three Legend of Zelda games as well as Hotel Mario. Another Mario game, Super Mario's Wacky Worlds, was canceled at the prototype stage. According to Stephen Radosh, Nintendo's only involvment in the development was ensuring that the source material was faithful to the Mario series. Nintendo was reported to be pleased with the finish project and Radosh stated that there were rumors that Nintendo considered bringing the game to their own platforms. Hotel Mario was developed by Fantasy Factory. The developers and testers tended to be older in age; in an interview with The Black Moon Project, background artist Trici Venola noted one tester was "well past retirement". Since the target audience of children would have faster reflexes, the game was designed to play well for the testers, then sped up. Hotel Mario uses FMV cutscenes to tell its story. Feeling an early version was "mechanical" and "visually no fun", Venola and art director Jeff Zoern used elements from Disney and J. R. R. Tolkien to enhance the visual style. Illustrations of the stages were composed of several blocks, each with one detail. The first item Venola created for all hotels was the door. Each building took a week to complete and was designed with a specific theme; for instance, Bowser's hotel uses a gothic design. For voice acting, Marc Graue provided the voices of the Mario Brothers and Bowser, while Princess Peach was voiced by Jocelyn Benford. Grau was hired through an agency, while Benford was recommended by an employee of Phillips Media. She would later marry Michael Ahn, who was one of the producers of Hotel Mario. Initially, jumping was not going to be a feature of Hotel Mario. According to Stephen Radosh in an interview with Samuel Clemens, jumping was added after a suggestion from Hollie Lohff. She was the daughter of one of the engineers, Thomas Lohff. She played Hotel Mario before its release, and criticized it for not allowing jumping like previous Mario games did. Reception Hotel Mario initially received mixed reviews. Electronic Gaming Monthly praised its gameplay as simple yet addictive. GamePro said the game was fun but quickly grew boring, and stated "the only intriguing aspects of this game are the well-fashioned animated sequences". Video Games: The Ultimate Gaming Magazine gave the game 7 out of 10, but acknowledged its difficulty. Spanish magazine Superjuegos praised the game's simple mechanics, and recommended the game