Picross DS review: Picross DS

Picross DS is another puzzle by numbers game originating from Japan (where it goes under the name of Oekaki Logic),  in which you use the numbers written along the top and left-hand side of a grid as hints to fill in the squares on the puzzle and complete the hidden illustration.

7.0

Picross DS

The Good

Easy to pick up the fundamentals. Logical game, great stimulator of mind and maths. Lots of levels, can ease your way into the more difficult puzzles. Daily Picross is a fast, fun way to build your skills.

The Bad

The pixel "pictures" are sometimes difficult to interpret (even when you’ve finished).. May run out of original games after a few weeks of solid playing. Not great if you're more into words than maths. The touchscreen interface can be finicky, resulting in unfair time penalities.

The Bottom Line

Picross is a fun, logical game, great for stimulating the mathematician in you that provides a nice change to the Sudoku 1-9 grind. Warning: can be addictive for puzzle lovers.

The logic used to determine which squares in the grid to colour in, and which to leave blank (or marked with small x's) is the key to this game. To express the concept very simply, imagine a row of ten blank boxes. If you were told that eight adjoining (and that's the key here) boxes were to be coloured in, but you weren't told the starting box, you could still use logic to figure out which of those ten would be coloured in no matter what. Hint: it would be six of them.

There are two types of rules in Picross DS. During "Normal mode rules" you will be told if you fill in an incorrect square, while in "free mode rules" you will not be informed of your mistakes. (Easy mode and Normal mode use Normal Mode rules. Free mode uses free mode rules)

There is one level of easy mode, four levels of normal mode and four levels of free mode play. All games give you the option of viewing hints. The level of difficulty increases with the size of the grid, which starts at 5 x 5 and increases to 15 x 15. Free mode is the most difficult, and should only be used by intermediate to advanced players.

Free mode features a "try it out" option which enables you to try place test x's or blocks in the puzzle. Afterwards, you can simply return to the state the puzzle was in or you can choose to keep what you've done and apply it to the "live" puzzle.

For this review, we mainly played both Picross and Daily Picross. Daily Picross is essentially a five-game race against the clock where you can attempt to improve your scores every day. It includes a variety of new puzzles which reveal themselves the more days you play. The options uncovered so far include standard, no x's and error search. Error search is a fun game where you need to spot the errors and fill in the blanks.

As with many DS puzzles, Picross DS is played using the touchscreen interface. This can be quite temperamental and care needs to be taken when selecting a square in order to avoid unfair time penalties if you go near the wrong square (or if your DS is not calibrated properly). In Daily Picross, it's also worth trying to "drag" the stylus down a row in order to complete the shading as fast as possible (be careful, however, if you're not intending to complete the whole row).

Picross includes over 150 puzzles across all the different modes. After that, you have the option to replay the first round, create your own puzzle or download new ones.

Picross comes with six options:

• Picross: Solve Picross puzzles
• Daily Picross: Solve these puzzles as fast as possible
• My Picross: Create your own puzzle or take on a downloaded puzzle
• DS Wireless Communications: Play head-to-head or exchange puzzles
• Nintendo Wi-Fi connection: Play head-to-head or exchange puzzles with friends over long distances via the Internet using a wireless LAN
• Settings: After play settings

Picross DS is compatible with the DS Rumble Pak.