PAX East 2010 Hands On: Picross 3D

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
14,499
0
0
PAX East 2010 Hands On: Picross 3D



Picross 3D [http://www.amazon.com/Picross-3D-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002EE5RD0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1278960995&sr=1-1] could be the most entertaining logic puzzle game you've never heard of, and it has the full backing of Nintendo.

Picross is a puzzle game series that, unbeknownst to many gamers, Nintendo has put its muscle behind all the way back to the days of the original Game Boy's Mario's Picross. It was most recently brought back to the Nintendo DS with Picross DS, an incredibly deep and brain-bending experience that sucked away many hours of my life. Picross is a logic game that uses nonograms, standard grids of squares, say 10x10 or 15x15, with numbers around the outside of each grid row that tell the player which squares must be filled in and which must remain blank. Once all of the squares are filled in, their combination displays a usually somewhat abstract image of an object. So, in Picross, you're not just solving a challenging logic puzzle, you're also making cute pictures appear.

Nintendo's latest Picross project is Picross 3D, coming to the DS in May, which creatively brings the nonogram into the third dimension. Now, players chip away at a 3D block made of cubes, trying to determine which cubes must remain to form an object such as a puppy face or cellphone, rather than filling in squares on a 2D grid. Nintendo was kind enough to bring Picross 3D to PAX East 2010, and being a fan of puzzle games and the use of logic in relation to such, I took some time to sit down on the bouncy mushroom-like chairs of Nintendo's booth to check it out. And yes, the chairs were pretty awesome.

Picross fans will easily understand the idea behind Picross 3D. Players can still mark cubes that should be kept with a paintbrush, very important to the basic logic required to solve Picross' puzzles, but now use a hammer to break those that need to be destroyed instead of a pencil to fill in squares. The controls are very simple to get the hang of, using the stylus to rotate the puzzle block around and to see inside of it to mark cubes hidden from the outside. However, the transference of the game to 3D adds a completely new aspect to the logic required to solve each puzzle. Each row of cubes now becomes its own little challenge, with certain rows marked on the edges as having 8 cubes in a row or 6 cubes that have at least one break in-between. The basics are the same as Picross, but the challenge is not.

Like any logic game, it takes time to discover solving techniques, but even in my short playtime I began to do so. One involved spinning the block like a maniac when I just couldn't figure out what to do. As my brain made adjustments from 2D to 3D, I began to understand the third dimension. Even for Picross veterans, Picross 3D will likely feel like something new at first, as it did for me. Brand new players should remember that this is a game fully backed by Nintendo, so it eases players into the deeper parts of the game expertly.

The strangest part of Picross is how rewarding it feels to finish a brain-crushing logic puzzle only to display a cute little fish. It's as if a fairy were to kiss you every time you got rid of four lines in Tetris. This odd sense of accomplishment is one of Picross' draws, and it continues, but on a different level due to the display of a 3D object in Picross 3D. From my impression at PAX East, it's a cute, fun, logic puzzle game that will make smoke come out of your ears and then make it all better by showing you a tulip.

Permalink
 

ZakCanard

Anas Charisma
Oct 17, 2007
102
0
0
Picross 3D came out in Europe a few weeks back as a DSi XL launch title. It's a great game and one I can still see me playing in a few years, never mind a few weeks or months thanks to the promised weekly puzzle packs and user generated puzzle contests.

A word to you all, this game does get hard fairly quickly. Just as soon as you've got your head around circled numbers (x number of highlighted blocks in two groups), a level set or two later you've got the more challenging squared numbers to deal (x number of highlighted blocks in three or more groups). Even easy mode puzzles can get a bit brain-breaking if you're chasing for a three star perfect finish; you get 1 star for completing the puzzle in time, another for completing with no misses and a third for a quick finish green zone time. You'll need to get those stars if you want to unlock the trickier silver and gold puzzles in each level set.

