The Holidays are a wonderful time of year to unwind, forget about work or school for a bit, eat great food, and chill out with friends and family. Unfortunately, not all Christmas gatherings are made equal; sometimes, there’s only so much Scrabble or Monopoly one can play before losing the will to live, and everyone’s got at least one weird uncle they’d rather avoid.
Thankfully, I do have one recommendation if you want to while away the hours in peace over the Holidays. Developer Jupiter has been making cheap, content-stuffed Picross games for Nintendo hardware ever since Mario’s Picross on the Game Boy. Now, on Switch and Switch 2, Jupiter has a dizzying 20-plus Picross titles available to buy.
The best of which, for me, are the editions made in tandem with other popular Japanese publishers and developers. For example, I’ve put countless hours into Picross S: Genesis & Master System Edition, as well as Picross S: SNK Classics & NEOGEO Edition. But it doesn’t stop there, as Jupiter has also made Picross titles with the Namco and Capcom licenses, too.
So if you’re looking for a solid puzzle game to get stuck into over the Holiday period, and want something a bit different than mainstays 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 unfamiliar with the concept of Picross (pronounced ‘pick-ross’), it’s a puzzler that seems daunting at first, but is actually incredibly easy to learn.
An individual Picross puzzle presents you with a square grid, divided into rows and columns. Next to each row and column is a number – or series of numbers – that dictates how many squares you need to change from blank to filled-in. If a row or column has two or more numbers, there will be at least one space between them that must remain blank.
The goal, then, is to form a picture on the grid using those numbers as a guide. In Jupiter’s Picross games, upon completing a puzzle, the image will change from a crude black-and-white to a full-color piece of pixel art – eventually creating an entire gallery of eye-catching pictures.
Jupiter’s Picross titles also have a suite of alternative modes, should you get a bit bored with the standard format. Color Picross, for example, requires you to fill each square with the correct hues while following those numbers on each row and column. Mega Picross is a bit more devilish, offering fewer numbers across multiple rows and thus fewer hints to work with. There’s also the excellent Clip Picross, the individual puzzles of which eventually form one larger piece of art.
What’s the appeal?
I find the Picross games developed by Jupiter to be a fantastic way to unwind with something casual and stress-free. Unlike more demanding puzzle games, Picross has no failure state (outside of its Time Attack modes, anyway); you simply work on a puzzle until all squares have been correctly filled in.
That’s not to say it doesn’t have varying degrees of challenge. Simply figuring out which squares do need filling in gets increasingly tough when you graduate to larger 15×15 or 20×20 grids. Some assists are available to you, such as the option to fill a single row and column to give you a head start, but you can earn a ‘No Assist’ medal on a puzzle for going entirely without help.
But for me, the appeal is simple; seeing the pixel art images come to life upon completion of a puzzle is its own satisfying reward. Like an advent calendar with a random piece of art behind every door, you never quite know what you’ll get to see until you finish the puzzle. This makes progressing through hundreds of puzzles (per game, by the way) such a moreish endeavor.
My recommendations
So if you want to get into Picross on Switch or Switch 2, where should you start? I think a good place to begin your journey is with the most affordable entry, that being Picross S+. It’s essentially a Picross platform that acts as a hub for all of Jupiter’s 3DS Picross titles, that’s Picross e through to Picross e9. You can grab Picross S+ for just $4.99 / £3.99, which includes Picross e by default. All those other titles are available as downloadable content, also costing $4.99 / £3.99 a pop.
If you love retro gaming, though, I can happily point you in the direction of several licensed Picross titles, including the recently released Picross S: Capcom Classics Edition and Picross S: SNK Classics & NEOGEO Edition. These two are $17.99 / £16.19 each, but have hundreds upon hundreds of puzzles between them. Wherever you start, you can’t really go wrong, and you won’t be paying much besides.
Even away from family gatherings over the Holiday season, Jupiter’s Picross titles just make for fantastic travel companions. The number of times these games have kept me going on lengthy flights or train rides can’t be overstated. And if you vibe with Picross’s picture crossword format, each individual game can offer you countless hours of fun at remarkably affordable prices.
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