Konami Pixel Puzzle Collection
Picross has rules.
Regardless of variant, Nongram puzzles are governed by numbers and patterns.
Early puzzles always lure the player into believing they are all powerful with their measly 5x5 grids, vanquished in seconds. In little time at all, the encapsulating checkerboard grows and expands and suddenly you must solve them less by rote, and more with careful checks and balances.
‘If that is this, then this is this.’
‘If they are there, this can’t be here.’
Life is not a Picross puzzle.
Whilst the reward at the end of a challenging week or task may echo the sudden dopamine satisfaction wrought from the grand reveal at the end of a taxing grid, it’s the people, places or events that sit outside of the rules of recursion or number that make life so aggravating, fascinating and rewarding.
A life line may satisfy its bounding ruleset horizontally, yet fit imperfectly when viewed vertically. Observed collectively, an individual may view a run of numbers as being solved, whilst another, thought to be on the same page, may disagree.
This latter fight can be played out literally in the Picross S series, with its co-op mode about as fun as New Super Mario Bros Wii and its bizarre choice to allow players ostensibly working together to bump each other mid-jump into bottomless pits.
‘Here’
‘No, here’
3 4 6
‘I am me, and you are you’
Picross has rules; we do not. I’ll arrive too early, stay too late. Say this, then that.
My approach is now different. Instead of looking at the board, all 5, 10, 15, 20 rows and columns at a time, I’m looking block by block; cell by cell.
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