Lobsters in Games: Picross 3D: Round 2

multiple pictures because i cant choose but Cube Thing from Picross 3D

im so distraught that it doesnt have a name but it also is very much a fucking thang. a creature (/pos)

it hops around your screen and cheers you on while you do puzzles and its so. little guy supreme

This Thing from Picross 3D is just a little guy!

girl who is so so scared of removing the wrong block in picross 3d

I COMPLETED IT

369 PUZZLES. PICROSS 3D IS DONE

Original review on Backloggd.

Picross^3

*Played throughout all of 2023, Written in December 2023

It’s Picross, but in 3D. Hal Laboratories 100% understood the assignment here because this is as exact as a 3D evolution can get. Those developers are just good at converting 2D mechanics into 3D ones if Kirby and the Forgotten Land is anything to go by. Picross 3D is 1 dimension more complicated, 1 dimension more satisfying, and at times, 1 dimension more frustrating.

The same core concepts of Picross are present. Each row follows its own rules of where squares can exist. By overlapping the rules between adjacent intersecting columns, you can figure out the nature of the puzzle little by little. Here there is just an extra axis applied, but you still end up only comparing columns and rows. You just end up doing it more times because you are essentially doing multiple Nonograms stacked on top of each and next to each other. The rules for the columns and rows are a bit stricter though, as having only a number of blocks as a rule would be too vague for it to work. Instead there are limits on how many segments of blocks are allowed. The point is, you're multiplying the amount of shit you keep track of by the depth added in Picross 3D. It feels wild at first, but solving some of these were the most satisfying Picross experiences I've had.

The reason for this isn't just the increased complexity, but the very nature of 3D. Nonograms always try to be some picture. But unless the silhouette of the image is strong, you won't have a clue what some of them are until they are colored in at the end. I never had that issue in Picross 3D while I've had that happen in even the best Picross games. I always knew what the art piece at the end was before the reveal because there is no abstraction of what the shape is. In 3D you are not painting, you are sculpting. You are given a large block to chip away at rather than constructing something from scratch. Form is the most important part of the product, so it is always clear.

The change from painting to sculpting also helps better describe the core of what I find Picross to be: Exclusion. In Picross, you find what can't possibly be colored in, so you know what has to be colored in. In 3D, you find what has to be intact so you can figure out what to get rid of. In both scenarios you are chipping away at impossibilities, but in 3D it's far more literal and completely skips the beginning phase in normal Picross of trying to place the initial building blocks yourself. You are pretty much doing the same thing, but it feels more direct here.

Now it being direct does not mean it's faster to get through these. Not all. In fact that's my main issue with Picross 3D. Things take too long to do, not because it's more complicated, but because you end up spending most of your time rotating and dissecting the initial block. I started to get Kid Icarus Uprising wrist pain playing through some of these time trials. The best advice I can give when playing this game is to not even attempt to get high ranks on these puzzles. It's veeeeery easy to mis-click a block and lose your perfect streak and trying to rotate your sculpture too fast will break either your DS screen or your hand. Also, don't be like me. Once you feel like you have mastered the logic of this game, stop and go to bed. Don't continue out of obligation. These later levels take 30+ minutes and there's a lot of them. Like even more than Mario Super Picross. Not quite as much as Hatsune Miku: Logic Paint S though. This game has a lot of content, so taking a break and coming back is recommended.

Honestly….I kinda want to play this game in VR. This is coming from someone who has sandbagged Virtual Reality at every turn. 99% of the time I’d rather just have a screen and a controller. But this left over 1% is where I think Picross 3D might fall into. I require intimate interaction with this 3 dimensional object and VR might be the best way to allow for that.

I can see myself returning for the sequel, but not going as hard with it as I did this game. But for now, I'll just stick with regular Picross. It's not as stimulating, but I sure can do a lot of them in the time it takes to do one 3D one.

Briefly Noted: Picross 3D

As soon as I saw Picross 3D I knew it would be a game my partner would like. We already had a rivalry when I was still engaged with Wordle, and we had previous experience passing the 3DS back and forth with Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and Picross 3D would incorporate elements of both. We could pass the handheld to the other and gloat about our current puzzle count, taunting the other to catch up and perform as well as we had, or sigh and curse at the screen when something went wrong. And so we have for the past week engaged in the ritual of Picross, on the couch, in bed, and in the bathroom, listening to the short jingles repeat endlessly until we finally break that final block to reveal whatever crude simulacrum of an object the blocks have slowly been unraveling before our eyes. Our game time is over 26 hours and we've both barely even gotten to the end of the "Easy" levels. In the back of my mind I wish Eleanor was old enough to join in as well, and hope that maybe someday she'll come across our joint save file and start one herself to catch up to mom and dad. But for now it is satisfying enough to receive the little console and be dared to surpass the new solved count and to overcome the number puzzle presented in each one.

Reminder:

Up until the 27th of March will you be able to redeem download codes on the 3DS and WiiU.

I’m unsure about what will happen to the My Nintendo 3DS rewards within that time, but to be safe you might want to redeem them within the time between now and then.

You can get multiple 3DS themes, Flipnote 3D, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Picross all for free.

You can get them here: https://my.nintendo.com/reward_categories/download_code

Mom can we get picross link

we have picross link at home, sweetie

Picross 3D: Round 2

i have got to get my 3ds fixed so so so so bad

WAHOO YIPPEE MY OBSESSION WITH THIS GAME IS OVER (tries my hardest to ignore the sequel)

Coming out of my little depression hole to remind y’all that the 3DS store closes in 30 minutes!

Holy shit hacking a 3ds is easy and honestly not that scary I should’ve done this years ago because holy shit it does it all by itself and it’s done now how the fuck did that happen now I can do infinite crime so long as my crime is the right file type

for some reason i am really good at conventional 2d puzzles and really bad at video game puzzles. saying this as i fail miserably to comprehend vah naboris