Hotel Dusk: Room 215

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

I got myself a paper clip.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (Wish Room: Angel's Memory in Japan) is an Adventure Game for the Nintendo DS. In it you play as an ex-cop, Kyle Hyde, who arrives in a small hotel in the middle of nowhere -- the eponymous Hotel Dusk. Kyle left the force after shooting Brian Bradley, his former partner who betrayed him and joined a criminal syndicate. Bradley's body was never found, but Kyle is sure that Bradley is alive and is searching for him, hoping to understand what happened.

Kyle soon runs into the staff and residents of the hotel. There's the initially bratty kid with her father, an old lady who wears an eye patch, a girl wearing white who doesn't speak, and many others. All have tragic secrets hidden in their pasts, which is not a surprise in a game like this, and these secrets start to lead Kyle closer to finding Bradley.

The game can be played almost entirely with the touch-screen of the DS and, in some of the puzzles you have to solve, uses some of the more unconventional abilities of the machine (remember that puzzle in Phantom Hourglass that took you an hour to solve? Hotel Dusk did it first, and twice). You move around the hotel as Kyle, pick up things and speak with other characters, asking them questions. The game is divided into ten chapters, each culminating in interrogation of one of the characters. A game over can result by asking the wrong questions or by being caught doing something you shouldn't do. (It is a hotel, so you shouldn't wander around in the kitchen or other areas marked 'Staff Only', but usually this just gets you some angry looks. Lucky you.)

Visually, backgrounds are in 3D and fully coloured, but the characters are in 2D and most of the time black and white. There is no voice-acting, but background music is on most of time and different characters and situations have their own theme-tunes.

A sequel was released in early 2010 titled Last Window: Midnight Promise, again featuring Kyle, now in Los Angeles in 1980.

The Another Code series takes place in the same universe, twenty-five years later.

Tropes used in Hotel Dusk: Room 215 include:

Hotel Dusk contains examples of:

  • Ambiguously Brown: Well, there's a lot of debate on Rosa's ethnicity.
  • Amoral Attorney: Larry Damon.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Bradley's sister was murdered by Mila's father, who has been killed by Bradley in return. Bradley is being chased by Nile. Grace is still missing, and nobody has any idea how to find her. Alan is still missing, and nobody has any idea where he is. While at first this seems like a full-on Downer Ending, the game still ends on a positive note with Kyle and Mila leaving to restart their lives, Jenny being returned to Dunning, and, quite simply, all the characters being ready to take on whatever else the world throws at them.
  • Butt Monkey: Louis - the poor guy just kind of gets bitchslapped by life, again and again.
  • Collector of the Strange: Rosa, who collects famous people's autographs.
  • Creepy Basement: The hotel has one.
  • Cute Mute: Mila, until the end.
  • Dead Artists Are Better: Osterzone.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: In one of the Nonstandard Game Overs, Dunning cheers up a depressed Kyle by offering to get drunk with him. It's a Game Over because Kyle is too busy getting drunk to get anything done for the rest of the night.
  • Event Flag: The game leads you to believe you have to figure out a way of the Creepy Basement, but actually, you're saved because decoding a message triggers Louie helping you out.
  • The Faceless: Ed's eyes are never shown.
  • Glasses Pull: Martin does this when his facade starts crumbling.
  • Grievous Bottley Harm: Dunning KOs Kyle and Louie this way at the end of Chapter 9.
  • Guide Dang It: Good luck getting that secret item from the vending machine without using one.
  • Ironic Nickname: Each room in Hotel Dusk has a nickname. By extreme coincidence, each guest on the day that Kyle stays at the hotel is in the room with a name that describes the particular virtue he or she is lacking.
    • Martin Summer is in "Honor". He stole his best friend's manuscript, his dream, to become famous.
    • Jeff Angel is in "Trust". He does not trust his father, who has ties to Nile, to the point of refusing to use the old man's surname.
    • Helen Parker is in "Angel". She does not view herself this way: She is eaten by guilt over having walked out on her family.
    • Kevin Woodward is in "Courage". His cowardice is why his wife left him. When his wife somehow managed to raise enough money to pay off a malpractice suit, he was afraid of how she may have gotten that money, and couldn't leave it alone, even when she told him never to ask about it.
    • Iris is in "Success". After her mother died, she never really got much of a successful job, or had much of a life, to the point of being ashamed when her sister, who had become far more successful, met up with her again.
    • Even the empty rooms have appropriately ironic names:
      • Room 218, where Melissa gets trapped, drops into a blackout. It's called "Daybreak".
      • Room 217, where Bradley once stayed, is named "Prayer". Aside from "Angel", there's no name more fitting for the room where Bradley left "Angel Opening A Door" behind.
        • Also ironic to his situation. His little sister Mila dead, having killed (other) Mila's father, being chased by Nile, being chased by police, having his cop partner hate him, etc. As one person put it, he's beyond "Prayer" now.
  • I Should Write a Book About This: Martin decides to write a book based on Kyle at the end of the game. Kyle is less than enthusiastic about it.
  • I Was Quite a Looker: Rosa.
  • Jerkass: Kyle Hyde. Though he softens up a bit as he goes through the game. He's especially kind when talking to Helen Parker (because even he's not gonna be a jerk to an elderly woman) and Melissa (the poor kid has enough to deal with from her Jerkass father). Even when he's laying down some tough love on Jeff or shaking the truth out of Louie, it's ultimately for their own good (and obviously, his), and he knows it. He's not an asshole just for the sake of being one, he's more of a 'take your medicine dammit, you'll feel better, now stop whining!' guy.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kyle, again. Anyone who digs through a hotel storage room and decorates a Christmas tree just to cheer up a little girl who's had it rough... Yeah. That thing's 24 karats.
  • Kleptomaniac Hero: Though there are only two or three items you can pick up that aren't actually necessary.
    • Interestingly, you can get a Game Over if you show an item you stole from the hotel to Dunning or Rosa.
      • You don't even have to actually show it. At one point, you had better not have anything stolen in your inventory at all when you run into them, or it's an instant Nonstandard Game Over.
  • Lost Forever: The vending machine's bonus gift. Particularly annoying because you only get one chance to get it and the game doesn't tell you when that chance is.
  • Metaphor Is My Middle Name: At one point in the game, Kyle claims that "moderation" is his middle name.
  • Morality Pet: Melissa, Helen and Mila.
  • Mukokuseki: Oddly inverted. Most of the younger female characters have distinctly Japanese-looking facial features despite the game taking place in America and there being nothing to indicate any of them have any Asian heritage.
  • Mysterious Waif: Mila.
  • New Game+: With some slightly different dialogue, a different prize in the vending machine and the chance to find a bonus item near the end that adds a scene to the ending.
  • No-Tell Motel: The titular hotel.
  • Nonstandard Game Over: If you check too many items while locked up in a airtight room at one point in Chapter 10, Kyle will run out of oxygen and die. Interestingly, the Game Over screen still shows Kyle leaving the hotel. Also, if you lie to Summer in the bar at the beginning of Chapter 7, you'll get a very bizarre Game Over sequence.
    • There are also several non-confrontation points in each chapter where if you lie to someone, pester them, perform the wrong action, or act like a general jerk/creep, Dunning will give you heat and boot you out of the hotel or Kyle will spend the rest of the night brooding in his room. Thankfully, each one can be side-stepped by picking a neutral or apologetic conversation branch or just doing what the NPCs tell you to do.
  • The Plan: As revealed in a letter at the end of the game, Bradley set up almost all of the events in order for Kyle to solve the secrets plaguing the hotel and its guests and for Kyle to stop chasing Bradley.
  • Present Day Past: It's 1979, and Hyde has a digital pager. While early pagers were around in the late '70s, they were bulky, lacked digital displays, were very short-ranged, and generally weren't in use outside of hospitals and fire departments.
  • Private Detective: Kyle Hyde, who even speaks like a hard-boiled 1940s private eye despite the fact that the game is set during the late '70s.
    • Lampshaded by a few characters at different points in the story, who all call out Hyde on his out of date cop lingo ("Who talks like that anymore?"), generally as he gets ready to interrogate them.
  • Puzzle Reset: All puzzles have this feature. Doing it at one point in Chapter 9 will result in a Game Over.
  • The Reveal: Spoiler for Chapter 10: learning who Osterzone really is.
  • Running Gag: "Nice name, isn't it?"
  • Set Piece Puzzle: The game is full of these.
  • Sexy Secretary: Rachel.
  • Sidekick: Louis, sort of. While he's not following Kyle 24/7 like say, Maya Fey, he still calls Kyle his partner and he helps him out a lot.
  • Sitting on the Roof: Iris and Mila, at different points.
  • Sound Test: The jukebox in the bar.
  • Soup Cans: At one point, the plot only proceeds after you solve random puzzles in the bar (or check the jukebox, any two of the things will work).
    • Or the bottle of bourbon.
      • Later, Louis invites you to a quick bowling match and if you lose or give up, you have to keep trying again until you win. It makes a little more sense since it leads to you finding an item.
  • The Stinger: Finish the game without getting anyone angry on a New Game+, and you get an extra ending scene providing closure for two of the characters.
  • Timed Mission: At one point, you get locked in an airtight room and must find all the clues hidden in that room before you run out of oxygen and die.
  • Tough Act to Follow: In-universe example. Every novel Summer writes is worse than the one before. His only well-received book was actually stolen from his friend Alan.
  • Wasted Song: A few songs get played only once or twice, and the ending songs can't be heard on the jukebox unless you start a New Game+.
  • Wham! Line: "Osterzone is Dunning Smith".
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: After eating dinner, Kyle makes a dramatic face that makes it clear that that was the best steak ever. And then he does it again after dessert.
    • And once more, when he sips a bourbon at the bar.
    • Done again in Last Window whenever he dines at Lucky's Cafè. The way he sits and his expression make him look like he's reached nirvana.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl: Mila, possibly. At moments when coloring is added to the portraits, her hair has a light brown cast. The rest of the time, however, it appears white.
    • It's actually blonde in her cameo in Lost Window.
  • Woman in White: Mila.
  • You ALL Share My Story: Everyone in the hotel is related to Kyle's past in some way.
  • You Just Told Me: Almost word for word at the end of the game:

Kyle: It was the other Kyle Hyde. Wasn't it?
Dunning: Hey! Who told ya that?
Kyle: You did. Just now.

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