I was at my usual haunt, The Gyphon Café, when I saw they had drawn up some game related signs outside the front door. I thought I’d share them here and start a series called GameSpotting where I post game related photographs.

                                               This one has a Donkey Kong theme

                                                  And this one has a Super Mario Bros. theme

    In other news. I read the first two stories in this Harley Quinn trade paperback I got on Wednesday.

                                   Harley Quinn: Preludes and Knock-Knock Jokes

     I didn’t know there was a previous series out there until the third volume appeared on new releases this week. I like to read them in order, so I got the first volume collecting issues 1-7. So far it’s great. Harley rescues Joker in the first issue only to end up fighting him over who gets the last laugh in taking over the amusement park Happy Land.  Then Harley teams up with Two-Face who, after a mission to kidnap a social elite, dumps her for a woman with a true split-personality. Both stories end with Poison Ivy giving her advice to avoid Joker, which she, of course, ignores. Harley’s madness and repeated rejections really endear her to me.    

    I’ve been keeping a regular schedule of playing Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy for one hour every night. I actually keep a timer running so I play the full hour and no longer. If I don’t do that, I’ll never finish anything. I’ve been doing the same with my reading, except I just pick a number of pages that will see me finish a book in three weeks or less (the usual library loan time).          

     Prof. Layton is really cool. The graphics are gorgeous and in 3D they look even better. I used to keep the 3D slider on the 3DS off, but now it’s fully on all the time. You just have to keep the screen fairly stable to keep it in focus. The puzzles aren’t too hard but I try and find as many hint coins as possible just in case. The story so far concerns a woman who was frozen in ice for possibly millions of years.

                 Here they've just released the girl from the ice. . . with a puzzle of course.

     She has some strange power, and a rival archeologist kidnaps her for some nefarious purpose. Then the chase begins. The music in the game is so charming. It’s string quartet chamber music (that’s classical music for four instruments to be played in small venues - think of it as a 19th century rock band) with a hint of melancholy in the melodies that remind me of the sad events of Unwound Future. I’m really enjoying this game so far, a bit easy, but fun.