Level-5 decided to bring the 'Professor Layton' series to smartphones so people could "solve mysteries on the go".
Professor Layton
The popular series of puzzle games is set to get its next instalment, 'Layton's Mystery Journey: Katreille and the Millionaire's Conspiracy', later this year, and although the franchise has it's home on the portable 3DS console, game developer Akihiro Hino has said he didn't find the console accessible enough, and so pushed for a smartphone version as well.
Akihiro - who is the CEO and President of Level-5 - said of his decision to bring the game to smartphones: "Of course, Layton has always been a continuous series on the 3DS. But for me as a user, I'm always in a taxi, on the go, and I like to play on my smartphone. Solving mysteries on the smartphone is really fun for me; that's what I wanted to do. I know that there's going to be a lot of people out there that want to do this kind of mystery solving, so that's why we decided to go for smartphones."
The company boss also revealed how Level-5 create a 'Professor Layton' game, as he said it's the story that comes first, and the puzzles are then slotted in later.
He told GameSpot.com: "So what we do first is make the story. And then once we've made the overall story, we create puzzles that fit into that story. And then once we've created the puzzles and added them in, if they don't match, we go back and re-create those puzzles to make sure everything fits correctly.
"We have about ten-plus people who go into a kind-of bunker, into a little room over something like a weekend. They come up with all the puzzles because the puzzles are the key to the game, and we want to make sure that we have the right ones. We really make sure that we focus on making great puzzles for the game."
'Layton's Mystery Journey: Katreille and the Millionaire's Conspiracy' is coming to both iOS and Android devices on July 20, with a 3DS version launching later this year.