Hidden Hotel: Miami Mystery Reviews

by Daisy Dawn 1972

I have been playing this game faithfully for the past month or two, and agree with other reviewers that it is often frustratingly tedious to accumulate stars. But, I still kept with it because I enjoy the mysterious characters and the process of renovating the hotel. However, the new update means that the time it takes to “recharge” your lives has become much, much slower. In the past, I could play before bed and by morning, all of my energy to use towards accumulating stars was fully recharged. With the new update, it seems that it will take significantly more time to recharge. I played last night and by this morning, I had only slightly more than half of my energy recharged. That means it will now take significantly longer to accumulate stars. At this point, and despite the fact that I just bought the lantern pack, I will say goodbye to Hidden Hotel. I will check back in at some point in the future, but I am now done with this game for now. Why would you discourage players from playing your game? You had a loyal player and your update just cost you a loyal player. Too bad. I had previously given you a five star rating, but I have no choice but to move on. I’m going back to Gardenscapes for now. At least they allow you to play for more than five minutes at a time.

by JerkDiggler

Game is pretty addicting in the way that you can follow a story line, and unlock new items for the hotel pretty quickly. However, the amount of energy needed per level is getting ridiculous. You only earn 1 energy every two minutes or so, yet each level begins to require 15-21 energy bolts - sure, you have an opportunity to get bonus energy once a day for watching an ad, but you only get about 5-10 bonus energy. Otherwise you have to wait a few hours, spend actual money, or find keys/luggage and then you unlock a little bonus package that include a couple energy bolts, an extra combo pack, and some coins. I would definitely be more inclined to make in-app purchases if the searches didn’t require so many energy bolts per level. Not to mention, it takes so much to fill a star with each search you complete that you spend all energy bolts and don’t even earn 1 star.

I would recommend making it to where the searches cost less energy, and making to to where you earn more credit toward filling the star meter (because you can not fix anything in the hotel without stars).

It would also be really great to be able to watch more ads throughout the game to earn more coins and energy. That way, you don’t have to wait for the timer to reset because let’s face it...having to wait about two minutes for one energy bolt, when you need 25 bolts to play the next level, to just barely fill the next star you’re supposed to earn is a little discouraging.

by Hallows25

I hardly ever write reviews so that tells you how strongly I feel about this. When I first started playing this game, it was great! The amount of energy in the free spin was fantastic (it’s since gone down but free energy is free energy), the scenes were fun (sometimes incredibly frustrating) and it was fun to pick new furniture (even if it was only 3 options to choose from). However a bunch of things recently have made me frustrated. The most recent is seriously making me think of quitting altogether. I used to buy cheats at least every other week (I don’t have a lot of money but like supporting developers of games I like). USED to. After they added hard and super hard modes, it wasn’t worth buying cheats. They’ll be gone by the night. It’s annoying and less fun, but still fun. The reason I’m thinking of quitting the game though is because they’ve recently made it so each scene cost 60 energy rather than 15. 4X as much!!!! RIDICULOUS! Yes, the max energy went from 110 to 480 but you still have to wait 2 mins per 1 energy point. I’ve literally been waiting all day for my energy to go up again. It hasn’t reached full. It’s literally made the game unplayable since you’re spending so much time waiting for energy, you CAN’T play. It’s sad to see a game I once loved become unplayable.

by Landenmom

I enjoy the concept of the game. I like it that you accumulate stars by finding things rather then those match three games. The imagery of the games is nice too. However, this game is frustrating to play in several areas. One, you never know how much percentage your gameplay will get for you in terms of filling up for the next star. Sometimes I get a 10 on the meter but only advance less than 10 percent, while other times I am at about a 4 and I get over 30 percent. It makes your efforts to find things ASAP pointless, and takes that fun away in gameplay. Second, it takes sometime over six or seven tries to get one star and at 15 energy per gameplay and you get 110 at full energy, you basically can get ONE star most of the time that energy is refilled to max. It takes 2 minutes per energy, so over three and half hours to get one star. It is a SLOW gaming process. I wonder how much longer I have the patience for this game rule before I just give up and delete the game. Finally, a recent glitch?? with the daily wheel spin for energy. In the past two weeks or so, I have had three spins over 20 or 30 energy points that freezes up and the “claim” button does nothing. You have no choice but to close the pop up window and the energy is never added. Why bother give game players the idea of a chance to get some free energy if anything over the minimum offered in the wheel is not claimable.

Cindy

by Bexx9

I loved this game when I first started playing it. With each star you could design a part of the hotel or furniture and it was fun. Soon after, the stars take forever to earn and you don’t get a lot of coins for each finished level so it’s hard to save up to buy hints and boosts unless you use real money. I went through a lot of searches to earn 5 stars and not one star was used to design something... it was all about having conversation with a character or finding animals or calling another character. I wanted to design!! Ultimately I quit playing when they made it so every level
9, was ‘super hard mode’ so if you couldn’t find the objects in time, you lost the level. I would rather grind out the xp than waste 15 energy a shot to not complete the search. Same with the ‘hard mode’, I forget what star level this appears on but it’s a waste of energy if you can’t complete in the smaller amount of time. That hard and super hard mode took the fun out of searching. The boost packs are really expensive and it got to the point where I couldn’t finish super hard mode without using up my boosts. Hints cost 550 coins but you only earn 10-20 coins per finished search. It takes way too long. I didn’t want to waste my stars on the interactions but you have to. Even wasted a star to ‘start the next day’.

by Aprilinwa

I’ve had unresolved issues, despite contacting developers. They seem uninterested in truly investigation and correcting problems, as every response indicates them blaming my not using WiFi, despite the fact that I am. Scenes charge you energy, but then will not load. And it’s not most scenes. Just two. Always the same two (Under the Bed & Hamster Cage). Additionally , you can tap right on a small object and until you zoom in, the game won’t recognize your touching it. It gives you a red X...enough of those and you lose energy. I’ve seen reviews that compliment how difficult the game gets. In my opinion, it’s not that it gets difficult, they just expect more from you. You start out needing to find 8 objects, then it’s 16...in less time. And you go from being able to earn a star in one to two plays...upwards to 8-10 plays. Scenes go from 15 energy to play to 60 energy to play. So, they end up taking way longer to get through. Almost too long I’m my opinion. A good, fun game should be challenging without frustrating. This game is not that. It’s frustrating. Yet addictive. I wished developers would take complaints seriously. I wished they would scale back on the amount of plays it takes to acquire stars or else they risk players losing interest. And when scenes get to Double and Triple Rewards...I wished those scenes were optional.

by TheG7

This game is better than some similar games in that every action (clean the room, change the wallpaper, put in a new couch, etc) require only one star each. However, you need to play 5-6 HO games to earn one star. No problem except you never know how many points you’ll receive for one game. Sometimes it’s 23% of the star, sometimes it’s 27% of the star. And when you progress past a certain point, you start finding yourself at 97% or 99% of the star and you don’t have enough energy to just keep playing. So you either wait for a bit, play something else and come back OR you pay for more energy. I find this blatant greed distasteful, especially since after EVERY mini HO game, there are two windows encouraging you to buy energy.

Each locked area can gain you 10 stars, and it looks like there are about 50 locked areas. After four days, I have completed 3 of the areas because it is taking so much time. I would not mind paying a one-time fee to purchase the game, but without any consistency in earning stars or finishing areas, I estimate this game could cost me either 2 months of playing regularly every day for free or $200-$300. Now I’ve lost interest.

Plea toDevelopers: can you please explain the purpose of the lanterns and the collections? Where are the “hundreds of boosters?’ How do you progress through the game faster?

by Eblueangel

When I first started playing I thought it was fun and then I made my first purchase and as the hard and super hard levels started showing up I began purchasing more n more. I had to just pull myself away because everything cost an insane amount. I have a few games and I don’t mind paying for extras to play but this is the most expensive game I’ve ever played with the least amount of payout. It’s not worth buying anything because every level ends up using so much and you get very lil in return. Takes forever to fill up stars, you only get 10 coins each time which is very lil compared to how much everything costs if you need help and you will as double is hard but not impossible but triple is impossible to do without power ups and power ups are so expensive. You shouldn’t have to use stars to talk to people, to start a new day. Also I spent over $50 and unlimited energy in one day trying to get full collections by replaying a lot of the rooms I’ve already passed, Only twice did I complete a collection with only needing 1 more item in every category. Rip off at its best! The game makers are making it way too hard, way too expensive for a game that should be fun and is if they would think a lil more about the people playing and not just their pockets. Come on give us a chance here!

