Hotel Dusk: Room 215 review

In the text-based adventure game, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, you play as Kyle Hyde, an ex-cop from New York who's still looking for answers about his partner who disappeared three years ago. Kyle, now living in LA, works as a salesman, and is sent to Hotel Dusk on a mysterious sales job.

From the moment you check in, eerie reminders of your old partner start to pop up, and you must unravel each of the guests' secrets to solve the mystery of his disappearance. You only have ten hours to solve the mystery, and each hour is divided into a different chapter in the game.

Above: Kyle shot his partner, Bradley, three years ago, but the body was never found

Being a text-based adventure, the main bulk of the game is dialogue. This may sound like a snooze, and you may envision yourself tapping the stylus through long chunks of text, but Hotel Dusk keeps you on your toes at all times. Ask the maid too many suspicious questions and she'll think you're a reporter, toss you out on the street, and it's Game Over for you and your mysterious search. Ifa conversation with the rich kid goes the wrong way, he'll freak out so badly that'll you'll be forced to give up, and it's Game Over again.

This may sound annoying, but once you get to know each of the characters' personalities, you'll begin to form intuitions about how to speak to them. You'll know which questions or responses might make them more liable to talk, which will make them clam up, or even set them into a rage. The game is so well-written, and the dialogue is so natural, that it feels more like interacting with real people at times than following prompts in a game.