# widebrim: reimplementing the Professor Layton and Pandora's Box engine

> widebrim recreates the Nintendo DS Layton 2 engine in Python and pygame, informed by decompilation research on the European Professor Layton and Pandora's Box release. It reads a user-provided ROM and implements game modes, puzzles and saves while documenting behavior it approximates or omits.

- Type: Case study
- Targets: Game
- Category: Independent reconstruction cases
- Relationship: Independent reconstruction project
- Sources reviewed: 2026-11-06
- Added to the catalog: 2026-11-09
- Original resource: <https://github.com/bullbin/widebrim>
- Primary source: <https://github.com/bullbin/widebrim/blob/29182559cfcfa9206e02edee9cd89dff8d1fa32f/README.md>
- Catalog page: <https://awesomerea.org/resources/widebrim-case/>
- Record JSON: <https://awesomerea.org/resources/widebrim-case/record.json>
- Chinese version: [简体中文](https://awesomerea.org/zh/resources/widebrim-case/index.md)

## Requirements & limits

- **Prerequisites:** Provide a Professor Layton and Pandora's Box ROM for the default configuration.
- **Prerequisites:** Tesseract-OCR is needed for handwriting puzzle input; FFmpeg 4.4 or newer enables movies.
- **Limits:** Minigames and sound are not implemented; some effects and puzzle details differ from the original.
- **License:** MIT licence.

## Primary sources

1. <https://github.com/bullbin/widebrim/blob/29182559cfcfa9206e02edee9cd89dff8d1fa32f/README.md>

## More in Games

- [WinTex: an Under a Killing Moon engine reimplementation](https://awesomerea.org/resources/wintex-under-a-killing-moon-case/index.md) · Case study
- [wipEout Rewrite: reimplementing the 1995 PlayStation game](https://awesomerea.org/resources/wipeout-rewrite-case/index.md) · Case study
- [Wizardry 6: reconstructing game formats and systems](https://awesomerea.org/resources/wizardry-6-reconstruction-case/index.md) · Case study
- [wkbre2: recreating the Warrior Kings engine](https://awesomerea.org/resources/wkbre2-case/index.md) · Case study
- [wkbre: reconstructing the Warrior Kings engine](https://awesomerea.org/resources/wkbre-case/index.md) · Case study
- [Wolfenshine: reimplementing Wolfenstein 3D](https://awesomerea.org/resources/wolfenshine-case/index.md) · Case study

## About this entry

The description was reviewed against primary sources.
Original editorial content: MIT. Linked projects, papers and assets retain their own rights and licenses.
