"Hotel 626 is a strange beast. Now forgotten to the world of YouTube walkthroughs and only known by those who were curious enough to give it a go, the online horror experience was something entirely unique to the ever growing generation of internet dwellers when it first appeared in 2008. Utilising a range of invasive technology tricks, Hotel 626 prided itself on creating an atmosphere that wasn't confined simply to the screen - bringing your own phone, webcam, and microphone into the mix to make something truly unpredictable.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the game though is that it was built entirely on the back of a marketing stunt, by none other than the crisp powerhouse themselves - Doritos. Bringing the Black Pepper Jack and Smokin' Cheddar BBQ flavours 'back from the dead', the promotional packs advertised a mysterious website listed as www.hotel626.com, titled for its access hours of 6pm to 6am everyday. [...]

So what was so special about it?

Hotel 626 was a genuinely inventive little horror game, especially for a simple flash player effort, bringing together cinematic-quality cutscenes with fourth-wall breaking interaction. The premise is simple: you wake up in bed at 2:00am and have to escape a haunted hotel, traversing through different rooms filled with monstrous inhabitants. Playing in first person, you're constantly faced with an impending, tentacle-like darkness creeping in, forcing you to run wherever the hotel dictates you to. [..] If all that wasn't enough, entering your phone details results in a real-life call to tell you exactly how to escape. But as many players soon found out, that wasn't exactly the end of it - the game would call you at a later date to tell you that you never really left the hotel, and that there's no real escape from its horrors. If anything was enough to make you shut your laptop and never mess with the internet again, this was definitely it." - whatculture.com