Hotel Mario is a puzzle/platformer game who takes place in hotels. The general goal in each stage is to close all the doors on every floor. However, various enemies will interfere and reopen them at times. Elevators are needed to travel between floors. The first six hotels have ten stages, whilst the seventh has fifteen. The game had low sales partially due to a lack of interest in the CD-i system, and received mainly poor reviews.

Bowser and his seven Koopaling children have taken over the Mushroom Kingdom, where they've claimed seven Koopa hotels and have kidnapped the princess, hiding her in one of them. After Mario and Luigi are informed of this, they set out to rescue her.