Professor Layton and the Curious Village

What if an entire game were just a fairy-tale-drawn village full of people who, instead of a greeting, toss you a puzzle? From this simple idea grew Professor Layton and the Curious Village, a title from the studio Level-5 that in 2007 (in the West 2008) kicked off one of the most endearing brands on the Nintendo DS. It combines an elegant detective story with dozens of logic puzzles and does so with such charm that it won over even people who otherwise don't play games.

The main hero is the gentlemanly archaeologist and puzzle lover Professor Layton, accompanied by his apprentice Luke. Together they arrive in the mysterious village of St. Mystere to unravel a mystery surrounding the inheritance of a deceased baron. The investigation, however, unfolds in a peculiar way: every character you meet offers you a puzzle instead of information, and only by solving it does the story move forward. The puzzles range from logic riddles through sliding objects to deceptive word problems.

It's precisely this variety that makes the game a little treasure. Many of the puzzles are taken from the work of the Japanese riddle author Akira Tago and require wit and a moment of thought rather than fast fingers. But the game never punishes: it offers a hint system, so when you get stuck, you can gradually unlock clues without having to peek into a walkthrough.

Visually Curious Village enchants with a hand-drawn aesthetic and animated cinematic interludes that lend the game the atmosphere of a European fairy tale. Pleasant jazz music and the kind tone of the narration make it an ideal game for quiet evenings. The stylus serves both for jotting down notes and for solving the puzzles themselves, which again makes excellent use of the DS's capabilities.

Professor Layton became both a commercial and critical success and founded a long, beloved series with many sequels and even a feature-length animated film. The first entry remains where it all began, and to this day it counts as one of the best examples of how a logic game can be at once clever, kindly, and captivatingly story-driven.

Why play: A magical combination of a detective adventure and dozens of logic puzzles with hand-drawn charm. The start of one of the most endearing DS series, ideal even for non-gamers.