An Amazing Deal
Q: How do you sculpt an elephant?
A: Easy, just carve away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.
Imagine taking that old adage and adapting the implied mechanic into a game. Picross 3D is a simple, but deep, logic/spatial reasoning puzzler that tasks you with chipping away unwanted bricks to reveal a hidden sculpture. Numbers on the sides of a cube reveal how many blocks you need to remove; different marks let you know if the remaining blocks are grouped together or spaced into two, three, or more groups. An in-depth tutorial guides you through this process step-by-step until the somewhat abstract concept is totally natural.
Picross 3D is one of the reasons the Nintendo DS is still a relevant platform. The controls are all stylus-based, and this feels completely natural, even necessary, rather than forced. Each puzzle takes between five and twenty minutes to complete on average, making them perfect for playing in short sessions on the bus or during a lunchbreak. The sound effects and music are fine, but completely incidental to the gameplay, so you can turn the volume down without sacrificing anything, meaning it's perfect to play in crowded areas.
For $20, Picross 3D offers over 300 puzzles and hours of gameplay, making it one of the best gaming values around. If you're on a budget, this is a way to stretch your dollar. Multiple save slots mean that you can share the game with friends or family without losing your individual sense of progress. I share the game with my girlfriend, who generally doesn't play games, and she can't put it down. In the store today she actually said "I should get a new DS game, because I'm almost done with Picross."
My one problem with the game is that it's a little too easy to accidentally delete a block when you actually want to mark it as safe, or tap the wrong brick if you space out or jerk your hand around. There's wi-fi functionality, but the DS doesn't work with my network, so I can't comment on that.
In short, you should buy this game.
