The surreal hotel in The Norwood Suite has been one of my favourite video game places to explore this year. When I last wrote about it, I tried to avoid saying too much because surprises like a man boogying in a Godzilla city in a hotel room are best discovered for oneself. Evidently I have abandoned subtlety. Like creator Cosmo D’s Off Peak before, The Norwood Suite is great and woe betide anyone who tries to talk to me about game worlds in a pub without playing it. It now has a demo so get cracking.

The setup: Sent to the Hotel Norwood on a covert mission, we’re assumed to be staff and slip into the lives of its staff, guests, and residents. It was once the home of an acclaimed composer and his legacy is all over — and inside — its walls. We meet strange people, explore surreal places, and help people out with light first-person adventure-puzzling. It’s a wonderfully strange space to explore, houses some good stories, and has a cracking soundtrack from Cosmo D too. Sound and vision come together so well.

You can download the demo through Steam and from Itch. Saves carry over to the full version, if you buy it. The demo offers twenty minutes of play and yes, the tutorial-y start is slow but stick with it.

The Norwood Suite is on sale right now too, down to £5.59/€7.99/$7.99.

Since I already wrote a bit about The Norwood Suite, rather than repeat myself I’ll simply show you a few of the good books I snapped while playing:

Good books.