Am I dumb or is it only around 45 minutes gameplay?

This is the original game in a now very large series of hidden object games (see: https://allaboutcasualgames.com/series/haunted-hotel) and with this first release of the series had not yet found its potential. The series started picking up to be worthwhile for playing in the 4th game called Haunted Hotel: Charles Dexter Ward which would be the one to first try if you want to see if you like this genre and series or not.

Is it this game on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/533030/Haunted_Hotel/ ?

Haunted Hotel:

In Brief:
This is original Haunted Hotel HOG with mini games that was released almost fourteen years ago (March 2008). There are at least 20 in the series now, the last one being released last June 2021, and were created by Elephant Games. You can find the whole series HERE.

You can see a video of game play HERE (with 20 in the series I found it difficult to find even one video of the first one, so have only posted one link.

Introduction:
After crashing his car on the side of the road, a bewildered traveler finds himself checking in to the Haunted Hotel! In Haunted Hotel, you must explore frightful floors full of spooky rooms to find Hidden Objects in creepy crevices. Immerse yourself in a thrilling adventure full of mysterious mini-games and exciting Hidden Object game play!

Reference accessed HERE 8th Jan 2022.

The Game:
As a concept, a hidden object game set in a spooky old hotel is just oozing with potential – after all, not that many casual games have chosen to explore slightly darker subject matter like horror and the supernatural (At least when this game was released and when Erin wrote the review; now there are a plethora of such games; with the majority of HOG's having a supernatural theme running through them). It’s the spectacular failure to deliver on such potential, however, that makes Haunted Hotel all the more frustrating.

During the typical "dark and stormy night," a man crashes his car along a country road. Walking to find help, he comes upon a hotel that seems strangely deserted. He takes the elevator up to one of the floors to investigate, but when he tries to return to the lobby he finds that the elevator has a mind of its own. He becomes trapped in the hotel, which exhibits bizarre characteristics like frost lining the walls, plants growing out of picture frames, women screaming from behind closed doors, and a strangely nonchalant cat roaming the halls.

Given no choice, the man continues to explore the hotel in the hope of finding clues that will unravel the mystery and allow him to escape. This involves visiting various hotel rooms and searching for the items on a list, such as a vinyl record, warning sign, loudspeaker, and so on. Once all of the required items have been found, you’ll get to complete a mini-game that involves catching balls of energy as they zip across the screen in order to restore power to the elevator and move to the next floor.

You’re given a limited number of hints to use if you get stuck, and can uncover more hints and add extra time to the clock by finding bonus items that appear on the list only in silhouette. There are a handful of other mini-games as well, including fitting together a jigsaw puzzle, untangling ropes, and catching letters with a magnet to form a given word.

The game does contain the kernels of an intriguing mystery/thriller, but any attempts to establish a sustained compelling atmosphere are hamstrung by amateurish production values. Poor localization into English hampers the game on many levels, from menu headings like "Total Energy Catched" to strange labelling of hidden objects; for example, using the obscure word "timbrel" where the more modern "tambourine" would have worked just fine.

Nowhere does the language issue impact the game more strongly than in the story. The plot does have its moments, but it’s so rife with rudimentary sentences, missing words, illogical tense shifts and numerous grammatical errors that it reads like a 12-year-old’s creative writing assignment.

The graphics don’t do the story justice either. Fantastical descriptions of trees growing out of paintings, frost collecting on the walls, and other strange occurrences are not reflected in the bare, yellowing and nondescript walls that you’ll actually navigate.

What’s more, the narrative itself is illustrated with images that look like preliminary character sketches that were never developed into full-fledged pictures. A hand-drawn art style can be wonderful if the proper care is taken, but pencil scrawls on a brown background just didn’t do it for me.

While those are Haunted Hotel‘s worst offenses, there are other issues worth mentioning. The game audio does have its creepy moments, but it seems to be engineered poorly with noticeable pops and hiccups. There are inexplicable delays when entering new rooms, and sometimes you’ll find yourself re-reading the same text – especially if you resume a saved game from the main menu.

Somewhere within Haunted Hotel is a good game waiting to get out, but this rushed and sloppy effort could have used a few more months of fine-tweaking before it was released to the game-buying public.

Review accessed HERE ; originally posted by Erin Bell on Mar 8th 2008 then reposted by Whiterabbit-uk 8th January 2022

Conclusion:
The following conclusions were posted by Erin Bell (see reference above at the end of the game section). The game had an Interesting premise, with some decent narrative at times; however, the graphics were lack lustre with technical gaffes and poor English.

Although my impression from the review written by Erin above, and from other comments I've read; most players found the first game in the Haunted Hotel series boring; but I've also read that as you progress through the 20 game sin the series, they ge tmuch better.

Also, considering Hidden Object games for me are one genre I tend to ignore these days, partly becasue at one point when I had a subscription to Big Fish Games (BFG) for a few years; virtually every new game was either a Time Management game (which, apart from some of the early Farm Frenzy games I abhor), and Hidden Object games. In fact the majority of the 500 plus games released on BFG over that period were HOG's and I hardly spent any of my montly tickets for games over that period, accumulating almost 20 spare ticekts, which I then ended up wasting on games that I wasn't that into when I decided to cancel my subscription..

The early HOG's that I purchased to play with my then young children, such as the I Spy series were excellent, but over time I became bored with the genre. All that said, I actually enjoyed playing the first several HOG scenes and the memory mini games in todays giveaway. Considering the game is now almost fourteen years old, It still looks decent and has a shop where you can purchase various items for the character that you are supposed to be playing. using the cash you earn by completing levels and mini games .

Some of the hidden objects are more country based with respect to the name of the object, so some regions may initially have difficulty knowing what some items are, but if you are really stuck, the hint button regenerats reasonably fast.

Notes on Security
To be added later