Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Review
2026-04-05
The world of Professor Layton and the Curious Village is an adorable one built for children, all weird villagers doling out puzzles about princesses and birthdays and counting coins. Until the ninth puzzle.
The matches below are arranged in the shape of a dog. This poor little guy was just minding his own business when a car came barreling down the road and ran him over.
Move two matches to change the picture so that it shows the dog after the accident.
Excuse me, did you just give me a puzzle about a dog being hit by a car? I'm caught off balance, feeling a little queasy, and very sad and I answer the puzzle wrong. The game hits me with:
Try again!
Because the dog was hit by a car, it's probably not walking anymore.
Ah Jesus Christ. He's ok, right? Please, come on. Blurred vision, tears in my eyes, I finally scratch the correct answer on my DS' touch screen. I submit it, already knowing what awaits me on the next screen like Brad Pitt at the end of Seven. Congratulatory music plays and the game rewards me with one final image.
The car flattened the poor dog!
When it's not talking about dog murder, Professor Layton and the Curious Village is cute, snackable, puzzle-solving goodness. The hat-man and his boy ward wander around St. Mystere led by the taps of your stylus to try and uncover the various mysteries of the town and, really, to find the 120 puzzles passed out by all the weird-faced freaks.
Don't get me wrong, the story is charming. I love the grab bag of oddballs and the story ends on a genuinely heart-warming note. But functionally the mysteries are completely spelled out for you in a linear fashion as you progress--functioning more as a visual novel than any sort of real detective game. Which is fine because you are here for the puzzles.
I knew the puzzles were hitting when I started looking up graduate level mathematics textbooks on knot theory for a single puzzle in a game ostensibly designed for children. It's in those moments when I was presented with a real challenge and had to light up the entire 3-watt lightbulb in my head that the game was at its best. "Any puzzle can be solved with creativity and persistence", Layton, the absolute chad, tells me after I finally crack an incredibly easy one. "You're right, man! I can do this!", as I get stumped on yet another child-brain puzzle.
That's not to say they're all flawless. In fact at the start I was pulling out my hair because Curious Village loves trick questions. If it feels like there's a stupid fucking simple answer there's a 90% chance that's the correct answer. They say "How many dumps will Jim have taken if he takes 3 dumps per hour and it's Tuesday," and I sit down expecting to engage my brain and work through some solution bit by bit but they just want me to say "0" because Jim doesn't take dumps on Tuesdays. Ha ha you sure got me!! Riddles have always felt like the lowest of the low of puzzles because instead of following a set of objective, logical rules you can follow it's just "can you think like the person who came up with this stupid fucking question?"
Eventually I learned to embrace the riddle fuckery and then I was in heaven. Professor Layton is the perfect game to wind down with after work. Grab a pen and some paper, lay back on the couch, and tap on some weirdos and spend 10 minutes trying to get the game to recognize you drawing out the number 4. It's so good I'm itching to dive into the next in the series. Right after me and the professor track down the person who ran over that dog and bludgeon them to death with Layton's giant hat.