Hot Springs Story Layouts: Improved Based on Popular Layouts

Intro

Began: 2 years ago
Love: Pixel art style, attention to detail, content, control, world.
Comment: The company's games truly follow guidelines set up in its first game Game Dev Story!

About this Build

This layout is intended for the first playthrough in which Large Baths are available before the game ends, and sets us up for the future games. At the end of the game, your two Large Baths will:

1) Have the most effects it can carry over to the next game - see below.
2) Have some of the difficult-to-obtain effects - ones that require a large amount of space.
3) Emphasize Large Male Bath quality because:
        a) Chimpan Z and Kairobot, the hard-to-satisfy characters, are male.
        b) Female baths are easier to upgrade in each game, with less space requirements for more effects and Milk for extra Spa each game.
4) Maximize surrounding room bonuses with spread-out shops/facilities
5) Minimize spa-goer walking time to shops/facilities/baths.

Effects to be carried over at the end of the game:

Large Male Bath (+6)
+1 Senior (Jacuzzi; 2 stone, 1 vending )
+2 Youth (In-Crowd; 4 souv, 4 azalea )
+1 Adult, Senior (Forever Young; 2 fortune, 2 plum, 1 pond )
+2 Male (Springerade; 4 cafe, 4 vending, 2 bamboo )

Large Female Bath (+8)
+2 Senior (Jacuzzi; 4 stone, 2 vending )
+2 Women (Silky Smooth; 2 salon, 2 azalea, 2 stone, includes + milk )
+2 Groups (Fast Friends; 4 karaoke, 2 pingpong )
+1 Youth (In-Crowd; 2 souv, 2 azalea )
+1 Adult, Senior (Forever Young; 2 fortune, 2 plum, 1 pond  )

Fame Pill adds 3 additional effects, depending on which bath you use it on (not included above).

These screenshots aren't completely accurate / final products. There needs to be an extra Karaoke room, and some other things. See the diagram below for a more accurate diagram.

Most Updated Diagram - Fixed some errors. 5/1/2013

* Four souvenir stands in a row. If you want people to access the two in the middle, read Shops and Facilities below. Maintenance isn't high for two inaccessible stands, and you can make much more use of an entire row of path space to make money back. If this bothers you like it initially bothered me, just think of it as a very large souvenir store. ; )

** Flexible - Start the road right outside the cafe and souv. stands or boost their satisfaction by adding scenery. Since the rooms are directly opposite the path above, I emphasized quality of visit over quantity of visits here.

! Move scenery around any of the free spaces on respective sides of the two rows between the baths.

*** Ping pong rooms stick out like the souvenir stands stick out.

**** Optionally add inaccessible facilities in the free spaces to boost effects before the end of the game.


Where most layouts position similar facilities and stores right next to each other, I position mine apart from each other to allow spa-goers to walk the shortest path to their desired destination. 

I chose this slightly awkward build so that I wouldn't have to worry about squeezing 6 souvenir stands and 4 ping pong tables into my builds in later games. With some luck, the Fame Seed would make it easier for me to max my facilities (to be honest, I may not get around to future games, but I like to be prepared ^^ ).

Entrances and Rooms

I made a impromptu layout to demonstrate the logic behind my placements. For the second diagram at the bottom, grey arrows show people checking into their rooms. Teal arrows show them walking to facilities. This layout minimizes the time it takes for people to walk to their rooms and then to facilities. This usually generally allows late-comers to visit at least one facility before going to bed, increasing the rate of satisfaction and income by a lot over the course of the entire game.

Chimpan Z and Kairobot: I personally opt for quality over quantity. I tweaked the townhouse-style rooms many popular layouts use - the top right western room was where both Chimpan Z and Kairobot stayed. I boosted the Large Men's bath and surrounding facilities with a bit of popularity seeds and I was able to pass. 

At the start of the game, I carefully counted out the location of where I'll be placing my baths, so that I wouldn't have to waste money later rebuilding everything. The receptionist has only been shifted back a tile or two after I unlocked it to make room for the Men's cafes. 

The placement of scenery helps direct where people stay. If you want people to prioritize areas near baths for easier access, place your best scenery items near rooms there. This ensures that people won't leave rooms there empty and opt for an obscure corner room (as with the bamboo and rock above).

Green knobs show bath entrances. Spa-goers don't have to walk far between shop/facility visits, allowing for them to visit more places before going to bed (or going broke... I always feel bad when old couples go broke. Hope social security works in their world TT ).

Other Shops and Facilities

I began to build the Large Baths area after I purchased all the land deeds, made enough money, and unlocked enough shops/facilities. But I began with normal baths (below). Having rooms place directly before bath entrances maximizes satisfaction and income from spa-goers living there. After some deliberation, I decided I would rather have two inaccessible souvenir stands than forsake this row of rooms.

The bottom cluster of baths were the ones I used at the beginning of the game.  

The only changes I made after building the large baths was remove some facilities that gave effects to the smaller women's bath. However, having the souvenir stands placed right above gave both baths the Youth Up effect! This way, we make the most of the large stands.

Effects on smaller baths:

Women's Bath

+2 Senior

+1 Adult

+3 Women (with Milk)

+1 Youth

Men's Bath

+2 Senior

+1 Adults

+2 Men

In the top left corner, I added a men's bath since the male baths were least accessible there. 

I chose to maximize the number of effects, since I couldn't control who would visit which bath anyway, instead of target just one age group.

Improve this Build!

Have a better layout? Think you can improve this one? This is a copy of the spreadsheet I used to create this build - you may use it to plan your own layout and share with everyone!

Some sources I used to give me ideas for my personal build:

GameFAQs : Most complete guide I've come across to date. Has easy-to-ctrl-f format all on one page. Has some good layout ideas.
Videogameholic : Has layouts only. Liked this cause it has screenshots from actual game.