Hotel Dusk: Room 215

Hotel Dusk is a detective novel in a DS game card. As ex-cop and main character Kyle Hyde, you'll walk around a 3d-rendered hotel, looking for clues, interviewing guests, and solving puzzles to unravel the riddles around the mysteries around the enigmas. The plot involves not just a mission from Hyde's current employer, and not just peculiar hotel guests, but Hyde's old partner and a raw deal from his past on the force.

I've only finished Chapter 1 so far, so the mind-bending is pretty simple. But I did manage to get a game over already! One of the neat things about Hotel Dusk is the choose-your-own-adventure inspired narrative. For the most part your decisions will just alter some dialog, but if you make a bad one you'll end up being kicked out of the hotel and staring at a Game Over screen. Of course you can go back to where you made the mistake and try it again, but it bolsters the importance of saying the right things and asking the right questions.

The dialog so far is really well written, and though I've barely met a few of the hotel's cast of characters, they're all shaping up well. There's a little girl, staying with her father, who doesn't know where her mother is; a woman who talks hardball, but gets nervous at the mention of police; a sophisticated author who gets a little too wrapped up in his reading; even a bellboy from Kyle's time on the beat who has a few secrets of his own. It's not just what they say, either - everyone's manner of speaking and vocabulary is precise, and intentional. The scripting is excellent.

I haven't been blown away yet, but the remainder of the game shows tremendous promise.

Progress: Chapter 2