by Mesch90

I quickly got addicted to this game and was really enjoying all the different aspects of it. I played it almost every day. However, a few days ago they changed my energy bar from holding 110 energy total to 480 energy total.
When it was 110 energy, each round of a hidden objects game cost 15 energy, you got 10-15 energy for watching ads, and any rewards you got were usually around 15 energy (which actually helped). If I left the game alone for an hour or two my energy would be fully restored. Now, even though they changed my energy total to 480, the energy from watching ads and the energy you get from rewards is still 15. Also, each round of a hidden objects game costs 60 energy instead of 15. Plus I went to bed last night with a little energy left and now, 8 hours later, it’s still not fully restored.
If they are really going to stick with the 480 energy total, they need to change other aspects of the game to be proportionate to that new total. Rewards need to be much bigger, and energy needs to be restored/refilled at a much higher rate. The way they have it now is making every task I need to complete in the game take for ever and I’m starting to lose interest.
Anyway... that’s the end of my rant. Disappointed.

by Geometry Squarez

So I saw this game advertised on a few other games I play. I have the game, Seeker’s Notes, another iSpy game, and I really enjoy playing it. I thought “What the heck? Why not?” and I downloaded it. The games are very similar, and I do enjoy playing Hidden Hotel, however there are a few things that drive me crazy! For one, there are a few bugs I wish were fixed. So I liked the look of the “classic hotel” (aka the middle option for all the decorating/design choices). However, I realized that, in the lobby, if you select the middle option for the couches in the bottom right corner, the flowers that you place will appear to be on top of the couches. Every time I look at it, it bothers me. Please fix it! Also, in the kitchen, it appears that you cannot change the second box of food that you put down (the one you put down after realizing Donna is coming to the hotel). I, again, picked the middle option but I cannot change it. I can only select the floor or the wall. This is very frustrating. On a more positive note, the levels are well constructed and detailed (in the freezer room you can see freezer smoke floating around, etc). I plan to continue playing the game, but I really hope those bugs will be fixed soon!

by Fútball

The positive is that the game itself is awesome and that’s whAt makes the cons so bad.

The coin pay off when you win is very very low compared to what things cost. The game is so fun that’s it’s quite addictive which would be a good thing but the longer you have been playing the game the more ridiculously hard it gets. I really liked this at first because I like a challenge and don’t want it to take zero effort BUT it gets so very hard that there is almost no way to win unless you spend money. And if you want me to spend money to buy more life to play, then let me pause the time that I paid for. If I pay for four hours PLEASE don’t require that I sit for four hours straight. Real life happens and If you have to walk away your time just ticks away and you bought it for nothing because it’s gone when you get back.

Again it gets so very hard if you’ve played for quite sometime (because you liked the game is the sad part) that you cannot do much of anything if you don’t spend money. Recently they made the costs of lives and coins a little more reasonable which is good but please make the coin pay out more equitable....or else lower the coin cost of things and please....hard is fun but impossible is definitely no fun. I’m very close to deleting a game I like so much because it’s so hard that it’s becoming too frustrating now. Hard okay...nearly impossible is zero fun anymore!!!

by WhoCaresKD

Always like the hidden object games. And this is good BUT next levels are going to take months to get unless you play every time your energy is full. Or spend real money which is not going to happen. Even then low return in coin and star fill.
I’ve played for two days and it took most of that time to just get to two of the rooms to find objects in. Yet there are about 30 icons which are inactive as I have reached that level. So why show those icons if I can’t play them? Also have to get 10 stars per icon to make it complete- OCD here and it is hard for me to not want to complete. So spend energy to complete. And once you reach 3 stars on a room - energy cost goes up. And you get low coin return no matter how well/fast you cleared a room. Understand faster clear means more points but it doesn’t increase coin return at all.
Haven’t had any of the bugs mentioned so far. And the competition for who gets more objects going on currently - total BS unless you spend real money to get energy or help items. Top winners are in the thousands of found objects - do not know if they have more energy but laying odds they do. So no way to be a winner. Possible top 10 if you play every time your energy refills. MAYBE
Why compete if you can’t win - without spending real money?
Like the hidden object games so will play this but will probably become bored with it and not play or delete it.

by 4445553339

I have played this game for years, it’s always been one of my favorites. Now, however, I have reached a level where instead of the normal time given to find all the items needed, it’s cut in half for double the coins. I don’t care about the double coins nearly as much as the amount of time because I have never been a fan of timed games. Makes me nervous. What’s worse is that yesterday I have reached a level where the time is cut to less than a minute for TRIPLE the amount of coins. Again, don’t care about the coins as much as completing the level. When it gets to this triple coin level, I have NO chance of finishing the level.

