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So I've fallen behind a bit on the Professor Layton series, and before I play the next one in the series, I've been finishing up all of the puzzles I hadn't finished in the previous four games.  (After all, a gentleman leaves no puzzle undone.)

The Layton games are the first puzzle games in a long while that have gotten "mainstream" recognition, and there's a good reason for that.  They're extremely friendly and accessible.  The puzzles themselves, which range widely from sliding-block puzzles to tangrams to word puzzles to plain, clever riddles, are mostly on the easier side, although there are some optional stumpers.  More importantly, they're all extremely well-hinted, and you can usually skip one if you hate it enough.

But puzzle games remain a niche genre, and many of the good ones are (ironically) still pretty well-hidden.  So I thought I'd spend a few posts outlining some of my favorites, and maybe even some of the not-so-great ones I grew up with.

You can trust me - after all, I'm a mathematician, so puzzling is more or less my job these days.