose 2D side-scrolling horror action makes it the most obviously comparable to Hotel Barcelona), while Suda51 is famous for his action titles like No More Heroes. In spite of their differences, however, blending their two styles within a single game was easier than it may at first appear.
"Before those games I started my gaming career at SNK where I made a lot of arcade action games. So when we got to working on this collaboration I somewhat returned to this action game era of my career. […] We wanted to make a game that captured a journey through the horror movie world of the '80s and '90s, where we could enter the subgenres of horror from that time like camp horror, slasher, restaurant horror, and so on."
Once this basic concept was nailed down, the pair were able to develop things further. One of the game's key attributes is its roguelike structure – you upgrade your skills through trial-and-error as you clear a branching selection of side-scrolling levels and bosses under strict time limits. Which levels you clear on your journey to the boss depends upon on your skills and choices, and on subsequent attempts Slasher Phantoms, ghosts replicating the moves you took leading up to your last death, will repeat your prior runs' inputs, attacking enemies as they go.
"A few months later, he was like, 'Why don't we do this idea for real?'"
The violence and difficulty levels are appropriate to the horror movie-inspired worlds, while the devs are finding a balance between engaging mechanics, action, and characters that appeal to broad audiences. Your own character is Justine, a police officer possessed by a serial killer named Doctor Carnival, who at times manipulates you. And you look incredibly cool.
"The number of games where the protagonist is police is small, that's why I wanted to create someone like Justine," explains Swery65 of her initial design. "Also, the marshal badge is cool, so I gave her an eyepatch to match that energy!"
The result is a game that feels like a homecoming for everyone involved. Friends working together, a return to Swery65's action roots, a tribute to horror cinema. Yet it nonetheless feels and looks fresh. It may have started as the result of an off-the-cuff remark during a talk, but the resulting game is no joke: this has the potential to be murderous fun.
This feature originally appeared in PLAY Magazine – which printed its final issue in 2024. Want something that puts the scares first? Our best horror games of 2024 might be for you!
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