Nintendo and HAL Laboratory should write the book on how to make puzzle games. Picross 3D is yet another top-notch puzzle game for the DS, although I must warn the general public that this game’s puzzles are challenging to say the least.

How to make a puzzle game: start with a good concept

Here’s how to make a puzzle game. First, start with a good concept. It’s a good idea to take one that already exists and appears in puzzle books or newspapers because these are tried and tested. Sudoku, for example, or Picross. The concept has to be interesting over a lot of puzzles, so it’s the most important thing – it should be something that is simple to grasp in the beginning (so cryptic crosswords are out), but with enough depth that you’re always learning something new. Picross has this, and now Picross 3D has it too.

The concept is superb, in fact – Picross but in three dimensions. You start with a block made up of many small blocks. Some rows or columns have numbers on them indicating how many of the blocks in that row are part of the shape you’re trying to “find.” If the number is circled then the blocks appear in two bunches, if the number has a square around it then the blocks appear in three or more bunches, and if the number is normal then all the blocks appear together. These three basic rules, along with some deductive logic, supply some very satisfying puzzle solving.

Perfect the controls

Once you have a good concept, the controls are the next most important thing. Bad controls will ruin the enjoyment of the player, while good controls won’t get in the way. Picross 3D has great controls. Dragging the stylus around rotates the shape in the dragged direction. If you hold down the up direction arrow (or X) the cursor changes to a hammer and a tap of the stylus destroys the block you tapped on. If you hold down the right arrow (or Y) the cursor changes to a paintbrush and a tap of the stylus paints a block, stopping you from hammering that block. The game allows you to paint whichever blocks you want, but if you hammer a block that shouldn’t be removed from the “sculpture” it will reveal that to you. The block will stay, painted now but cracked, and the number of available mistakes will drop by one. There’s one other control – two little dials the sides of the shape which allow you to view a cross-section of the shape. As you drag the dial through the shape you can see each cross-section one at a time, which means you can colour or hammer shapes within the shape too.

Provide lots of content

The content is Picross 3D will last you months. There are truly a massive number of puzzles in the game. To start with each puzzle will take a few minutes, but once you get to “Normal” puzzles they’ll be taking 10 minutes, and then even later they will take 15 or 20 minutes. With over 350 puzzles provided, a lot of dedication is needed to complete the built-in content. If you add to that the ability to download new puzzles that others have created then this game is incredible value for money. You can also try your hand at creating 3D Picross puzzles by using the in-game editor if you get bored of always just solving puzzles.

Provide great rewards

Rewards are vital in puzzle games. There is satisfaction in completing another puzzle, that is reward in and of itself, but providing other rewards gives puzzle games that meta-game which keeps you working towards goals. Firstly, there are levels. Each level has eight puzzles and two bonus puzzles. The bonus puzzles can only be unlocked if you score enough stars in the eight puzzles. Stars are another form of reward – complete a puzzle for one star, complete it in a certain minimum time or without a mistake for two stars, and complete it within the time and without a mistake for three stars. Complete the eight puzzles and the bonus puzzles in a level to get a silver medal for that level. Complete everything with three stars to get a gold medal.

But the real reward in the game is the way you reveal a shape as you knock away blocks. It almost feels like “sculpt-by-numbers.” Once you’ve knocked away the last block that shape will spin around and will be coloured in. It will also perform an animation, some of which are really excellent. Seeing the shape you’ve been sculpting come to life is the reward that makes you keep on coming back to do “just one more puzzle.” Shapes also then get added to a collection which contains similar items (for example, one collection contains traditional Japanese things), and you slowly complete each collection as you complete the shapes that comprise them. The reward system of Picross 3D is one of the best I’ve seen in puzzle games.

Polish

That typical Nintendo polish is the other magical puzzle game ingredient. In Picross 3D it takes the form of a very simple, elegant menu system, a good variety of puzzle types (including time-limited puzzles, one-chance puzzles and compositional puzzles, where you sculpts parts of a bigger item from some smaller puzzles), and the ridiculously good animations that play after each puzzle. I still find it hard to believe that more than 350 animations were made for this game.

Kudos to HAL Laboratory for making one of the best puzzle games on the DS. The Picross formula translates very well to 3D in the form used here. 3D puzzles are harder in the sense that they require much more spatial visualization ability, but they are also easier because they never get particularly big and there is always a solution. In the 2D game you sometimes had to speculate by guessing a spot and following that guess through to see if you hit any contradictions. You were also able to fall back to the pre-guess puzzle state, and the game didn’t tell you if you got something wrong (once you got to the later puzzles anyway).

In this game there is no mechanic like this, and so some of the more advanced puzzle-solving has been removed. This makes Picross 3D fit an odd spot – more difficult because of the 3D aspect, easier because there’s no speculation. The game also suffers slightly from the low resolution of the DS with its jagged lines, and every now and then I hammered the wrong block by mistake because they’re a little small when rotated. I recommend playing this game on the DS XL if you can.

Puzzle game fans should definitely get Picross 3D – it offers a huge amount of quality, fun puzzling. Now I can’t wait for a version of it on the 3DS!

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