SWERY Talks about Changes Brought by Hotel Barcelona Under New Management Massive Update

Introduction 

Please introduce yourself to our readers. What projects has the team contributed to aside from Hotel Barcelona?

Hotel Barcelona's team had 7 core members, including me. Most of them are staffers who've been with White Owls since the beginning, mainly people from the team that created The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories. This includes people who worked on D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die as well as people who worked on Sengoku Basara, Devil May Cry, and Street Fighter as outsourcing work from Capcom. All the people whom I trust the most.

Could you tell us about the idea behind the original game? How did Suda51’s and Swery’s recognizable styles combine in the title?

Suda-san created the title for the game and the idea for the main character at the very start. From that point, we discussed horror scenes and horror movies we like, then I proposed an idea for the game mechanics, and Suda-san added on ideas and gave me advice on top of that. Basically, the core concept for the game was cemented on Halloween 2019, when we both took part in a conference in Banff, Canada called Reboot Red, while we were drinking during dinner and getting excited over stuff.

Hotel Barcelona Under New Management is a “structural refinement of the player experience.” In what ways? How did you rework the game and why? Please tell us about the changes.

Up until now, the game experience had been built around a message from the developer side: "The player needs to experience death. The player has to use the Slasher Phantoms to proceed," in order to make sure the players understand the Slasher Phantoms, one of the game's main systems, and how to use them.

In Under New Management, the idea has changed to something very simple: "The game should be fun to play whether or not players understand it." Now, players can choose to play the game however they want. They can choose whether or not they want to use each system we've created.

In order to achieve this, we re-examined four core elements that affect the game experience and rebuilt them from the ground up.

1. Comfort, immediacy, and return to simplicity for the controls.

2. Optimizing difficulty and revising game mechanics (rules).

3. Stabilizing and improving performance.

4. Re-examination and overhaul of PvP online multiplayer.

This was all strongly influenced by feedback from people who actually played the game, as well as my own feelings after taking a breather following the long development period and crunch, and then carefully re-examining the game.

How did player feedback influence the decision to revamp the whole project?

See the previous answer. We made a list of all the negative opinions from Steam reviews and various criticisms raised on social media. Then, we read through the content as a team, discussing questions like: "What is the source of this complaint (criticism)? Why does this person feel this way?"

Sometimes, we even recreated the situations causing the dissatisfaction within our own development environment to confront these opinions together. While some comments felt unbearable to read, we still faced them head-on and focused on improving things. During this development, we were fully occupied with the task of finishing the game, but we feel it was very meaningful for us to get a chance to re-evaluate the game post-release.

What should old and new players expect from New Management? What will pull them in?

For people experiencing the game for the first time, we hope you'll enjoy not only the enhanced fun of the action itself, but also the depth of the story and hidden truths that unfold as you progress through the stages. SWERY-esque dialog and plot twists await.

For people who have already experienced this game: you can now re-explore every nook and cranny of the Hotel Barcelona world with more comfortable controls and refined game mechanics. The brain resources you previously devoted to barely surviving tough battles can now be directed toward finding Easter eggs, collecting outfits and weapons, or tackling bondage mode, enjoying all the replayability options the game has to offer.

Why did you choose Unity for the game? What do you appreciate about it? How did it help create fast-paced combat?

The primary reasons we chose Unity were so that we could utilize our previous production experience, its compatibility with Git, and the extreme ease of extending the Editor functionality.

We enabled the configuration of character movements, including the player's, using timelines within Unity. This created an environment conducive to trial and error by the game designers. As a result, the combat pacing was refined through their meticulous, repeated adjustments.

Did you use different tools in Hotel Barcelona Under New Management? How simple was it to come back and “rewire” the systems?

We did not use different tools. The system changes we applied are mainly there to reduce processing load. The mechanism for configuring character actions on the timeline mentioned earlier incurred significant overhead when generating new motion control objects, so we focused on thorough reuse to reduce processing load.

What changes or improvements to your workflow were made that enabled you to better realize your vision for the game?

We didn't make any major changes to our development structure or workflow.

However, after completing the lengthy crunch period leading up to last year's launch, external debugging companies and partner firms left the team, returning us with the smallest version of the development team.

In other words, we returned to the same team composition as when we first started working on the game: only the core members of White Owls. This may have ultimately led to more ideal exchanges of ideas, a clearer transmission of specifications, and improved individual productivity.

What were the most surprising challenges of development, or most unexpected points of feedback after release?

During development, we pitched the game to potential publishers and platforms. Every single publisher came back with: "No multiplayer?” Personally, I'd designed this title as a completely single-player experience, so I was like, “Huh?” But the requests were so persistent that I gave in and decided to add online multiplayer (co-op and PvP).

But once the game actually launched, the most common criticisms from users were regarding the underdeveloped state of the online multiplayer. We received requests like, “I'm playing with my PC offline” or “Please add an option to turn multiplayer off.”

This was a truly shocking and valuable learning experience.

Therefore, as we prepare for this relaunch, we decided to make the improvement of the multiplayer modes one of our biggest tasks.

Could you give some advice to beginner game developers? How can they develop their own style as distinct as yours?

I assume readers of 80 Level already possess a certain degree of originality and philosophy, so I doubt I could add much to that. If I were to share one thing I always keep in mind, it's “learn to motivate yourself.”

On the morning of a day off, you could just drink your coffee and stop there, or you could think: “I'll try make a better cup of coffee” → “I'll try grinding beans myself” → “I'll gather the tools” → “I'll roast the beans myself” → “I'll blend beans from different origins.” By continuously creating your own goals and motivations in this manner, even a single cup of coffee can become something completely different.

I hope this was helpful.

I'm also an 80 Level reader myself. I thoroughly enjoyed answering these questions.

Hotel Barcelona is now Under New Management, with White Owls taking over as its publisher.

Updates, collaborations, DLC, and more are on the horizon, so stay tuned!

I love you all!

Hidetaka "SWERY" Suehiro, Game Developer

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine