In an act of kindness and generosity, Core Gaming (which represents Nintendo in South Africa) has donated six Nintendo DS Lite handheld consoles, as well as accompanying copies of Professor Layton and the Curious Village, to the haematology ward of South Africa’s Groote Schuur Hospital in an effort to help chemotherapy patients there pass the time with some interactive entertainment.

Patients in the ward undergoing chemotherapy and receiving bone marrow transplants spend an average of six weeks in an isolation room to prevent infection, with little to do to pass the time other than watch television.

In addition, these patients are usually from out of town, which means that visits from friends and family during the six week isolation period can be infrequent, and as a result of this isolation and lack of mental stimulation, patients can rapidly find themselves becoming depressed.

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Professor Layton is a man who loves to solve puzzles. In fact, it’s what he lives for. Not useful real-life puzzles like “who kidnapped my cat?” or “where is my missing shoe?” but rather abstract mathematics and logic puzzles like “how many triangles are in this picture?” It strikes me as a skill that’s singularly useless in the world other than if you want to qualify as a puzzle-nerd, but somehow in the world of Professor Layton and the Curious Village this is considered the most quintessential skill anyone could have, and Layton is the highly respected master of puzzle-solving, and thus a most respected individual. Think Sherlock Holmes, but instead of solving murders and mysteries he solves matchstick puzzles.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Professor Layton and the Curious Village.