The holidays are a great time of year to relax, forget about work or school for a while, eat good food, and relax with friends and family. Unfortunately, not all Christmas gatherings are created equal; sometimes you can only play so much Scrabble or Monopoly before you lose the will to live, and everyone has at least one weird uncle they'd rather avoid.
Luckily, I have one piece of advice if you want to while away the hours in peace during the holidays. Developer Jupiter has been making cheap, content-filled Picross games for Nintendo hardware ever since. MarioPicross on Gameboy. Now, on Switch And Switch 2Jupiter has over 20 mind-blowing Picross games available for purchase.
The best of them, in my opinion, are publications created in collaboration with other popular Japanese publishers and developers. For example, I have spent countless hours on Picross S: Genesis and Master System Edition, and also Picross S: SNK Classics and NEOGEO Edition. But it doesn't stop there: Jupiter also produces Picross games under licenses from Namco and Capcom.
So if you're looking for a solid puzzle game to dive into during the holiday season, and want something a little different from the staples like Tetris or Puyo Puyo, here's why I think you should give Jupiter's Picross games a try.
What is Picross?
If you're not familiar with the concept of picross (pronounced “pi-cross”), it's a puzzle game that looks challenging at first, but is actually incredibly easy to master.
The Picross custom puzzle is a square grid divided into rows and columns. Next to each row and column is a number or series of numbers that determines how many squares you need to change from empty to filled. If there are two or more numbers in a row or column, there will be at least one space between them, which must be left blank.
So the goal is to form an image on the grid using these numbers as a guide. In the Jupiter's Picross games, after solving a puzzle, the image changes from crude black and white to full-color pixel art, ultimately creating a gallery of eye-catching images.
The Jupiter Picross games also have a selection of alternative modes if you get bored of the standard format. For example, Color Picross requires you to fill each square with the correct shades by following those numbers in each row and column. Mega Picross is a little more diabolical: it offers fewer numbers in a few lines and therefore fewer clues to work with. There's also the excellent Clip Picross, whose individual puzzles ultimately form one whole work of art.
What's the appeal?
I find Picross games developed by Jupiter to be a fantastic way to relax in a relaxed and stress-free environment. Unlike more demanding puzzle games, Picross does not have a failure state (at least outside of the Time Attack modes); you simply work on the puzzle until all the squares are filled in correctly.
That doesn't mean there aren't varying degrees of difficulty. Simply figuring out which squares to fill in becomes increasingly difficult as you move to larger 15×15 or 20×20 grids. There are some assists available to you, such as the ability to complete one row and column to give you an advantage, but you can earn a No Help medal for the puzzle if you complete it without assistance.
But for me the call is simple; Seeing the pixelated images come to life after completing a puzzle is a rewarding experience in itself. Like an advent calendar with a random piece of art behind each door, you never know what you'll see until you solve the puzzle. This makes completing hundreds of puzzles (per game, by the way) so much more difficult.
My recommendations
So if you want to master Picross on Switch or Switch 2, where do you start? I think a good place to start your journey is at the most accessible entrance, which is: Picross C+. It is essentially a Picross platform that serves as the hub for all Jupiter 3DS Picross games. Picross and to Picross e9. You can grab Picross C+ for just $4.99/£3.99 inc. Picross and default. All other games are available as downloadable content for $4.99/£3.99 each.
However, if you love retro games, I can happily point you to a few licensed Picross games, including the recently released Picross S: Capcom Classic Edition And Picross S: SNK Classics and NEOGEO Edition. These two cost $17.99/£16.19 each, but there are hundreds and hundreds of puzzles between them. No matter where you start, you can't go wrong, and you won't have to pay much either.
Even away from family gatherings during the holiday season, Jupiter Picross games make great travel companions. The number of times these games have forced me to take long flights or train rides cannot be overstated. And if you like the Picross picture crossword format, each individual game can offer you countless hours of fun at surprisingly affordable prices.
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