Professor Layton: My Anti-WoW
February 27, 2008 by Matticus
Filed under All Stories
I might have mentioned my affinity for puzzles. When I was younger, I’d frequently read Clue books as well as Encyclopedia Brown and try to solve them for fun. After a strong recommendation from a friend and seeing it crop up on various gaming sites that I go to, I decided to give Professor Layton and the Curious Village a try. The game is for the DS and it’s been around for a while in Japan. But it came out recently for the US players.
Here’s a quick trailer:
I’m hooked!
Anyway, the game has a TON of brain teasers and other problems to solve. There’s a lot of riddles. If you catch me in the BA chatroom, you can often hear my cries of agony and frustration and whoops of joy when I finally solve it after staring at the problem for an hour. The puzzles vary in difficulty.
9 out of 10 Matt’s would recommend this game for ANY gamer. The 1 Matt is too busy playing to give his recommendation.
Examples
Here’s a few straight out of the game:
1: Fifteen people are trapped aboard a ship that’s going to sink in exactly 20 minutes. Their only chance for survival is the five person life raft stowed on their vessel. To make matters worse, the waters around the ship are teeming with man-eating sharks, so swimming to safety is out of the question.
A round trip to the nearest island and back to the boat takes nine minutes on the raft. How many people will live to see dry land?
2: Five suspects are called into police headquarters for questioning and give the following statements.
A) One of the five of us is lying
B) Two of the five of us are lying
C) I know these guys and three of the five are lying
D) Out of the five, only four of us are lying
E) All five of us are liars!
The police want to release those that are telling the truth. How many people should they let go?
3: Imagine a digital clock. How many times will the clock display three or more of the same number in a row over the course of one day? Keep in mind, this digital clock is on a 12 hour scale that only shows hours and minutes.
Answers
(Highlight below)
1: 13 people. 5 go to the island, 1 brings the boat back. He takes on another 4 people to the island and comes back. That’s enough time to get an additional 4 more people. 5 + 4 + 4.
2: 1 person. Everyone is accusing a different number of people. It has to be one suspect assuming anyone is telling the truth. It would appear that suspect D gets to walk.
3: 34. 01:11, 02:22, 03:33, 04:44, 05:55, 11:11, 12:22, 10:00, 11:10, 11:12, 11:13, 11:14, 11:15, 11:16, 11:17, 11:18, 11:19. This is only for the first 12 hours. Multiply that amount by 2 (17 x 2 = 34).
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or to E-Mail updates on the top right. Thanks for visiting!
I'm Matticus and I play a Dwarf Priest. My home is in Carnage, a raiding Guild. Every week, I log 11 hours raiding on Ner'Zuhl.
Wynthea is the Troll Priest with the best Mohawk on Nazjatar. Currently, I raid 5 nights a week, and PvP occasionally. I started working toward end-game in May 2007, and my guild is currently working through Sunwell. I've tried playing other classes, but Priests are my passion; I've found our racial spells an endless source of fun and frustration. I am extremely fond of Dwarves.... especially with Ketchup. 
My name is Sydera and I like to heal things--think Florence Nightingale with foliage. I play a night elf druid on Vek'nilash-US, and I raid 12 hours a week. As a guild officer for Collateral Damage, I coordinate healing and recruit new raiders. I started playing WoW in Fall 2005, and it was love at first click. Before I discovered the joys of Broccoli-stalk healing, I raided as a holy paladin, and I now have alts in all healing classes. I have to say, though, bark beats poofy dresses and heavy plate in my book.
the second one took me a few minutes but I finally got it
the rest were easy
Wow, this sounds like a game for me. I’ve been playing Picross alot lately, and I love puzzle games. And yeah, the first two were pretty easy, the third one took me a while.
Wouldn’t #3 be 35? I’m thinking that you could also count 12 o’clock AM (midnight) as the digital display would be showing 0:00 (not counting it twice, as technically that would be more than one day)
Your clever highlighting trick does not work on iPhones. For shame.
Nevermind me, I forgot that 12-hour digital clocks use the 12:00 for both midnight and midday. (*shame*)
Don’t activate the video, it’s hentai.
Fooled me too Shastarian! I was happily counting 00:00, 00:01, 00:02, etc etc. *sigh*
I feel quite smart for getting the other two though!
A big hello over from the UK Matticus, *wave*, enjoying your blog very much! Just levelling up my first priest, so it’s all very educational - thanks for all your hard work!
Mari
My fiancee and I have been playing “Zak and Wiki” on our Wii for a while, and love it to bits. It’s another good game if you enjoy brain teasers.
Professor Layton has been on my “games to consider” list since I heard of it. I’m still finishing up a couple of DS games right now tho. (I also have to get over the Jack Layton connection….)
8 players compete in a tournament. Everyone plays everyone else just once. The winner of a game gets 1, the loser 0, or each gets 1/2 if the game is drawn. The final result is that everyone gets a different score and the player placing second gets the same as the total of the four bottom players. What was the result of the game between the player placing third and the player placing seventh?
Ohhh dear! I should have looked into DS games better before I bought my last one, as this one looks to suit my idea of fun a lot more than the one I got! I will have to remember this next time I’m at the store. In the meantime, it’s Animal Crossing: Wild World for me!
Thanks to you I just picked this game up today! I can’t wait to get home and try it …