Professor Layton Launches!
The Curious Village opened early at the Nintendo World Store on Sunday, February 10, allowing shoppers to try their hand at the puzzling mind-benders that make up the heart of Professor Layton and the Curious Village. And I was on hand to demo the game, test a couple mind-benders, and then buy a copy for myself!
Here's a sample puzzle from one of the quizzes: There are 15 people on a ship that is sinking, and the only way off is a lifeboat that can only carry five people at a time. It will take 20 minutes for the ship to sink completely, and it takes 9 minutes for the lifeboat to make a round trip to shore and back. Keep in mind that there are sharks in the water, so swimming is out of the question. Given all that, how many people can be rescued before the ship sinks?
The answer, as well as more from the event, including photos, after the jump!
Professor Layton and the Curious Village is an adventure game full of brain teasers, so there was a lot of puzzling going on throughout the store. There were two trivia contests, each featuring five riddles from the game, and the people who got them all right would be entered in a drawing to receive a copy of the game, plus one of the brand-spanking new Cobalt Blue DS Lites that had just been released that very day.
The first round, nobody got all five right, so they put everyone in the drawing to pick a name. The second round, there was only one person who got all five, so he was the automatic winner. I wasn't in time to enter the first time, but I was very proud of myself for figuring out three of the five on my round. I had also entered the tournament by accident, looking to sign up for the trivia, but later backed out when I found out that the tournament basically consisted of playing through the game from the beginning. Whoever made it through the most puzzles in ten minutes would move on to the final round. I didn't want to race through the game just in the hopes of winning a prize. I wanted to savor it and enjoy it. This game is meant to be savored and enjoyed. It's so pretty.
The grand prize for the tournament was pretty cool, though. It was a one-of-a-kind Cobalt Blue DS Lite engraved with the Professor Layton logo and the date. But I wanted to just buy my copy and enjoy it at my own pace. I hate rushing through games just to finish them. I didn't pick up one of the foam Professor Layton hats, but I did grab myself a nice pin to display my Layton love. Oh, and I was disappointed that the Professor Layton they advertised that you could have your picture taken with was just the same Nintendo guy that I've seen hosting events there before. He was just wearing a top hat and an ascot. Feh.
How's the game? It's lovely. The art style is unique and the video and voice acting is impressive for a DS cart. However, sometimes the puzzles make me feel really dumb, and it's only the very beginning! (These are probably the easy ones!)
Oh, and the answer? Two people will unfortunately lose their lives when the ship finally goes down. You can actually make three trips, since two will take 18 minutes, leaving you two minutes to load up the boat again before the ship sinks. And you can save only four people the first two trips, since you need that fifth person to row back to the ship. So 4+4+5=13. Did you get it right?
Wootini
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 11 February 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: ds, launch, nintendo world store, professor layton and the curious village
Thats an awesome prize!
I took SuperTimsy's advice and picked this game up at Walmart earlier today for $29.92. I'm only four puzzles in (saving it for my commutes) but so far I'm really impressed with it!