I like CING. I like them a whole lot. Sure, their puzzle design could use a little work, but they totally deliver on story, atmosphere, and art. I can forgive a number of flaws when a game has the sheer atmosphere of Hotel Dusk.

CING has been hard at work with Tecmo on the murder mystery Again, but that doesn’t mean they are going to let their Nintendo-published series die out. The studio has announced a sequel to Hotel Dusk titled Last Window: Midnight Promise.

Details are non-existant, but it seems that this follow-up again stars down-on-his-luck detective Kyle Hyde as he solves a mystery in 1980s Los Angeles. Last Window will be hitting Japanese shelves on January 14th, so we expect to hear a few more details soon.

Hopefully, Nintendo of America will pull themselves out of their money vault long enough to release this one in the US. Another Code: R was a pretty awesome game, but importing it from Europe put a decent hole in my wallet.

source: Tiny Cartridge

[Update] We just got a big update from NeoGAF regarding the game. Click past the cut for more.

“The setting of the sequel is in the Cape West Apartments. The story in the sequel stands alone from the previous games, even though there might be connections that fans of the original can pick up on. …

There are two major additions to the sequel he mentions. One is the ignore function. In the original game, progression is pretty much always made when you butt into other people’s problems in conversations, etc. In the sequel, more attention will have to be paid when you decide whether you want to butt in or to ignore something, because there is a possibility of getting a game over if you butt into everything. At least, that’s what I think he’s saying.

As for the other major feature, there is a novel inside the game called ‘Last Window’ as well. It is a companion piece to the game, and a chapter unlocks each time you clear a story chapter. The novel will touch in various sub-scenarios which flesh out the events of the game outside of Kyle’s immediate adventure, and involves the overall setting in the game and the other characters.

Apparently the contents of the novel (which I assume is actually being ‘written’ as you play the game) is influenced by your choices in the game itself, so there is replay value in trying to discover all the ‘variations’ in the novel.”