from the gaming-like-it’s-1929 dept
We’re nearing the end of our series of posts about the winners of this year’s public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1929! We’ve already covered the Best Remix, Best Deep Cut, Best Visuals, Best Adaptation, and the honorable mentions, and this week we’re looking at the winner of Best Digital Game: Cocoanut Hotel by Geoffrey Golden & G.C. Katz.
1929 was the year the Marx Brothers made their film debut in The Cocoanuts, a movie where they ostensibly run a resort hotel but mostly just engage in their regular antics. Cocoanut Hotel adapts this career turning point for the famed comedians in both content and spirit, turning it into (what else?) a full-fledged hotel management sim. Just as in the original, the story (and now the mechanics) primarily serve as a vehicle for the comedy, resulting in a game that’s both fun to play and filled with entertaining material from start to finish.
As the player, you are tasked by your boss Mr. Hammer (a.k.a. Groucho) with getting the hotel to maximum capacity in 30 days. To achieve this, you must tweak the rate for rooms and your various expenses. You’re given little information on precisely what impact these choices will have, which turns the beginning of the game into an intriguing and often-surprising puzzle as you experiment with your options. Each day brings various events, whether that’s shady characters checking in because you don’t spend enough on security, not-so-clever con men raiding your savings, and of course, U.H.A. (Unexplainable Harpo Activity):
Ultimately the game isn’t too challenging, but it isn’t mindless: you need to engage with the mechanics and figure out how to win. It’s peppered with fun details, including a couple jokes about copyright, and above all it feels like a complete and quite polished product. For that, Cocoanut Hotel is this year’s Best Digital Game.
Congratulations to Geoffrey Golden & G.C. Katz for the win! You can play Cocoanut Hotel in your browser on Itch. We’ll be back next week with the last in our series of winner spotlights, and don’t forget to check out the many great entries that didn’t quite make the cut! And stay tuned for next year, when we’ll be back for Gaming Like It’s 1930.
Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like it’s 1929, public domain
