The hotel reception bell rings, the wooden floor creaks and suitcases roll, but every sound is drowned out by the wailing of the brides in the haunted hotel. Will you discover the dowry or not make it out of the lobby alive? Experience a haunted honeymoon at the Honeymoon Hotel.
Background
“Step inside the Honeymoon Hotel, a mysterious place where time seems to have stood still. The lobby, attractively lit by a stylish chandelier, exudes the nostalgia of the troubled 1920s. The sounds of a forgotten piano fill the void, while the walls whisper stories of times long gone.”
This is the intro for the Escape Room Honeymoon Hotel. The players are guests who slowly find out that certain guests of this hotel have not experienced a happy honeymoon at all. The hotel harbors gruesome secrets and perhaps more than a few dead brides….
Honeymoon Hotel is one of the Escape Rooms of DarkPark, one of the largest and best-known operators of Escape Rooms in the BeNeLux with locations in several cities. DarkPark has now been around for ten years and they decided it was time for their first card game. Not just any card game, but one based on the aforementioned hotel.
In the card game of the same name, each player takes on the role of a hapless bride who haunts the hotel. Players will bluff and discover secret rooms in order to earn the most points. Do you have luck and misfortune on your side?
Setup & gameplay
Give each player a set of wedding cards in their color. Shuffle all room cards and form the hotel by placing a grid of 3 by 3 closed cards in the center of the table. These cards are the rooms of the hotel.
Each round consists of two phases: a whisper phase and an action phase. During each whisper phase, all players simultaneously choose one of their available bride cards and turn it over at the same time. The played cards are discarded. The quietest player (with the lowest value) may perform an action this round. If a player is the only one who has played an assassin, this is the quietest player, but the assassin takes the value of the highest card played. In the case of a tie, the next quietest player takes the action.
The quietest player can then perform 1 action. This player can secretly look at two cards in the hotel, try to conquer a room or challenge another player.
If a player wants to conquer a room, this card is turned face up. Safe rooms add to your point pile without difficulty, but booby traps are more variable. If the bride card is equal or higher in value to the booby trap, the player has conquered the room and that player may add the room card to his point pile. Some rooms also contain a megaval and let you put a bride card back in the box. The dowry provides quite a few points, but also allows you to trade your point pile with another player.
By challenging another player, you have the opportunity to steal the top card of a point pile of another player. Both players play a bride card and the highest value wins.
Conclusion
Honeymoon Hotel is a nicely illustrated game for 2 – 6 players. The gameplay is largely focused on bluffing and a touch of luck. The tactics lie in reading the other players and selecting the right values of cards at the right times. Honeymoon Hotel is best played with a larger group for the most dynamic gameplay. With more players, there is more of a chance of a tie between players for an added dimension of gameplay. Other than that, the game is pretty fast and plan be finished in about 20 minutes, making it suitable as a party game as well.