My suggestion is, I think you should give people an option to earn more coins by cutting the time, or just keep the normal amount of time for the normal amount of coins. I truly truly hate these levels that offer more coins because of the diminished amount of time. I do NOT enjoy this game anymore and for the life of me, I don’t understand why you would make a game so hard that it’s no longer enjoyable.

This game has, up until now, been very enjoyable, but because of this diminished time, I will most likely delete this game. It makes me sad because, as I’ve said, I really enjoyed this game...but I don’t anymore.

by MintyMing

This game isn’t for phone gamers. It’s for people who just need something to kill ten minutes a few times a week while waiting in places. The hidden object scenes are good, but there are issues with everything else that prevent you from being able to spend time playing. First and foremost, they cut you off. You get one energy every five minutes and it takes sixty energy to play. So you can realistically play this only a couple times per day max. Most people are playing the game to decorate the hotel. The developers kinda ruined the gameplay on this game by making it cost SIXTY ENERGY to even make an attempt at a scene. Even worse, once you finally get a star after using like 4,000 energy, you have to spend that star on some stupid thing like “making a call” to a character. The game is only good if you don’t care about winning or playing often and you don’t care about decorating. It’s mainly for people who want to play a hidden object scene a couple times a day, and probably not win. I quit June’s Journey because I wanted to decorate too, but since this game pretty much just blocked our ability to decorate, win or play, I’m looking for something else. I think the developers might be focusing on a new game and messing this one up to encourage people to download the other one.

by Star Trek 2

Absolutely no one is amused. Do you want people to play your game? Then stop messing with the customers by wrecking a very fun game. Seriously, why do you think you can get away with this? How dumb do you think we are? You think we all just have money to through away on your game? No one likes your updates. Everyone is asking you to knock it off and make the game fun again. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it...well it was broken til you started tinkering with it. Just how much money do you guys think you need anyway? You do realize that if you don’t make you’re customers happy, you’ll actually lose money, right? Look at all the people that have already deleted your game. And I, a loyal customer who spent money on this game, and have been playing it since the beginning, am getting very close to deleting it as well. Shape up!

Update-That’s it, I’ve had it. I managed to deal with your unfair updates, started progressing again without having to spend a bunch of money, just couldn’t play nearly as often. Now, with your newest update, the game not only freezes on the elevator when I try to start a level, when I try to exit and re-enter, which doesn’t work btw, it has taken my hard earned coins for entering the level but not being able to play it from before. You have lost yet another customer. Congratulations.

by Browneyedfili

Update: I take back what I said about the ads. Please don’t change lol. I recently downloaded some other games and the ad just started playing as soon as I finished a level and I thought what? No way...back to hidden hotel it is! I have deleted every other game app on my phone except this one and one other that is not a hidden object game. Thank you for the changes you’ve made in regards to getting energy more easily. I would like to see the top seeker competition back as well like one other reviewer said.

I really like how challenging this game is and although the characters can be kinda lame, there are lots of different types of features that keep it more interesting than the average hidden object game. The only negative is the ads. All free game have ads, but this game is obnoxious with them. Every time you change a screen or finish a game, it pops up with an offer to buy some pack in the game. However, I do appreciate that it doesn’t go straight to ads after finishing a game like some apps do. You actually have to go choose to watch an ad in this game. Overall, thoroughly enjoy this game and will be keeping it!

by Gem Lady 7

I’m very hooked on this game. I feel so sad now though, because for awhile now I can’t even check the results of the competition, because every time I click on to it it freezes. Before, I could just ignore the competition results and continue playing the game. Now, when I open up HiddenHotel , it automatically opens up the competition results and just freezes. No matter what I click on it just stays the same. Please fix this issue ASAP, because I have no way to play this game now and that makes me sad. 😢
I also want to say this: When I 1st downloaded this game, I was extremely hooked on it and loved it, but since you keep updating it and making changes to it, I’m not that crazy about this game anymore. Why try to fix what isn’t broken? This game is way more challenging than before, and plus, it takes forever to get a star it seems. You give us less energy to watch ads now. Why is that? Also, could you consider putting in an option for our friends on Facebook to give us free energy, like the Criminal Case games do? When I 1st started playing this game, I would have given it 5 stars, but now I give it 1 star. Please fix the issue I am having in this game, because I really want to play this game again.

