What we're about to tell you contains minor spoilers for those who haven't played Another Code: Two Memories before. In other words, names won't be familiar to you, nor will we reveal plot twists or specific events.
In the 1940s, Thomas Edward, father of Daniel Edward, was an author also known under the nom de plume of David Shields. In the newly-released remake of Two Memories for the Nintendo Switch, a series of QR origami cranes can be found around Edward Mansion as added or expanded lore to the series, and they actually unveil more about this specific character and his career as an average writer.
Learn more: Where to find the 14 origami cranes in Another Code: Recollection - Two Memories
It turns out that, during his lonely reading sessions making good use of the mansion's impressive library, Richard Robbins, Ashley Mizuki Robbins' dad, ends up becoming a big fan of David Shields, specifically of the mystery novels he typed besides his own autobiography based on the horrors of war. And, can you guess who was the protagonist of such novels? No other than your favourite untidy detective from the Nintendo DS saga.
As per revealed by Richard's own messages in the new game:
A Fan After 60 Years
Thomas, an aspiring novelist, had several books published after leaving the island. Most of them were not received very well, but the detective novels he wrote under the pen name David Shields seemed to do fairly well. They were published in paperback.
But they were far from best-sellers. More than a few of his volumes were canceled before they were even completed.
Thomas never gained notoriety as an author. I only learned of him after coming here. However, as I read one of his novels, I became captivated by his prose. And now I can say I've read nearly all of his works that can be found here in the mansion.
Thomas passed away at age 36 after completing a long-form autobiography. I can't help but wonder what sort of adventures Detective Kyle Hyde would have gotten up to had Thomas lived longer.
Previous references: The crossover between Hotel Dusk and Another Code
It's worth noting that both the two Another Code games on DS and Wii, and the so-called Kyle Hyde saga on the DS (Hotel Dusk and Last Window), were developed by CiNG, the now-defunct Japanese studio. Having been created by the same artists and writers, visual nods and cross-references between the franchises had been found before, but never in such a literal, or perhaps literary way.
We had the Pinkie Rabbit cartoon (and all its derivative merchandise) existing in both worlds, and even pictures of several Hotel Dusk characters in Wii's A Journey Into Lost Memory. These portrayed HD's maid Rosa Fox as seemingly the wife of AC's Captain, Louis "Louie" DeNonno, or Melissa & Kevin Woodward.
This would've placed both series within the same universe, or 'Cingverse', but now the fact that Thomas Edward a.k.a. David Shields had conceived Kyle Hyde's stories before changes the whole perception of it. Fans and some of the devs were even dreaming of an official crossover back in the day, in the style of Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney, in which an older Ashley would work together with Kyle to solve a crime, but this now seems less possible, or canonical, if that is a thing at all. Perhaps time will unveil whether the original creators were involved and what was the true intention here.
What do you make of all this? Would you rather believe a crossover is still possible in the same world, or that Hotel Dusk is a fiction within Another Code and similarities are "pure coincidence"? Did HD's Kyle rename himself after the books' protagonist? Is this all another cheap multiverse excuse?