Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1577 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Nintendo
• Released on: 2007-05-11
• Rating: To Be Announced
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Subtitled in: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .75" h x 5.00" w x 5.50" l, .26 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
Picross DS is the latest puzzle phenomenon from Japan and is set to become as popular as Sudoku. Picross DS is logical puzzle that has players mark squares in a grid in order to paint a picture. Players discover which squares to mark by analyzing numbers that are given for every row and column which indicate the amount of marked squares within the grid. Picross DS is played almost exclusively with the stylus, but there is also the option of conventional button controls.

Picross DS offers more than 300 puzzles, as well as unlockable high-score mini-games, spread over various difficulty levels in the normal puzzle mode. Picross DS also offers a race against the clock in the single player mode, putting players under pressure to improve there skills and ability on a daily basis, this will all be tracked over time.

Additional features offered in this great touch! generation title is the opportunity to create your own puzzles, and share them with friends via wireless communication, and the WiFi connection. WiFi also offers the opportunity to go online and battle against other users and down load additional puzzles.

Customer Reviews

Seriously addictive!
The chances are that Nintendo's previous picross titles have passed you by, since only one of them (Mario's Picross) got a release outside of Japan, and it was greeted with a groundswell of indifference. Nevertheless, you might be familiar with picross puzzles. Bearing a superficial comparison to Sudoku, Minesweeper and all those, they've appeared in the UK under various names, including Griddler and Nonogram, and in various newspaper puzzle pages (including The Sunday Telegraph and occasional appearance in The Guardian). And they're also freely available across the internet, in varying shades of quality. But they have yet to inflict an onslaught on the commuting classes that's comparable to the enormous success of Sudoku. Which is unfair, because Picross is far better in my opinion.

Like most logic puzzles, any description is going to be pretty boring: the object is to use logic to shade the correct cells within a grid, in order to produce a rudimentary pixel picture. Imagine, if you can, a grid, with a string of numbers next to each row and column. Those numbers tell you how many contiguous blocks of shaded cells there are in that row or column. So, for example, 2,2,4 tells you that there is a block of two shaded cells; a block of two shaded cells; and a block of four shaded cells; all in a line, in that order, and each separated by at least one unshaded cell. By cross-referencing the strings of numbers you work out which cells to shade, and which cells can't be shaded, and then you use that information to work out where other shaded cells go.

See? Boring. Until you pick it up and play it, and you become ensnared by the relentless urge to create pixel perfect order out of the frightening chaos that is a blank grid. And there's a lot of blank grids. After a tutorial and some Easy puzzles, the game is largely divided across Free puzzles, and Normal puzzles and there are about 150 of each. Free puzzles are the more difficult of the two because if you make a mistake the game lets you continue, and if you make one mistake you can potentially make a lot of mistakes as you use the wrong information to work out where the shaded cells are. Normal mode, by contrast, punishes any mistakes with a time penalty. This makes it possible to use a degree of guesswork to finesse your logic, which is handy for beginners or the hard of thinking, as is the option to start each grid with one randomly assigned row or column already filled out.

If replaying the 300-odd puzzles to improve your time doesn't sound appealing, it's possible to create your own and share them with friends over a wireless connection (and anyway replaying the 300-odd puzzles to improve your time will start to become appealing as the game starts to infect every fibre of your being). It's also possible to get hold of downloadable updates that contain puzzles that were previously included in Nintendo's previous Picross games, and to race your friends online. And there's a whole load of mini-games to unlock, from daily quick-play puzzles to quick-burst reflex tests that require you to tap moving cells.

It is, simply, just about the best t logic puzzle out there. So here's hoping that it enjoys the same sucess as Sudoku and titles like Brain Training.

Say goodbye to your spare time...
I bought this game understandably with low expectations but has completely won me over. It's so, so, so addictive. When you finish a puzzle you instatly think 'I'll play one more', and then you'll do another, then another. It's such a simple puzzle game and is perfect to play anytime, anywhere.

With 300 puzzles on the cart, then the ability to make your own, download them on Wi-Fi, have Wi-Fi battles and play single-cart multiplayer battles it will keep you going for ages. Don't dismiss this game based on the simple graphics, this is what portable gaming is all about - a great way to waste time without becoming involved and overwhelmed with storylines, quests, weapons, etc.

Also, for less than £20 there's nothing better to play on your DS. It's also about 10 times better than Sudoku & Kankuro. Play it and find out for yourself.

Great Puzzle Game!
This has to be one of the best puzzle games on the DS. I bought this game about 5 days ago and what can I say, it really is a great game.
The game has over 300 puzzles for you to enjoy, and with the added bonus of Wifi, you can download more puzzles(at the moment there is only a Mario pack to download)and you can challenge players from around the world.
Also, you can create your own puzzles and share them over Wifi.
If you want a puzzle game for the DS for under £20, then you can't go wrong with this one.
10/10