Nintendo has posted new information upcoming puzzle title Picross DS—yet another entry in the long line of Picross titles the company has been publishing since the puzzle became a fad in Japan in the late 80's.
A Picross puzzle is a grid with numbers on each row and column that tell the puzzle-solver how many boxes need to be filled in for each. The player's job is to deduce which boxes to fill in; correct solutions yield a lovely picture. The game's main Daily Picross mode offers daily challenges and several modes including Nonstop Time Attack (solve a series of simple puzzles as quickly as possible), No X Marks (making notes on the game screen not allowed), and Error Search (making players solve the puzzles in reverse, effectively, by selecting impossible squares.)
Picross DS ups the ante by letting players create their own puzzles in the "My Picross" mode, letting players paint pictures with a paint program and converting them to Picross puzzles automatically, with errors made during the process helpfully corrected. Puzzles made in this mode can be swapped online with friends on one's Friend Roster (only) by storing them in a special Nintendo-run storage area. Additionally, puzzle packs "from the Picross community" will be available for download online, and players can compete in puzzle-solving races.
When playing via local wireless, a host can create Picross puzzles on the fly for up to four players to compete to solve. Both word challenges (players solve individual letters of a word) and picture challenges (players solve a Picross version of the host's drawing) are playable in this mode. Puzzles are, of course, also tradeable via local wireless; and demos can be sent via DS Download Play.
Picross DS has already been released in Japan and Europe, and will hit North American retail July 30—several weeks after the June 7 Australian release. We've posted screenshots for your viewing pleasure.
A Picross puzzle is a grid with numbers on each row and column that tell the puzzle-solver how many boxes need to be filled in for each. The player's job is to deduce which boxes to fill in; correct solutions yield a lovely picture. The game's main Daily Picross mode offers daily challenges and several modes including Nonstop Time Attack (solve a series of simple puzzles as quickly as possible), No X Marks (making notes on the game screen not allowed), and Error Search (making players solve the puzzles in reverse, effectively, by selecting impossible squares.)
Picross DS ups the ante by letting players create their own puzzles in the "My Picross" mode, letting players paint pictures with a paint program and converting them to Picross puzzles automatically, with errors made during the process helpfully corrected. Puzzles made in this mode can be swapped online with friends on one's Friend Roster (only) by storing them in a special Nintendo-run storage area. Additionally, puzzle packs "from the Picross community" will be available for download online, and players can compete in puzzle-solving races.
When playing via local wireless, a host can create Picross puzzles on the fly for up to four players to compete to solve. Both word challenges (players solve individual letters of a word) and picture challenges (players solve a Picross version of the host's drawing) are playable in this mode. Puzzles are, of course, also tradeable via local wireless; and demos can be sent via DS Download Play.
Picross DS has already been released in Japan and Europe, and will hit North American retail July 30—several weeks after the June 7 Australian release. We've posted screenshots for your viewing pleasure.