when you think "puzzle game," i don't think Sunday morning crosswords usually come to mind. especially in the world of videogames, where things like Puyo Puyo or Tetris dominate the public's mind real estate. if you're making a videogame, you'd wanna utilize the technology at your disposal, right? it'd be like getting a racecar and just using it to get groceries. so tell me, why is it that Picross has always had a stranglehold on me?

Picross is a videogame interpretation of the classic Nonogram type of puzzle, developed by Japanese studio Jupiter exclusively for Nintendo consoles since the 90s. while yes, Jupiter has done other types of games, (you might know them for developing the Pokemon Pinball games on Gameboy Color and Advance) their main wheelhouse is Picross. in fact, on the 3DS alone, they released NINE DIFFERENT GAMES in the Picross e series, and did it again with the Picross S series on Switch! not to mention all of the crossovers they did with huge franchises such as Final Fantasy, Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda, Sanrio, Mario... the list goes on and on, and people absolutely eat it up, myself included! i've been hooked on Picross ever since i was young, i think my first introduction to it was Pokemon Picross on the 3DS eShop, and i became totally hooked after that.

so, all this talk of Picross, and i haven't even given a rundown of how it's played yet. Picross, or Nonogram, is a type of puzzle that's somewhere between Sudoku and Minesweeper. however, unlike Sudoku, it's actually extremely fun! you're given a grid of blank squares (most commonly 10 by 10) that has "hint numbers" at the edge of each row and column. these are your only hint as to which squares you need to fill in, and are the crux upon which Picross is played. for example, let's say a row that has 10 squares in it has a hint number of 10. this would mean that you fill in every square in that row, no questions asked. likewise, if the hint number were a 0, you wouldn't fill in any squares in that row. however, let's say this same 10 square row has a hint number of 4. this means that, somewhere in that row, there will be a line of 4 connected squares with no spaces between them, and the rest of the squares will be empty. you can't be certain which of the 10 squares will be that uninterrupted line of 4 filled squares without filling in more of the board, and as you do so you'll be able to figure out more rows and columns. additionally, there can be multiple hint numbers per row or column, and this is where the real complexity comes in. take our 10 square row example before, let's say it has a hint number of "4 5". this means that there will be a connected line of 4 squares, some amount of space, and then another connected line of 5 squares in that row. because there are 10 total squares in that row, that means you already know the exact layout of that row. it'd be four filled squares, one empty square, and then 5 more filled squares after that, making a total of 10.

explaining Picross is hard, at least in text only form. if you don't get it, don't worry, it's not really that important for today's topic: Picross DS, which was surprisingly the only Picross game for DS. in fact, Picross completely skipped both the Gameboy Color and Advance, making this the series' second ever title in the west. the first western-released Picross game, Mario's Picross, totally bombed in the USA, so i guess they were scared off by that. if any system was perfect for Picross, however, it'd have to be the Nintendo DS. talk about a casual game hotspot, and the touchscreen controls are magnificent for this type of game. this was also during that really stylish part of the 2000s where everything looked super slick visually, so the game has this really pretty clean white aesthetic that i love.

in terms of gameplay and content, it sure is Picross! there's about a million puzzles to solve, so it's not like you're gonna run out of levels anytime soon. it starts you out with 5x5 puzzles which are chump fodder, way too easy for me. then it steps you up to 10x10, and these are my favorite. just challenging enough while also not getting too complex and overwhelming, i could do these all day. it's once you get bigger than 10x10 that i start to have issues. not only with the puzzles themselves, but with how Picross DS presents them. the DS had a low-resolution screen all things considered, so trying to fit a puzzle bigger than 10x10 comfortably on it without any compromises was gonna be difficult no matter how you cut it. so, they made some compromises. for anything bigger than 10x10, you have to use a zoom feature to navigate the puzzles, and i'm not a fan of this. i like having the whole thing visible to me at once, it helps my mind think a lot better, which is necessary for these larger puzzles. having that disconnect really throws me off, and solving the larger puzzles takes me way longer than it already does in Picross DS. for reference, i once tried a 30x30 puzzle in Picross S6, and that took me an hour and 20 minutes. now imagine if i had tunnel vision the whole time on top of that.

now, this minor problem doesn't drag the entire game down for me, because it's got more going for it than just the main puzzle mode. this is the only Picross game made by Jupiter (i think) to allow you to create your own puzzles, and it's SO much fun. additionally, when Nintendo WiFi Connection was still around, you could even share your creations online, as well as download others from the internet! this is an awesome feature, and i have no earthly clue why they STILL haven't brought it back. now, in the modern Jupiter Picross games (i.e., anything after the SNES era with Mario's Super Picross) whenever you complete a puzzle, it overlays a colored version of the puzzle to make it pop more as an image. the custom puzzle editor in Picross DS, called My Picross, allows you to do this as well, though it lets you draw the colored version in a higher resolution than the original puzzle size. i absolutely love this, i went wild with this feature back when i was playing Picross DS regularly, and i wish there was still some kind of way to share puzzles online... i don't think fanservers support this game yet, but the moment they do you know i'll be all over it.

overall, while it has some setbacks, Picross DS is an excellent rendition of a classic puzzle game, and i think it's absolutely worth a shot if you're at all interested. it's actually a really good entrypoint into the game, so if you've never played i think starting here is a good idea.