I have two complaints and they are minor. First is it's a little tricky removing some of the blocks on occasion on a DS Lite or DSi if you've not rotated it in just the right position, that's probably not as bad on the XL with the larger screen. The other complaint is that the music's like being trapped in a lift with Hammond Organ cd stuck on infinite loop, but thankfully you can turn that off.
 

Frequen-Z

Resident Batman fanatic.
Apr 22, 2009
1,351
0
0
Doesn't look as easy to grasp as regular Picross. I played that quite a bit, but looking at that, it just confuses me.
 

rezboyjoey

New member
Mar 7, 2010
110
0
0
I don't understand why the full backing of Nintendo is such a big deal. Its not like Nintendo is the messiah of all gaming and their very presence can turn an average game into a classic. Hell they have been the touch of death on a couple of games in recent memory, mostly Wii titles.
 

ZakCanard

Anas Charisma
Oct 17, 2007
102
0
0
Frequen-Z said:
Doesn't look as easy to grasp as regular Picross. I played that quite a bit, but looking at that, it just confuses me.
Once you've got your head around having a different dimension to play with the principles are identical to those in 2D Picross. Even dealing with cubes on the inside of the puzzle aren't a problem as there's two draggable gems that appear in two of your axes once they get thick enough. That way you can drag them about and more or less treat the entire puzzle as several 2D puzzles that you're solving at the same time.
 

Nalgas D. Lemur

New member
Nov 20, 2009
1,318
0
0
I've been kind of excited about this ever since I first heard about it, because my Dingoo [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingoo] is pretty much a Mario no Super Picross (the Japanese SNES release in the series) machine at the moment. I've meant to put Linux on the thing and play around with the SDK and stuff for a while, but smashing blocks to make pictures of fish and stuff is just too much fun in the meantime.
 

SeanTheSheep

New member
Jun 23, 2009
10,508
0
0
Tell us more about the chairs!

OT: That sounds like a fun game to bring to 3D, I never played either Picross, due to general lack of interest, but if I get a 3DS or DS, then I would probably pick this or Picross DS up.
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
5,630
0
0
Frequen-Z said:
Doesn't look as easy to grasp as regular Picross. I played that quite a bit, but looking at that, it just confuses me.
UYeah...it looks like this one is going to require a hell of alot more brain power in order to solve it!

Will keep me on toes for a while I suppose, heh
 

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
14,499
0
0
SeanTheSheep said:
Tell us more about the chairs!

OT: That sounds like a fun game to bring to 3D, I never played either Picross, due to general lack of interest, but if I get a 3DS or DS, then I would probably pick this or Picross DS up.
The chairs were spring loaded, so they were bouncy. I think I could have easily broken one.
 

SeanTheSheep

New member
Jun 23, 2009
10,508
0
0
Tom Goldman said:
The chairs were spring loaded, so they were bouncy. I think I could have easily broken one.
This makes me happy, though the fragility is a bit of a problem.
Do you have pictures, or is that taking the chair fetish too far?
 

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
14,499
0
0
SeanTheSheep said:
Tom Goldman said:
The chairs were spring loaded, so they were bouncy. I think I could have easily broken one.
This makes me happy, though the fragility is a bit of a problem.
Do you have pictures, or is that taking the chair fetish too far?
ha okay i'll try to
 

SeanTheSheep

New member
Jun 23, 2009
10,508
0
0
Tom Goldman said:
SeanTheSheep said:
Tom Goldman said:
The chairs were spring loaded, so they were bouncy. I think I could have easily broken one.
This makes me happy, though the fragility is a bit of a problem.
Do you have pictures, or is that taking the chair fetish too far?
ha okay i'll try to
If you get those pictures, I will be a very happy man.
Very happy.
 

cobra_ky

New member
Nov 20, 2008
1,643
0
0
SeanTheSheep said:
Tom Goldman said:
SeanTheSheep said:
Tom Goldman said:
The chairs were spring loaded, so they were bouncy. I think I could have easily broken one.
This makes me happy, though the fragility is a bit of a problem.
Do you have pictures, or is that taking the chair fetish too far?
ha okay i'll try to
If you get those pictures, I will be a very happy man.
Very happy.
you can kind of see them in this video. frankly I found them pretty uncomfortable.


