Given the Japanese animation studio’s iconic works and identifiable artistic style, it comes as little surprise that many creative works, such as video games, claim to take inspiration from their works. One of the latest games to do so is Hotel Galactic, a new casual simulation game by the team at Ancient Forge, which received €176,577 in Kickstarter funding back in 2024 to make their vision come through. Covering a bite-sized portion of the intended experience, an early access version of the game is now available to purchase on Steam for $50.95 AUD or local equivalent. With many finished games on the market available for less than that, is this an experience worth jumping into now, or perhaps waiting to see how development progresses? Read on to find out!
Restoring a once-beloved, floating cosmic island hotel under the guidance of the late proprietor, Grandpa Gustav, Hotel Galactic frames a gentle tale around redemption, memory and community that balances its playable experience with decent narrative beats. You act as a kind of guiding spirit, with animated cutscenes and frequent conversations drip‑feeding backstory. At the same time, a colourful ensemble of characters fulfils the tropes and expectations of a cozy game with a nice amount of warmth and humour without overstepping, or offering anything particularly genre-defining. However, while character moments regularly land and the cast’s personalities shine, the broader plot and worldbuilding are light at this stage of Early Access, and may shine more in the future.
Hotel Galactic’s hand‑painted, Ghibli‑inflected 2.5D “storybook” presentation is nice, even if it feels like something not quite Ghibliesque. It offers warm watercolour palettes, whimsical species and sliced‑open diorama rooms that make building feel like arranging a living dollhouse. Modular construction enables expressive, asymmetrical layouts and thematic wings, and tiny flourishes sell the place as a real, lived‑in hotel in a fantasy realm. That said, the UX isn’t as magical: camera and zoom ranges feel fidgety, conversation angles can lurch, and panning a large build brings microstutters and occasional FPS dips.
In terms of audio, Hotel Galactic’s core leans gentle and star‑lit, a nostalgic hum that settles into the game’s slower cadence without feeling obscure and forgettable. Although few if any of the tracks will stick in your head, the overall mood-setting is excellent. The musical backing is complemented by every major NPC being voiced with personality.. Whimsical effects – clinks, chimes, and cozy room cues – round out the soundscape. However, there were a few notable instances of desyncing, and occasional bits of audio that would benefit from another pass in the future.
Hotel Galactic mixes hotel management with colony‑sim craftwork: you harvest and refine resources, craft almost every fixture, research to unlock rooms and systems, decorate to guest tastes, and lay out corridors for clean worker/guest flow. Room construction is direct yet exudes those comfy vibes – you pick a room, place it, and the staff assemble it. The tempo is intentionally unhurried: actions resolve in multi‑stage tasks, even at 2× speed, and progress comes from incremental pipeline upgrades. The upshot is a cozy, tinkery loop; the trade‑off is a noticeable pull toward resource chains that can blur the fantasy of running a hospitality show as you craft your way to obtaining new resources, furniture and more.
As complexity rises, manual oversight becomes the norm. Worker priorities and roles need frequent tuning, with staff sometimes ‘claiming’ jobs from across the hotel, competing over the same task, or treating ingredient prep as separate from cooking, leading to stalls unless you intervene or drag characters into place. Early quests, meanwhile, occasionally under‑explain next steps, the story tutorial pauses momentum with frequent stoppages, and Sandbox arrives with minimal onboarding. Some stuff can be overcome, while others are less so.
Cooking in particular leans into a tactile mini‑game: you physically drag ingredients onto boards, ovens, and the big cauldron to assemble recipes or invent custom dishes. At its best, it’s playful and thematic – giving the kitchen its rhythm and a sense of authorship – but quirks in how automation is handled can confuse worker priorities and stall orders, and Early Access bugs crop up here too, from stuck prep/dish icons when diners leave to miscounted quest items and occasional UI hiccups. More broadly, the current Early Access build is lively but fragile: issues reported include research that refuses to start, quest counters with errors, tools and objects desyncing or auto‑crating, workers wedging into geometry, and UI elements that only appear after reopening panels – up to some more game-breaking bugs. It has been a rocky start, and Hotel Galactic could have benefited from an additional month or two of thorough testing before entering early access. However, at least patches have been rolled out semi-regularly, and the development team has been providing weekly updates post-launch.
Given how many games now trade on Studio Ghibli inspiration – and with this one carrying Kickstarter‑backed ambition and a $50.95 AUD Early Access price – Hotel Galactic earns attention on craft alone: storybook visuals, a cozy score, and a likeable cast. Yet in its debut act, it feels a bit rushed out, and needed more time in the oven so audiences’ post-launch impressions, even if based on an Early Access title, would be stronger. If you relish tinkering and don’t mind pitching in during EA, it’s a charming, if janky, stay worth checking into now. Otherwise, it may be worth adding to a wishlist and revisiting after more acts, optimisation passes, and a few hefty patches bring the experience in line with the asking price.
Final Score for Hotel Galactic’s Initial Early Access Release
Hotel Galactic is now available on PC via Steam as an early access title. A digital review code was provided by Ancient Forge to facilitate this review.
