Professor Layton - Gameplay

Gameplay

The game is essentially a collection of puzzles with exploration sections between them. The player, as Professor Layton and Luke, explore their environments in a point-and-click adventure game fashion using the DS's touchscreen. This can be used to talk with non-player characters, learn more about the environment, moving between different areas, or to find hint coins that are used during puzzles. Often, when interacting with a person or object, the player will be presented with a puzzle, valued at a number of "picarats", a type of currency within the game. Solving the puzzle correctly will earn the player that many picarats, but a wrong answer will reduce the value a small amount on subsequent attempts down to a minimal picarat number. In order to progress the plot, the player is required to solve specific puzzles, or to solve a minimum number of puzzles or gain a minimum amount of picarats. When the player leaves an area due to progression of the plot, puzzles they have yet to find or solve are collected and placed into a "Puzzle Shack" owned by a fictional character known as "Granny Riddleton", where they can return and attempt to resolve later. Curious Village contains 135 puzzles, Diabolical Box contains 153 puzzles, Unwound Future contains 168 (The later two having another special puzzle obtained via the use of codes found in the previous game), Last Specter contains 170 and Miracle Mask contains 150.

The puzzles take the form of brain teasers and are only loosely tied to the plot. All puzzles were created for this series by Akira Tago, who is famous for his best-selling Mental Gymnastics series. They take the forms of math problems, logic puzzles, mazes, sliding-block puzzles, and brain teasers. The games give the player the opportunity to bring up a translucent memo screen they can write on using the stylus to work out their answer before submission. If the player is stuck, they may spend one hint coin to receive a hint. Each puzzle has three hints available, and within The Unwound Future, the game introduces "super hints" that nearly solve the puzzle for the player but which can only be bought with two hint coins and after the three other hints have been revealed. The puzzles are not timed, though for puzzles such as mazes or sliding blocks, the player may be challenged to complete the puzzle in a limited number of moves.

Each game features an additional set of three unique meta-puzzles that can be accessed at any time through "Layton's Trunk". These puzzles generally require the player to complete specific puzzles in the game to receive items to use within the meta puzzle; for example, The Curious Village gives the player furniture as a reward for some puzzles, which then must be placed within a set of apartments to Layton's and Luke's exacting desires in the meta puzzle; the meta puzzle cannot be solved completely until all the furniture has been collected. Completing the game also opens a number of series of more difficult puzzles to be solved, including one that involves a curiously heavily-locked door that the player may encounter during the game. The games also can use the DS Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection features to connect to Nintendo world network and unlock additional puzzles for play for a number of weeks after each game's release.