Mario’s Picross

It’s always refreshing to come across a puzzle game that doesn’t involve sorting things that inexplicably fall from the sky. Picross has you using your brain to uncover a hidden picture.

Picross takes place on a grid. For every row and column on the grid, there is a series of numbers like “4 2 3″. These numbers tell you that there is a stretch of four continuous squares filled in, some amount of blank space, two more squares filled in, some more blank space, and then three squares in a row filled in. You have to use your ‘logic’ to determine which squares to fill in. Your result is a nice little picture of some sort.

Your only tools, besides your brain, are the ability to mark (or unmark) a square that you don’t want to fill in, and the ability to fill in a square. You want to make absolutely sure that you are filling in the right square, because every wrong square you chip away will remove precious minutes on the clock. You run out of minutes, and you get to start the puzzle again.

Oh, and for some reason, Mario’s an archaeologist. I kind of just don’t pay attention to that.

There is an insane number of puzzles to be had in this game. I spent several dozen hours with this thing, and only managed to complete about half of the puzzles. I still pick it back up every now and again to do a few more puzzles. It’s got some got some pretty good staying power, I’m just kind of disappointed that none of the other games in the series managed to make it to my collection.

One Response to “Mario’s Picross”

  1. [...] while back I talked a bit about Mario’s Picross, a logic puzzler that just gripped me and didn’t let go until my arms had finger-shaped [...]

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