Geek-A-Long
Geek-A-Long 2015: Don Paolo
I LOVE my Nintendo 3DS. It fits in my purse, holds a charge for hours, and I take piles of games with me so I don’t have to decide upfront what I’m going to want to play later. I play games on a DS far more often than I play on any other console. We paid homage to a few games last year and we have a few more on deck this year (and just wait til you see 2016!). I wanted to make sure that this year we gave the DS it’s due, so this week the Geek-A-Long honors my favorite of all the DS games: Professor Layton
If you’ve never played the games, I can’t over recommend them. They’ve got it all: romance, intrigue, crazy scooby-doo level villain disguises, and some of the most delightfully frustrating puzzles you’ll ever play. Seriously, to those of you that have played them, do you remember the chocolate puzzle from the first game? That one gave me fits. Not only are the puzzles a really fun challenge, their general juxtaposition is pretty fantastic. The title character, Layton, has a nephew named Luke that travels around with him solving crimes, and EVERYTHING Layton sees reminds him of a puzzle that he wants Luke to solve.
See that piece of trash, Luke? That reminds me of a puzzle!
Look Luke, that sweet old woman can’t get her cat out of a tree… That reminds me of a puzzle!
Well Luke, it seems we are being chased by a vampire. Must be puzzle time!
The best thing about games is the master of invention and disguise, Don Paolo. Paolo is an unrivaled scientist, and although we are meant to see Layton as his equal when it comes to invention, that never held up for me. Layton seemed a bit like the MacGyver to Paolo’s DaVinci. Paolo’s flying machine was awesome, and Layton’s looked like it could easily grace the pages of Regretsy.
Capable of disguising himself as literally anyone, from a little girl to a rotund elderly doctor. My favorite of his disguises is Dr. Schrader, and that is what I chose to feature on the square. In cannon, Paolo didn’t create most of the puzzles you must solve to beat the game, but he did make a few of them. While the real Schrader is incapacitated, Paolo disguises himself as the doctor and gives Layton the Medicine Time Puzzle. The “x” on the square is the solution to that puzzle, and by solving it the real Schrader will get the medicine he needs.
One of the other things I love about Paolo is that he isn’t the stereotypical “villain” that you would normally see in a puzzle (and not plot) based game. His rivalry with Layton started when Layton stole the woman of his dreams. Much like anti-hero’s in the vein of Magneto, it’s not that he’s evil, or even bad, he just wants some justice. So this week we give it to him with an homage to one of my favorite Paolo costumes, and the first puzzle he personally hands out.
Whether you’re knitting, crocheting, or cross stitching this square, you can download the Don Paolo pattern here. When you’re finished making it, don’t forget to tweet or instagram your squares at me @Doctor_Llama or Jac @jac_attacking with the hashtag #geekalong, so we can all oooh and ah at it together.
~Megan-Anne
A gentleman never leaves a puzzle unsolved.
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