Madrid, Jan 2023
Bites Motel makes an impression as soon as you arrive – few games blur the line between outside and inside, between lobby and game space, quite as effectively as this one. We arrived by foot in a sunny Madrid suburb, but once inside we were in a world where we’d driven up to a rundown motel late in the evening in a remote corner of the US.
Bites Motel is of course based on the movie Psycho, and our host introduced himself as Norman, launching the story and the immersion right from the start. You could say it’s like walking into the movie, except that this version seemed a lot more colourful than the black-and-white film – figuratively as well as literally.
Being based on an exceedingly famous horror movie, Bites Motel is of course a scary game. However, I thought it mostly aimed for being creepy and nerve-inducing, mixed with plenty of macabre humour, rather than attempting to terrify you. Horror games often have fewer puzzles, since frightened players solve more slowly, but that’s not the case here – there’s a great deal to do, and each time we thought we were nearing the end it turned out there was more, and then more again. It goes without saying that the puzzles were of a very high standard, smart and varied, using the setting in inventive and often physical ways.
I did feel at points that our host was a little too fast to give hints. However, the nature of the game and his role in it made it nicely ambiguous what was help from the host and what was in-character role-playing. Hosting is always made trickier by a language barrier too, and although our host spoke English well, that likely made it trickier to follow our discussions and intervene effectively.
Bites Motel wears its quality on its sleeve. It’s one of those TERPECA-winning games that’s just on another level as far as set, size and spectacle are concerned, that demonstrates just how advanced top games can be. 