ZakCanard said:
Frequen-Z said:
Doesn't look as easy to grasp as regular Picross. I played that quite a bit, but looking at that, it just confuses me.
Once you've got your head around having a different dimension to play with the principles are identical to those in 2D Picross. Even dealing with cubes on the inside of the puzzle aren't a problem as there's two draggable gems that appear in two of your axes once they get thick enough. That way you can drag them about and more or less treat the entire puzzle as several 2D puzzles that you're solving at the same time.
This. It seems overwhelming at first (especially if you sit down in the middle of level 2 like i did) but it's really not that hard to figure out.

...at least, it wasn't nearly as hard as figuring out Miegakure was. :/
 

SeanTheSheep

New member
Jun 23, 2009
10,508
0
0
cobra_ky said:
SeanTheSheep said:
If you get those pictures, I will be a very happy man.
Very happy.
you can kind of see them in this video. frankly I found them pretty uncomfortable.
-Youtube snip-
Frankly I was a little disappointed at the lack of proper focus on the chairs in that video, but I suppose if you did just video a chair, that would be kind of creepy.
 

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
14,499
0
0
SeanTheSheep said:
cobra_ky said:
SeanTheSheep said:
If you get those pictures, I will be a very happy man.
Very happy.
you can kind of see them in this video. frankly I found them pretty uncomfortable.
-Youtube snip-
Frankly I was a little disappointed at the lack of proper focus on the chairs in that video, but I suppose if you did just video a chair, that would be kind of creepy.
Honestly my butt remembered them better than my brain. When I went back to take a pic, they were kind of plain. But I still took one! No, I haven't uploaded it to the computer yet.
 

SeanTheSheep

New member
Jun 23, 2009
10,508
0
0
Tom Goldman said:
SeanTheSheep said:
cobra_ky said:
You can kind of see them in this video. frankly I found them pretty uncomfortable.
-Youtube snip-
Frankly I was a little disappointed at the lack of proper focus on the chairs in that video, but I suppose if you did just video a chair, that would be kind of creepy.
Honestly my butt remembered them better than my brain. When I went back to take a pic, they were kind of plain. But I still took one! No, I haven't uploaded it to the computer yet.
Upload it soon, or I may just have to sneak into your room and take it.
And no, I won't show anyone else.
Though the pictures of you sleeping may find themselves on my blog
I said nothing else, the post about not showing anyone was the second last sentence of this post.
 

coldfrog

Can you feel around inside?
Dec 22, 2008
1,320
0
0
Tom Goldman said:
From my impression at PAX East, it's a cute, fun, logic puzzle game that will make smoke come out of your ears and then make it all better by showing you a tulip.
This is why I read these articles. Not because I'm actually interested in these games, but because so frequently I'll read a sentence like this one.

Actually, that's not true, and I love the idea of a 3D picross and will probably spend hours on end with this one as well. Though to be honest, I can't see how it can be MUCH harder then the previous one as it seems like a lot of the standard rules and techniques will no doubt apply, though I'm sure the real difficulty will come from trying to actually picture the shapes in 3D.
 

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
14,499
0
0
coldfrog said:
Tom Goldman said:
From my impression at PAX East, it's a cute, fun, logic puzzle game that will make smoke come out of your ears and then make it all better by showing you a tulip.
This is why I read these articles. Not because I'm actually interested in these games, but because so frequently I'll read a sentence like this one.

Actually, that's not true, and I love the idea of a 3D picross and will probably spend hours on end with this one as well. Though to be honest, I can't see how it can be MUCH harder then the previous one as it seems like a lot of the standard rules and techniques will no doubt apply, though I'm sure the real difficulty will come from trying to actually picture the shapes in 3D.
Thanks for reading. I'm thinking the difficulty will be in the more complicated shapes where you have to mark off cubes in the middle of the main block. Could be frustrating perhaps, but at $20 I'll get plenty of entertainment from it without a doubt.