Hotel Mario - Points System

A common system seen throughout 2D Mario titles are points and high scores. Stomping on enemies and grabbing items awards Mario (or Luigi, or whoever you play as) with a set amount of points. Sometimes, these scores are saved on the cartridge or system memory, allowing you to see who has earned the most points in the game. Hotel Mario has both of these systems!

However, the points system of Hotel Mario might be one of the least documented points systems within the 2D Mario series. Most of the other 2D titles have had their amounts documented and catalogued, whether on a GameFAQs guide or on their respective MarioWiki page. And yet, despite being over 30 years old, Hotel Mario has never gotten this opportunity. I could find no record of its points system, whether online or in a contemporary CD-i magazine - and that's not getting into its (borderline esoteric) bonus points system.

I suppose it's my time to shine once again. Here's everything you need to know about points in Hotel Mario!

Sections:

Timers, Doors, and Items -- Enemies and Bosses -- The Ongoing BONUS! Mystery

Timer, Doors, and Items

Timer Multipliers

Every hotel has a set of two multipliers that are used to calculate the points given by the timer. There is the Regular Multiplier used throughout Stages 1 to 9 (or Stages 1 to 14 for Bowser's hotel), and there is the Boss Multiplier used on the hotels' last stages (apart from Bowser's, which skips the timer results screen entirely!). The boss multipliers are often ten points higher than the regular one, matching the regular multiplier of the next hotel.
The sets are as follows:

Hotel	Regular	Boss
Morton's	10 per unit	20 per unit
Roy's	20 per unit	30 per unit
Larry's	30 per unit	40 per unit
Lemmy's	40 per unit	50 per unit
Ludwig's	50 per unit	70 per unit
Wendy's	70 per unit	80 per unit
Bowser's	80 per unit	N/A

NOTES:
The hotels with two-parter stages (Wendy's and Bowser's) only use the time remaining in the second half, and do NOT add in the time from the first half.
As you've probably noticed, Ludwig's multipliers differ by 20 instead of the usual 10, and there is no hotel with a 60 point multiplier. These likely stem from the removal of Iggy's hotel.

Doors

Doors give 50 points when closed, but only if they're 1) already open at the start of the stage, and/or 2) opened by an enemy mid-stage.

Items

Item	Points
Coin	100
Rainbow Coin	1000
Super Mushroom	250
Fire Flower	500
Toad	750
Starman	500

NOTE: Items do not give points if they are collected inside doors.

Enemies and Bosses

Enemy names are taken from the enclosed instruction book of Hotel Mario, which is why some enemies (like Dry Bones) have odd names.

Enemy	Points
Banzai Bill	500
Bellhop Goomba	400
Buzzy Beetle (regular)	300
Buzzy Beetle (snow)	150
Flying Goomba	300
Flying Koopa	400
Goomba	50
Koopa (green) Candle Koopa	100
Koopa (red)	200
Mechakoopa (Fireball only)	500
Mini Ninja	200
Monty Mole	300
Pat the Bat	400
Penny	100
Rhinestone Goomba	350
Skeleton Koopa (Fireball only)	500
Spiny (Fireball only)	300
Wendy's Hearts (Fireball only)	10
Wendy's Kisses (Fireball only)	10
Wiggler (segment 1 to 3)	100
Wiggler (final segment)	200
Wiggler (with Fireballs)	500
Z Koopa	500

NOTES:
Enemy points do not increase with successive stomps, like other Mario platformers.
Parabombs, Fireballs, the Koopalings, and Bowser do not give any points when defeated.
Enemies do not give points if they are blown up by Parabombs.
Clouds, Boo Buddies, and Big Boos cannot be harmed, let alone defeated.

The Ongoing BONUS! Mystery

If you've ever beaten a stage in Hotel Mario, you may been given a bonus for it:

The enclosed instruction book notes that these points can be earned by "completing levels in special ways", but it doesn't go into any more detail. It doesn't tell you when the game decides to give the bonus, or how much it'll give you. What's up with this system? When does it award the player? Is there a way to trigger the highest bonus amounts consistently?
Well, I've got some good news and some bad news about my findings.

The good news is that I've figured out the exact amounts that the system will give to a player. The bad news is that I have absolutely no idea how the system determines when it gives out a bonus, or decides to multiply it for that matter. And I don't have the coding knowledge needed to crack open Hotel Mario and figure this out. In any case, I hope my limited information is enough to help you in some way.

Without further ado, here's what I've gathered about Hotel Mario's bonus point system:

Every bonus starts from a base of 5,000 points, which is then multiplied by whatever number the current hotel is. So, this would be:

Morton: 5,000 x 1 = 5,000
Roy: 5,000 x 2 = 10,000
Larry: 5,000 x 3 = 15,000
Lemmy: 5,000 x 4 = 20,000
Ludwig: 5,000 x 5 = 25,000
Wendy: 5,000 x 7 = 35,000
Bowser: 5,000 x 8 = 40,000
(Notice the complete lack of a hotel with a 30,000 point base or a 6x multiplier. Iggy's cut hotel strikes again!)

The bonus runs off the regular/boss pattern of the timer multipliers, meaning that the boss of a hotel will have a base bonus amount equal to the regular base bonus amount of the next hotel. For example, Roy's boss stage gives a bonus of 15,000 instead of 10,000.
A bonus can be multipled twice, thrice, or even four times(!) through unknown methods. The theoretical highest bonus would be a 160,000 point bonus in Bowser's hotel.
It appears that the initial bonus base is earned by the player through defeating every enemy in the level, including the ones that pop out of doors later in the level. This is the finding I'm the least certain about.

Do note that these are merely observations and hypotheses. There's a good chance that there's more waiting to be discovered, or sections that need corrected.
If anyone has more knowledge of Hotel Mario's bonus points system - whether through gameplay or datamining - I'd appreciate it if you told me about its inner workings.

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Last updated: July 14th, 2025.