A beginner's guide to Hotel dusk speedrunning and trivia for everyone

Hello! Since no one has ever run this game, I think I might be of use here. I won't do a complete guide/walkthrough since isn't that necessary, but if you want me to do a guide step by step of some chapter, let me know. 

**Setting up the game**

First, if you've never played the game, do. Sit back and enjoy one of the best stories to ever unfold in a DS. Now take a look at this picture. 
[https://s18.postimg.org/qbbqcp2h5/Captura_de_pantalla_2017-06-01_20.59.38.png](https://postimg.org/image/p91ju5jnp/)

The first slot is a normal, not beaten game. The third one is a beaten game, and the second one as well. But the stars are in different positions, the second file being at the center and the third one more to the right. What I did was to beat the third file flawlessly (If someone doesn't know, when you beat the game without any game over, you get a special ending. That's what I did, and the star moved to the left. I don't know what causes this, because I never saw anything like that.

Why all this explanations about the stars? well, the stars allow you to pass conversations faster. The text speed in your first playthrough is awfully slow, and in the second one is a bit better. But we are interested in the third playthrough. That's when we can really fasten the text like we can in Cape West. We need this to be as efficient as possible.

**Now how do we speedrun and optimize this game?**

We need to beat the same file twice. We quickly pass the text by holding some direction on the d-pad or the a button while touching the bottom of the screen. Doing this saves you from tapping the screen or the button every time a sentence ends. This makes you stay in arkward positions for a long time, so it isnt bad to change positions every once in a while. 
Area in which the touch screen reacts: [https://s24.postimg.org/p49pqgz4l/Captura_de_pantalla_2017-06-01_21.57.25.png](https://postimg.org/image/rycv3x1ap/)

You can't press everywhere like you can in Last Window.

**The paperclip% run**
This also counts as the first part of the game, so I don't mind explaining.

You can skip the long intro scene with start, and Kyle will start talking. We use IGT, so we don't really know where the game starts to count, even though the rules state that time starts at opening the door. We enter the hotel and make the bell sound. Three taps with a good timing are more effective than mashing it. 
We talk to Dunning, ignore him about the Rosa thing and we register at the hotel. This puzzle doesn't have much to it, just move your touchpad up and down. We instantly go to the stairs and we face her puzzle. The way the puzzle pieces are scattered for you to complete the puzle are a bit random, so RNG is into consideration here. The best way to finish this quickly is to place the borders first, and know full well how the arrows move your pieces. 
We deal with the squirt and encounter Jeff. We say 'move it', we don't want his rich ass to bother us. Actually, getting to know him later saves time because the introduction is shorter. 
We unlock our door, enter, and try to open our suitcase with the old key. This puzzle is a tough one because the controls are as stiff as the key. We try to move the key in circles and after a bit of a struggle we break the key. I am yet to find a fast, consistent way to do this, but I don't know if it was meant to exist. 
Now the categories part ways: the paperclip runner goes to the nightstand, and gets the clip, while the any% runner ignores this false solution and walks towards the door to activate the next trigger. If you don't have a timer, what you do is to save and then load to check your time if you aren't using any timer or splitter.

Now that the first ten minutes of the run are covered, I'll try to fill you up with the **rest of advice** I can think of to keep in mind:

-In Hotel Dusk, you're not awarded for being ahead of the puzzles. What you see is what you get. So if you know the solution of a puzzle is to go to your room and grab a pencil (chapter 8), you can't do that beforehand, you'll lose time opening the suitcase and examining the pencil. You have to make Kyle think about the solution, only then it will work.

-This game is loaded with triggers. Moving is always a good sign. When you don't know what to do, move. This is usually useful when starting a chapter, walking forward makes you recieve that call you're waiting for. The most useful example of walking is when Jeff hides the cash in your room, you can examine the bathroom as soon as you enter your room, but the cutscente that lets you find the cash in the bath is triggered by walking a bit. 

-The stars and the Pinkie rabbit have no use, nor does changing your money into coins.

-There are what I call fast areas and slow areas, the latter being places like the kitchen or your room where you walk like you were stepping on honey. This is unavoidable most of the time, but know that when you try to get to the left corridor, the path through the kitchen is better because you don't have to open any doors. That is, if you come from the bar or the restaurant.

-In my opinion, English is the fastest language. I could be wrong and maybe the fastest is some other european language, but I doubt it. The beauty of the English translation lies in how much they say with few words.

-Giving a bad answer at the first interrogations doesn't make you lose the run, they will repeat that part instead, but that loses about five seconds. This, though, couldn't be the case when talking to Summer: if we fail in a red question in his final interrogation, we could make the point that he's a forger because of his handwriting. This could make the interrogation shorter, but it's up to further trial and error.

