I’m going to make this quick so I can get back to the game that’s making me write this in the first place: Picross has taken over my life.
Mario’s Super Picross (pronounced PIE-cross) is a free puzzle game on the Super Nintendo service available to all Nintendo Switch Online subscribers.
(Yes, I know the etymology of the word is “picture crossword” and thus it should be pronounced “pih” but consider; you’re wrong, your friends are wrong, Kotaku contributing editor John Walker is wrong, and even Mario Himself is wrong.)
At first glance, Picross looks horribly complex and explaining it is even worse, but if you have any passing knowledge of Sudoku, the mechanics of Picross will be familiar to you. Even then, I am loathe, dear reader, to explain to you exactly how Picross works lest you too be sucked into the Devil’s Masonry like I have, but I’ll do my best.
In the game, you clear blocks from a square grid based on number clues running along the two axes until a hidden picture is revealed. For example, if the game presents you with a 5x5 grid and the first column is topped by the number five, you know that all five blocks in that column need to be chipped out. Likewise, if you are presented with two numbers in a row—say 2 and 2—you know that four blocks in total will be chipped out of that row in chunks of two. For columns or rows with more than one number attached, there will always be a buffer of at least one block between them.
Got it? No?
Okay!
Trust me, it is not an easy thing to verbally explain. When my partner described this to me, my eyes glazed over and I could smell burning flesh from my brain frying within my skull. I should have turned away then, my frying brain was a warning to me—“turn back, here there be monsters”—but I did not heed my survival instincts.
I hate my partner now. It’s his fault I’m in this mess. He’s the one who got me hooked on this and now we are both lost.
This maddening obsession started innocuously enough, he would spend a lot of his idle time with his nose pressed into the screen of his Switch muttering numbers under his breath.
I didn’t mind it, we’re both gamers and sometimes we get absorbed in a game to the exclusion of all else. I was like that with Hades, so turnabout is fair play.
But then, I made a mistake. Naturally curious about how my partner was spending all his free time (and I do literally mean all) I asked him to show me.
I would regret this.
He showed me the game, explained it, chose a simple puzzle, and handed me his Switch. When I looked up from the Switch again, hours had passed—I was lost, sucked into the same block-breaking puzzle spiral that had seized him.
Now whenever we’re together, it’s all Picross all the time.
I can’t say it’s all bad. The pandemic combined with the onset of fall with its grey days and chill winds makes it the ideal conditions to stay inside and do absolutely nothing that involves outside human contact. This past weekend was perfect, the two of us hunched over our Switches, curled up on the couch under blankets, chipping away at our puzzles while the Great British Baking Show played on pleasantly in the background. (In this house we stan Paul Hollywood.)
The game also has nefarious Wario levels that offer you a grid and numbers but no timer, no hints, and no penalization for clearing the wrong block—expecting you to either get the puzzle right or spend hours screaming “What did I do wrong?” as you wonder why the puzzle won’t clear. I avoid Wario levels as my obsession with getting things right would ensure I add another life sentence to my Picross addiction.
Now, the only words spoken between us are numbers muttered at the screen as we count blocks, or the occasional loud curse whenever we miscount or commit some other error that results in a penalty or “Game Over.” We defer dinner until late and often bargain with one another at bed time—”Okay one more puzzle and we’ll go to sleep.”
Please, don’t end up like me. Do not go to your Switch. Do not download the Super Nintendo Entertainment System app and do not under any circumstances play Picross. Play the previously unreleased Star Fox 2. Play Super Metroid. Play Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. Play anything but Mario’s Super Picross.
But...play it anyway. It is a lot of fun.