@TopHatProfessor Layton and the Curious Twitter Accounts

Viral marketing, live role-playing and media ethics come together in a truly puzzling story.
7/23/2009 9:07 AM | 3 Comments | Page 1 of 2

"Frankly ... I'm ashamed. I have made myself a Twitter page and officially joined the world of technology. Perhaps Luke may help me update."

With those words on June 29, 2009, what had been just a fictional character in a Nintendo DS game became a fixture on Twitter. Over the coming days and weeks, the TopHatProfessor account would post dozens of riddles and brainteasers of the type found in 2008's Professor Layton and the Curious Village and the upcoming Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, soliciting answers from his slowly growing cadre of followers. Along the way, the professor happily answered questions about the upcoming title and shared little slices of life from his day, all without ever breaking character.

Many followers, this reporter included, were bemused and intrigued by what they assumed was a clever new viral marketing campaign put on by Nintendo ahead of Diabolical Box's August release. In reality, though, the TopHatProfessor account was the work of a lone college student and amateur game journalist, trying to get attention for a game he felt was being sorely neglected by publisher Nintendo and the media at large. The network of followers and related Twitter accounts that TopHatProfessor eventually attracted highlight the evolving effect that social networks are having on game journalism, PR and even fandom itself.

The man in the hat

"I figured that if Nintendo wasn't going to make the U.S. release of the second game known, I was going to take matters into my own hands."

That was all the motivation needed for Roger DiLuigi, the man behind the TopHatProfessor account, to start up what he thought would be a "fun side project." A theater and English major at the University of Illinois, Chicago, DiLuigi definitely had some experience with playing roles. And as a Nintendo-focused journalist for GamingVice and Kombo, he said he was perplexed by Nintendo's relatively lax promotion for the upcoming Layton sequel.

"It all started when I found assets and an August release date for Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box in my E3 2009 press kit after just coming back from the Nintendo [press] conference," he said. "At the very least, I was shocked that Nintendo didn't even give a passing mention to the game at their media briefing, especially since Curious Village had a resurgence in sales early in the year."

What started as a solo effort began to grow into something more on July 1 with the introduction of Layton's apprentice Luke into the Twitterverse. The expansion was the idea of Infendo writer Will Thompson, a friend of DiLuigi's who joined in when he found he knew the person behind the TopHatProfessor account. Thompson said he created the account "on my own initiative as a fan of the game, and ... to solve some riddles in the process." Soon, Thompson and DiLuigi were responding to each others' tweets in character and gaining dozens of followers each day (the ApprenticeLuke account was eventually given over to DiLuigi to manage, Thompson said). "I didn't expect in a million years that it would grow into what it eventually became," DiLuigi said.

What it eventually became, among other things, was the basis for a rumor that got a lot of Nintendo fans unduly excited. In a series of tweets on July 1, DiLuigi, as Layton, hinted that the professor had been invited to a "Grand Smash Tournament" where he had been asked to fight "a blue robot boy, a possessed doll, and a tiny boxer." These tantalizing hints, coming from what many assumed to be an official Nintendo marketing campaign, were enough to lead to some breathless headlines about the characters' potential appearance in the Smash Bros. series from the likes of Cubed3 and IGN (the latter of which went so far as to ask, "Why would an official Nintendo promotion online make such implications?").

DiLuigi, for his part, was shocked that anyone could have mistaken his Twitter account for an official Nintendo promotion. "If there was any doubt, I thought the Smash Bros. tweets with Layton meeting Mega Man, Geno and Little Mac would've been evidence enough for people to say, 'Okay, this is definitely a fan. Nintendo would never do that.'" Whether or not the Smash Bros. hints let any of DiLuigi's followers in on the act, though, the publicity surrounding the Smash Bros. rumor helped take the saga in interesting new directions.

The inspector

"Enjoying a nice slice of my wife's scrumptious pistachio cake with butter cream icing and a cup of tea. A delightful midday snack."

When Canadian math student Jordan Grant heard a new Smash Bros. game was being teased by a couple of Twitter accounts, he assumed the leaks were coming from an official Nintendo viral marketing campaign. So when he put together his own Twitter account, he figured he'd used it as a test of sorts for the supposed marketers at Nintendo. "My plan was to take another person from the Layton universe and start contributing tweets in character," Grant said of the SombreInspector account, quoted above, which portrays in-game Layton colleague Inspector Chelmey. "Not only would this be entertaining, it would help me figure out the nature of the Layton experience. If they were an official advertising campaign, I assumed I would receive some sort of notification to cease and desist. If not, then I'd get to join in on the fun."

When he didn't receive any such letter, Grant realized that playing along with the growing Twitter storyline was a great creative outlet. "For a little while now, I had been entertaining the notion of an engaging Twitter narrative. Unfortunately, I could not conceive of a method to properly create enduring characters and environments in 140 characters per tweet. ... However, the Layton experience uses already established characters, which removed that hurdle. Furthermore, the whole riddle dynamic provides a simple framework for the narrative, and allows the audience to actively engage with the story as it unfolds. It was perfect. In fact, I cannot imagine a more suitable story to unfold through Twitter."

Grant said he was impressed with the devotion of the other Layton role-players -- with whom he rarely interacted out of character, and relied on for improvisational cues to inform his role. "Everyone involved has stuck to the mannerisms and motivations of their characters really well," he said. "Our commitment to the characters has helped to ground them in reality. This has created a great atmosphere for audience participation where anyone can join in without feeling absurd. It reminds me of those quaint dinner-theater performances. The audience is vaguely aware that what they are watching is fiction, but they cannot fight the urge to indulge in the fantasy and join in on the fun."

It was another character, though, that would break the performance out of the Twitter theater and into the streets of the Internet.

The nemesis

"@TopHatProfessor I've found you, Layton, and I have a puzzle for YOU! See if you can figure out THIS little beauty I dreamed up if you dare!"

While the first three Layton-related Twitter accounts had recreated the game's puzzling riddles and charming atmosphere, they needed a conflict to really drive the narrative along. Enter Don Paolo (aka DonofScience), Layton's arch-nemesis who showed up on Twitter July 6 to challenge Layton with some of the hardest puzzles the story had yet seen.

The man behind the DonofScience Twitter account, who goes by LordHuffnPuff elsewhere online but requested to remain otherwise anonymous, also heard about the TopHatProfessor account through the Smash Bros. rumor reports. But unlike Grant, he was no stranger to Twitter-based role-playing. "I had previously tried a character Twitter with SomethingAwful's PokeTwitter and found it a bit boring," he said. "However, as a puzzle-lover I thought I would give the idea a second chance. I figured the worst that could happen would be that I got bored and moved on to something else, after all."