-Bowling is a hassle and my only advice is that you slowly but surely with the ball. We only need to take one round out of Louis to progress the story, so we try until we do, given that we can reset the game with the back arrow at the top left of the screen at any time. 

-REST. YOUR. HANDS. Seriously, this game tires you out when you skip dialogue after some time, unless you're playing in an emulator or something, which would be more comfortable. Close your DS and rest.
And if someone tells me that isn't optimal, he'd be right. And here are a pair of situations where you can close your console if your fingers are exhausted: 
   -When the clock pops up and the hour changes
   -When you enter in a room for the first time
   -When you have to actually close the DS (Waking up Mila, flipping the puzzle)
   -Saving when a chapter ends is a good way to rest too, and it makes segmentation way easier.

-Even if we beat the game multiple times, some text is bound to go as slow as it'd go in the first playthrough of the game. This usually happens when you're examining stuff, and it's unavoidable. If you wonder why the text speeds up sometimes, is because Kyle talks or thinks to himself. 

-Talking to people is kinda reactionary. As soon as you see the red button flash, you can go for it. The most optimal way, usually, is to talk to them as far as possible, but this doesn't matter if after the conversation you stay in the same spot.

-What about the UV light you need when you're locked in the basement? get outta here! what we do is flip the console a bit and we look as low as we can, if you look hard enough you can see the shape of the number. If you're playing on a computer, maybe you have to get on your knees and look up to the screen, or tilt it.

And this has been my first guide! I don't know if I did it right, but I hope this got someone interested. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me!

Japanese Item list guide and chapter use.

I have compiled a list for anyone wanting to play this game in Japanese hopefully it helps you you can use it any way you want, I may have missed some items or messed things up so please let me know so I can update things. Thank you and I really hope this helps any one, it also has the English names so if you just want the English item list and what chapter you use the items in hopefully this helps.

The English used is from the Pal game I don't know if the NA version uses different spellings and words, you do not have to play in Japanese and that may require a lot of memorization for options, that this item list cannot help with, but if any of you want to I hope it helps. :) 

A link for an orderly item list at google docs, and for anyone who cannot view docs I will just put all the items below here but not by chapter usage. I forgot which cash is used once I sort this out I will correct it, but I used the Japanese that made the most sense in these situations to me.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SKYlLObzOvbMHqiEby6JeuKUlvTO6O7_eyG94iU08xw/edit?usp=sharing

Hotel dusk items                                                         アイテム
Suitcase key/Broken Suitcase Key                   革包の鍵/壊れた革包の鍵 　　　　　
Pager                                                                           ポケベル　　
Room 215 Key                                                         ２１５号室の鍵
Hotel Brochure パンフレット
Puzzle piece  パズルのぴずピース
Paperclip/Thin wire  クリップ/細い針金
Order sheet  オーダーシート
Old notebook  古いノート 
Client list  顧客ファイル
Screwdriver ドライバー
Crowbar バール
Pliers ペンチ
Men's Magazine  グラビア雑誌  
Thick Wire   太い針金
Cash  ドル札
memo     メモ
Rag Doll　 カントリードール
Fountain pen    万年筆
Bookmark    しおり
Bradley's Lighter　 ブロッリーのライター
Old Photo　古い写真　
Cash  札束
Summers book   サマーの小説
Mini Sewing Machine　 ハンディーミシン　　　         
Gun   挙続
Room 217 Key　 ２１7号室の鍵
Duplicate Room 215 Key　 ２１５号室の合鍵
Jeff student ID        ジェフの学生証             
Lobby Newspaper　  フロントの新問
Adhesive Remover      シールはがし
Lable      ラベル
UV Light     ブラックライト 
Cassette tape    カセットテープ
Discarded Envelope   茶色の封筒
Graphite powder   鉛筆の粉
Ballpoint Pen　ボールペン
Pencil　鉛筆
Small Red Box   赤い小箱 
Old Key   古い鍵
Old Paint     古い絵の具
Old Hotel Brochure   古いパンフレット     
Article on Osterzone   おスターゾーンの記事
Half-Full Whiskey Bottle   半分のウイスキーボトル       
Osterzone Book     おスターゾーンの本
Photo of dunning 　 ダ二ングの写真
Hammer   ハンマー

Also I was reading this walkthrough and I noticed this Written by strawhat at Game FAQ
https://www.gamefaqs.com/ds/933043-hotel-dusk-room-215/faqs/51360
End of Chapter Q&A's
--------------------
1. b
2. a
3. c
4. b
5. a

The order is always the same for the end of every chapter. I don't know why I didn't notice this before but hopefully it helps in some way :) have fun and good luck :)

Nombre	Autor
A beginner's guide to Hotel dusk speedrunning and trivia for everyone	Walba 8 years ago
Japanese Item list guide and chapter use.	MelonSlice 7 years ago