Picross DS

"An excellent puzzler."

Picross is a combination of pictures and crosswords. You may be able to find it in your local newspaper, or if you are really sharp, you'll remember Mario Picross from a few years ago. Pictures plus crosswords may seem like an unusual combination, but once you get playing you get the idea of how it works, and you actually have quite a fun and addicting little puzzle game.

So how does it work? When you first turn on the game, you are presented with an excellent, in-depth tutorial. The game presents you with various puzzles which are set on grids, measuring either 5 x 5, 10 x 10, 15 x 15, or 20 x 20. To solve these puzzles, you must follow the numbers given on the left and top outsides of the grid and fill in the corresponding blocks to make a picture. All of the puzzles can be solved logically - no guessing is necessary. For example, one row may have, on the left side of the grid, the numbers 5 1 3. This means that you will have a 5-block line, a 1-block line, and a 3-block line on this row of the grid. Even better is that they will be in that order in the picture, meaning it will only be a 5 1 3 combination on that line, not a 1 5 3 or any other combination, giving you a little reprieve in that sense. The top of the grid works in the same manner. If you see the numbers, from top to bottom, 8 4 2, you will know that you'll have an 8-block line, a 4-block line, and a 2-block line going from top to bottom in that column of your picture.

The game also allows you to place an X inside of unfilled boxes that you know cannot possibly be part of the picture. For example, if your number combination is 1 2, and you know where the single block belongs, fill it in. Now, you can place an X to the right of the lone block since you know there has to be at least one space in between the 1 and 2 lines, and you can place an X in every unfilled block to the left of the single filled block, because you know that there won't be anymore blocks before the 1. Once you figure out where the 2-line belongs, you can place an X in every unfilled box on that row since both of your lines have been filled in and you know you won't be filling in any more blocks on that row. How does this help? Well, when you're filling in columns, you'll get to that line and see an X, and you will know that a filled block cannot possibly go there. This process of elimination allows you to complete the picture. A timer in the lower right-hand corner keeps track of how long you have taken to complete the puzzle. If you make a mistake, you receive a time penalty. The first mistake costs you two minutes, the second four minutes, and so on and so forth. The penalty caps at eight minutes. Over an hour to solve the puzzle (time actually solving plus time penalties) means that you do not clear the puzzle. You can still finish it though, so you can have a visual idea of what the picture is supposed to look like for when you try it again.

The game starts off relatively slow, with two or three easy 5 x 5 puzzles. After you've successfully completed those, you'll be given a few 10 x 10 puzzles to worth with, which are also quite easy. Most players will find that they can breeze through these puzzles without too much trouble in under a minute, and even placing an X may be unnecessary since you can easily visualize what the puzzle should look like. If you make a mistake, you receive a time penalty and the game automatically places an X in the spot you tried to mark. It does not take long, though, for the game to start throwing more complicated puzzles at you. Not long after you start trying to solve the 15 x 15 puzzles, you will be trying to figure out just how you are supposed to solve the puzzle without guessing. In that case, taking a time penalty here and there is not always a bad thing, because you at least will know for certain where a block cannot be filled in. Much later on, you will get 20 x 20 puzzles. These puzzles are incredibly difficult and long-winded and often require a good bit of thinking to come up with the right solution for a row or column.

That is only Easy and Normal Mode. In Free Mode, the game does not tell you if you make a mistake. That means you can work a puzzle almost until the very end, only to realize you've made a mistake somewhere and you will have to start all over again. The game does allow you to make an overlay - that is, you are given a blank grid to work with where you can attempt to solve the puzzle. If you are satisfied when you finish, you can put the overlay onto the actual puzzle and complete it that way. If you are not satisfied and feel your overlay is wrong, you can discard it and try again. This makes solving the puzzle a little easier - you can easily discard your overlay if you make a mistake with little difficulty. In all three modes, you are asked if you would like to use hints before you start a puzzle. This will randomly select one row and one column and fill them in for you. You will find in the later puzzles that this is a very useful tool.

There are other things to do as well. Daily Picross lets you do one of five series of five puzzles each, with special conditions, as fast as possible. It will track your daily times on a grid to show your improvement (or lack thereof). When you begin, you have only one series - Nonstop Time Attack. You simply have to solve five puzzles as fast as possible. Playing Daily Picross at least once for several days in a row will unlock the other series available after a certain number of days, and the conditions and challenges increase but your objective is the same - get the solution as quickly as possible. My Picross allows you to create your own puzzles, where the game then rates the difficulty of the puzzle on a scale of one to four. It gives you some samples to begin with to get an idea of how to do it. Also in My Picross, you can solve puzzles you have downloaded from the Internet via WiFi Connection. Nintendo periodically releases new puzzles online for you to download and solve in My Picross, and you can just delete them when you are finished. Multi-Picross allows up to five players to compete using the Wireless Communication on the DS. Download Play allows players without a copy of the game to compete as well. In the WiFi Connection option, you can download puzzles from Nintendo or exchange puzzles you have created with other people (you need their friend codes to do this). You can also compete with other players via WiFi Connection.

The game controls fairly well. You have the option of playing with either the stylus or the D-pad and buttons. With the stylus, you choose if you want to fill a block or place an X, and tap the block to do so. However, in the larger puzzles, the blocks are too small to really be able to fill them effectively, so a zoom feature has been added. Zooming allows you to magnify a certain portion of the puzzle to work with it more easily. The downside is that you are not able to view the entire puzzle at once, which can really hamper your playing. Also, zooming is incredibly annoying in that when you are trying to move the puzzle from one section to another, you will often end up filling in a block when you do not mean to (and thus get a time penalty). Often, you will find yourself simply using the D-pad controls because it is easier.

The music is lighthearted and quirky, expected for a game where you will need to concentrate. The music given while you are solving a puzzle is not overpowering - it is simple and soothing, and is just perfect enough. However, you will find that the music gets repetitive fairly quickly, and when you turn off the sound to your DS you will not even notice a difference.

Everything on the puzzles is clear and easy to read. However, the larger puzzles will have you squinting because they are so small. I also had trouble with later puzzles because I am colorblind to certain combinations of colors, and some of the color combinations the game uses are a little wacky. Still, the bright colors and the picture on the top-half of the DS that fills in as you solve it should help you immensely.

Overall, Picross is a great game. It is very entertaining and is very portable - you can pick up and play it at anytime, and turn it off at anytime after finishing a puzzle. You can play for hours or 5 minutes, it does not matter. With over 200 puzzles available after unlocking them all, the ability to exchange with friends for new puzzles, and the ability to download more new puzzles from Nintendo, Picross should keep you entertained for a long time and is a steal at $19.99.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/15/07

Game Release: Picross DS (US, 07/30/07)