by Ebianchi

It is a fun game- I want to start with that. I have enjoyed having a find the object game instead of a match three game, and this one is challenging but not impossible. Mostly. It takes two minutes to gain back one unit of energy, which doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that you need 30 minutes of real time to replenish one attempt to complete a level. Well, until today when I logged in and it told me that my energy had been increased from 110 to 480, but I soon discovered that levels now cost what appears to be 60 units of energy, so playing through my energy will take the same amount of time but filling up will take much longer. (Is it really going to take 16 hours to fill up energy now? I really will only play once a day, or less, if that’s the case!) I am not paying real money to fill up energy, so I may just play this less.

As others have mentioned too, you don’t earn many coins in each level, and you need coins or real money to buy hints. The number of coins you earn doesn’t seem to change if you do better or worse... or at least not enough that I’ve noticed.

I do enjoy the gameplay and the story. I just wish I could play more without spending money. Or charge me for the game and get it over with. I hope this update doesn’t change my gameplay TOO much!

by Acinuhk

I love this game! It’s everything I like put into a game. When I was younger I loved playing hidden object games. I never really got into it on my phone though cause I felt it wasn’t the same as on the computer. Until this game! It’s like those connecting puzzle games when it comes to upgrading, customizing the layout, and when you wanna change up the theme of a furniture item, it’s pretty cheap. It only costs like 10 coins and you earn 20 each game you play. Which I enjoy even more cause it’s finding hidden objects instead of the puzzles which gets repetitive. When progressing, I don’t see any problems. I’ve gotten pretty far in 2 days compared to Gardenscapes. I’ve played gardenscapes for like a year? I’ve barley progressed to the 4th section!! It makes you use stars on useless things that aren’t related to customizing the layout. Hidden hotel isn’t like that. Yes it does take longer to get a star and the energy gets drained fast. But unlike other games you can use the coins you earn to buy more energy and power ups! Earning coins is easy and the challenges you get can give you up 10k coins! Another thing I like about the game is the storyline. I’m actually interested because it’s mysterious and humorous. The only thing I don’t understand is the percentage for stars. But it doesn’t bother me that much. I’ll just keep playing to earn the star. But overall a great game for a girl like me!

Nika

by $$$my

I love playing this game. I have played it for a while and have made several purchases to keep me playing when out of energy. I only have two issues with the game
First. The amount is cost to get keys or clues cost so much but we earn very little for each scene played. I used to spend money buying those upgrades but stopped after I saw how much was being spent and how little was given normally.
The second issue is a current thing Ive just noticed. When the cook or the little girl present the room your about to play and your winnings are doubled or tripled depending on who is presenting the room. I love a challenge but the problem with this is this is started very soon after you open a room. So I haven’t gotten very familiar with a room and then I’m on a super timer to find stuff (three rooms this started on level 3 of each room). The one where the chef presents the room with triple earnings is almost impossible. Seems like more things are added to the list of items to find with very little time.
I used to compete in the challenges against other players and would win or come in close to the top all the time. Now I have been stuck on these super speed rooms for over a week and honestly am to the point of deleting HiddenHotel since I can’t get anywhere. I enjoy the super rooms just wish we had more time to learn the room before they were presented.

by Kelzac45622

First of all, I want to say...I love this game! It’s challenging, fun, definitely one of my favorites and I really look forward to playing every day. BUT the most recent update makes it virtually impossible to play and actually make any progress. I was excited to see my energy increased to 480, until I saw that the energy used per round also increased to 60??? What was the point of changing it? At least I could build up enough to play a round after 30 minutes previously , but now it takes 2 hours to get enough energy to play 1 round. And the coins earned each round doesn’t help either. I don’t really see a difference for finding items faster, and the level 9 of each scene is almost impossible without a hint or power up, especially if it’s a silhouette round. Maybe make the energy start off lower in the beginning levels and increase as you level up or something. Unfortunately I can see my play time will be decreasing due to the recent changes 😏