Haunted Domains

Haunted Domains.

In the time management genre we've had our fair share of trendy themes: fashion games, farming games and building simulations to name a few. Alawar's Haunted Domains shares a lot in common with a title like PlayFirst's Hotel Dash with a spooky twist.

The game's heroine, Sheila, runs into trouble when her dog is turned into a chest by Dracula. Sheila agrees to help Drac by running a few hotels and revamping an old boarding house to get her beloved dog back.

The game offers 50 levels in two grades of difficulty, as well as the usual endless shift mode. It's worth noting that even the more challenging level of difficulty will not exactly overwhelm veterans of this genre, and the endless shift provides no additional features, surprises or guests. It still astounds me that most developers do not put any thought into these secondary modes, because they could offer so much more gameplay by just a few additional features.

Haunted Domain features a lot of quirky customers, all with their very own traits which you have to consider. The headless man comes with a second luggage; the witch bring along a cute kitten that Sheila has to catch on a regular basis; the invisible man likes to prove his exhibitionist habits to other customers (although there is not much to see, thankfully), and Dracula might be one of the most demanding guests ever, overwhelming Sheila with a large number of impatient orders.

Your basic task each day is to earn money, which can be done by serving guests, chaining similar actions, and color-matching guests and rooms. The demands of your guests are quite varied: sometimes they might order meals, wine, perfume, or books, while Sheila also has to deliver luggage and cash out guests, too.

It's worth noting that every customer has a set order of demands, so that you can plan chaining in advance, if your memory serves you well. Games related and similar to Haunted Domains include games containing action, arcade, games of the fun genre, games containing magical, night games, all of them and Haunted Domains itself are available for download from The Game Album.