Professor Layton and The Diabolical Box - Development

Development

The Professor Layton series was announced to be a trilogy immediately following the announcement of Professor Layton and the Curious Village within Japan. By this time, Level-5 had already decided upon the Japanese names of Curious Village and Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, but were originally planning to entitle the second game "Layton-kyōju to Yū-rei Jima no Himitsu". (ゆうれい島のひみつ, – Yū-rei Jima no Himitsu?, lit. "Professor Layton and the Secret of Ghost Island") These plans were eventually cancelled due to the staff thinking that it was too strange for an English gentleman to try and survive on a desert island, and the story was changed to that of Diabolical Box.

Level-5 learned several lessons from the critical response to Curious Village. Critics had often claimed that the puzzles in the games were too disjointed from the game's plot, so in Diabolical Box, they attempted to make the puzzles more relevant to the game's narrative. The puzzles within the series from Diabolical Box onward tended to use English more than Japanese. This was coincidental, but allowed the game to be translated without replacing as many puzzles. Level-5 also tried to update existing systems within the game, such as the Professor's suitcase and minigames; ultimately, Diabolical Box used up nearly twice as much data than its predecessor.