Professor Layton and the Mansion of the Deathly Mirror was first released for mobile devices in 2008. It was a Japan-exclusive tie-in to the popular puzzle series, and features a canon story that takes place somewhere between Nintendo DS titles The Diabolical Box and The Unwound Future.
Some time after release, Professor Layton and the Mansion of the Deathly Mirror vanished. Mobile games are notoriously difficult to preserve, and while this game was released twice (once as original, and once in a “remix version”) it was never properly archived. When it became unavailable on its native app stores, it was rendered unplayable, and preservationists realised it was technically “lost” from the public sphere.
Years after this discovery, three chapters of the game were found and preserved, but a complete version eluded preservationists. Now, thanks to the efforts of hobbyist game preservationist Yuvi, the hunt appears over – as a new, complete version of the game has been salvaged from a junk Fujitsu F906i phone that “looked like it survived a house fire.”
It appears the phone was purchased in a bulk auction online, as part of wider efforts to preserve early mobile game history. On this single phone, Yuvi not only found this long-lost Professor Layton game, but a treasure trove of other apps, including a lost Mr. Driller spin-off.
Read: Game preservation is difficult work – but we must do it now
As confirmed by fellow preservationist RockmanCosmo, The Mansion of the Deathly Mirror has now been re-released online, in playable form, and there are also plans for it to be translated into English, allowing English-speaking players to jump in for the first time.
While some tinkering is required to get the mobile game running once more – emulation can be a tricky art – those keen to check out one of Professor Layton‘s long-lost spin-offs can now check out this intriguing part of mobile game history, as originally created.
As we’ve previously covered at GamesHub, preservation like this is an essential art. Early mobile games are particularly valuable artefacts, because they represent the birth of an entirely new form of game. Titles like The Mansion of the Deathly Mirror reflect early developments in mobile game technology, and the ways in which developers began experimenting in the mobile space.
Modern mobile phones all have the capacity to run mobile games, with some – like the recently-announced iPhone 16 – being capable of natively playing AAA games. We didn’t get to this point without games like The Mansion of the Deathly Mirror, which is why its discovery and preservation is so important. This is a fascinating find, and one that should be celebrated.
