General Tips and Help with Bonuses
Need a bit of guidance for Professor Layton and the Lost Future? Read on!
While we won’t be sharing the answers to conundrums (that’d spoil all the fun) we will be sharing some special suggestions to help you squeeze every last drop of puzzle fun from the game.
Where to find puzzles…
Many puzzles in the game will be presented to you simply by talking to the strange denizens of London, but…
Some people have more than one puzzle up their sleeves, or will have more for you as time goes on: make sure you talk to everyone several times (until they start repeating themselves) and talk to people anew as the story progresses (even if you’ve nattered with them before). You never know when another mindbender is ripe to be handed over.
Puzzles also lurk in the environment: have a tenacious tap around every scene to see if there are any hiding in discarded banana skins, cat figurines, statues and the like.
There are also hidden puzzles
If you find that something responds with a cloud of dust, a splash of liquid or some such, keep tapping over and again - you may just be about to find a secret puzzle or uncover a hint coin…
Why bother with hint coins?
You start the game with 10 hint coins to exchange for hints when a puzzle confounds you, and more can be found in the environment. In later stages of the story you can’t return to some of the earlier areas, so diligent tapping of every scene as you go along is the key to building up a big chunk of clue-providing change!
While collecting hint coins doesn’t unlock anything directly, it’s helpful to keep your wallet stuffed for a more indirect benefit: while getting the answer to a puzzle wrong reduces the amount of picarats you’re awarded, buying hints has no effect on your picarat reward. Collecting picarats is worth doing if you want to unlock everything in the Bonuses menu.
How do I unlock all the Bonuses?
Much of the Top Secret area goodies can be unlocked by collecting picarats – the most expensive unlockable costs 5200, so get saving! To access the puzzle behind The Hidden Door you’ll need to enter a code you get from Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box - the code is specific to your Nintendo DS system, so there’s no way to sneak this one. If you want this awesome puzzle, you’re just going to have to play the previous game!
In the Layton’s Challenges area you can access extra puzzle ‘houses’ (including some remarkably challenging puzzles) by meeting certain criteria. For example, you’ll unlock:
- The Time Traveller’s House by finishing the game and saving after puzzle 130.
- The Delivery Bird’s House when you conquer all 12 Parrot minigame Delivery Requests.
- The Hotelier’s House when you solve all ten Toy Car courses.
- The Storyteller’s House when all three Picture Book minigames are complete.
- The Puzzle Keeper’s House when you complete all 165 puzzles in the game.
I seem to be missing something…
You gain stickers, courses for the Toy Car minigame and Parrot minigame Delivery Requests primarily by completing puzzles, so if you’re missing any you must be missing puzzles too! Check the Puzzle Index in the Professor’s Trunk to see what you’re lacking and take a close look at the locations for similar puzzle numbers that you did find – often, consecutively numbered puzzles are in the same area!
For an idea of which puzzles you’re after for each house in Layton’s Challenges, read on…
Where do I find the next Picture Book and all the stickers?
Completing puzzle 010 from Alfie opens the Picture Book minigame in the Professor’s Trunk - when you finish one book, the next one becomes available! Pro tip: these minigames are much easier if you tackle them when you’ve got all the stickers.
To gain all of the remaining stickers for Picture Book 1, complete puzzles: 011, 012, 014, 017 and 020.
A full house for Picture Book 2 comes from puzzles: 024, 026, 030, 033, 036, 039, 044, 046, 057 and 061.
To fill every gap in Picture Book 3, solve puzzles: 053, 073, 075, 080, 085, 098, 100, 108, 117, 123, 135 and 138.
Where can I get the courses for the Toy Car minigame?
Soon enough Luke will be given a toy car, which gives you the Toy Car minigame in the Professor’s Trunk. To get all the courses you’ll need to first leave the hotel after completing puzzle 014 and then hunt down puzzles: 028, 029, 062, 068, 078, 084, 131 and 142. The final course will open up when you’ve conquered the others!
And the Parrot minigame Delivery Requests?
Solve puzzles and talk to the right people to get these! Solving puzzle 038 means you befriend the parrot, for the rest of the Parrot minigame Delivery Requests you must: talk to Stachen in Chapter 6 and find puzzles 055, 057, 059, 066, 075, 076, 080, 103, 104, 137. To receive the final Delivery Request talk to Edgar (after talking to Luke at Statue Plaza) once you’ve completed the game.
I missed a puzzle! Can I still get to it?
If you miss one of the 165 puzzles in the game, don’t worry – you can’t lose any permanently! While some puzzles will always stay waiting in the world to be found, others will deliver themselves to the place where lost puzzles go… Have a search in the world, or simply visit the Puzzle Hut (found at the Edge of Chinatown) to tackle any you’ve missed.