This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.


 

Its amazing to see a game like Professor Layton be love by many here in America.  With beautiful art, top notch localization, quirky characters and story lines that will keep you guessing to the end. Though the glue that holds all this are the puzzles.  With some being easy, some thoughtful, and some obvious though senseless, Professor Layton has them all.  
 
This is a good thing for not just those who like puzzles but it actually teaches logic.  Logic is something we recognize as a situation, story, or life in general that flows in a reasonable way.  There are puzzles that uses our brain and learn something new and interesting when we solve that puzzle or a mystery.
 
With logic being the way it is, it can teach kids in school to find answers in strategic ways.  With the knowledge gain in school, you can attack any problem with reason.  Like science, you provide a theory, use the knowledge that you know that are factual, and try to see what works and make sense.  Math Logic can help with money and fraction puzzles that can make you a better spender or even carpenter.  Professor Layton word puzzles help you think and try with trial and error to see how to solve a problem.  Its almost like a Algebraic equation at times though the wording can be tricky, they aren’t hard to solve.
 
When you do a sliding puzzle in Professor Layton game, it can help kids organization skills.  So when it is chore time and they have to push and pull furniture in their room, they can see how much space is left or what space is available.  In school, it helps with editing a paper or story they have to write.  You can see what is logical so that they’re  able to take out or clean up some things to make sure their work is enjoyable and persuasive.
 
Of course games like Phoenix Wright are great tools but something like Ghost Trick can work wonders (though the concept might be a little darker).  With Ghost Trick, the logic is what works together to make a goal be achieve in a manner that everything connects from the beginning.  For example, a kid is giving a research paper they must present.  Instead of just researching a paper, they can show what the person or topic has uncovered.  By getting a sense by asking other teachers what those things are, they can find how it all fits together and then they can write, shoot, or demonstrate their work and show what lead to their findings.  The possibilities are endless.
 
So as children are getting older and wiser, it would be good to give them a logic puzzle or even one of the Professor Layton games and see where it goes.  Maybe the parents might get hook too.  It’s just logic.