The DS family of handhelds is home to a lot of interesting titles, which forgo the traditional gameplay for other elements, such as a story or unique experiences.

“Book games” are among these. The term can be understood in a couple ways.

One is simply games where you do a lot of reading, like visual novels. Again, (3)DS has a lot of these, such as the popular Professor Layton series and many others.

Then there are games that make you hold your handheld sideways, like a book. The most well known is Hotel Dusk, that also falls into the first category. But there are a few more, especially Japanese exclusives (see comments under that article).

And third, there are also actual books you can read on the (3)DS, such as 100 Classic Book Collection

I’ve been wanting to play Hotel Dusk for a while, got the cartridge a few years ago but only explored a little. (So use the spoiler tag, please.) While I’m personally not a huge fan of visual novels, the design of (3)DS that allows to get two screens into a handheld, makes it the most practical device for these.

Well, do you like books in your games, or do you prefer the more traditional ones?