Professor Layton (レイトン教授, Reiton-kyōju) is a puzzle adventure game series for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS developed by Level-5. The first three games are about Professor Hershel Layton and Luke Triton's adventures together, with the following games and films being prequels about how Luke and Layton met and their "original" adventures.
Each title is based in a series of puzzles and mysteries given by the citizens of towns that the main characters visit. It is not necessary to solve all the puzzles to progress, but some are mandatory and at certain points in the game a minimum number of puzzles must be solved before the story will continue.
The series has gone on to be one of the most successful Nintendo DS exclusive series, with the lifetime cumulative sales of Professor Layton games standing at 10 million units sold as of October 2010. As of March 2012, the series has sold over 13 million copies.
