A downloadable Picross game for the 3DS themed on and structured as a Pokémon RPG. Catch Pokémon by solving puzzles to reveal their images and then use their various abilities when fighting more Pokémon solving more puzzles. The standard assist features are available here as Pokémon abilities instead, generally themed by type - for example, water Pokémon tend to have “Blue Force”, which is the ? Navigation effect. There are hundreds of puzzles in standard and Mega Picross variations, and two Micross puzzles are available as well.

A downloadable Picross game for the 3DS themed on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. There are 45 puzzles that can be played as standard Picross or Mega Picross puzzles (with the order changed so you don’t know which is coming next when you redo the puzzles in the other mode) plus one Micross puzzle.

The third in a series of budget-priced downloadable Picross games for the 3DS.

There are 130 standard Picross puzzles up to 15x15 in size. Unfortunately, you can’t choose between Normal and Free rule sets; the puzzles are divided into ones that must be played Normal and ones that must be played Free. Additionally, there are 20 Mega Picross puzzles bringing the total up to the familiar 150.

The second in a series of budget-priced downloadable Picross games for the 3DS.

There are 150 standard Picross puzzles up to 15x15 in size. Unfortunately, you can’t choose between Normal and Free rule sets; the puzzles are divided into ones that must be played Normal and ones that must be played Free. Additionally there are five Micross puzzles.

The first in a series of budget-priced downloadable Picross games for the 3DS.

There are 150 standard Picross puzzles up to 15x15 in size. Unfortunately, you can’t choose between Normal and Free rule sets; the puzzles are divided into ones that must be played Normal and ones that must be played Free.

One of the first Picross video games. There are 192 puzzles played with Normal rules, giving time penalties for mistakes made. After completing these, a further 64 puzzles are available in “Time Trial” mode, which follows Free rules but also randomizes the order of the puzzles. The only assist available is Hint Roulette, which unfortunately can’t be disabled completely - if you don’t want it, you have to say “no” to it (which is not the default option) every time you start a puzzle (outside of Time Trial).

A text-based idle game where you play as a paperclip maximizer. Click to create paperclips, then buy upgrades to increase your ability to create paperclips, and go on from there - like many of the best idle games, there are a number of phases each with their own focus and surprises. Some phases take some time to properly understand, partly because the UI leaves a lot unexplained (you might want to look up how to read a payoff matrix if you don’t already know), but the game does an excellent job teaching through mechanics. If you experiment and pay attention to which strategies work and which don’t, you’ll unavoidably derive some basic principles of economics, game theory, and the mathematics of Von Neumann machines. I did feel the game ran a bit long, with some phases that keep going after they’ve taught what they had to teach, but I acknowledge that may be because I happen to have a foundation in most of these topics. Others may find the length gives them time to reinforce and internalize the concepts.

This game casts you as the healer standing behind the tank who takes on wave after wave of enemies. Spend your slowly-regenerating mana, items dropped by enemies, and level-up skill points in order to keep the tank alive for as long as possible. You will eventually fall, and the goal is to get farther next time. As such, the gameplay has elements of roguelikes, tower defence, and resource management puzzles.

A twin-stick shooter played on the surface of a sphere. The core gameplay is Asteroids-like with large rocks that break down into smaller ones and occasional enemies, but with a few sources of added variety.

This is a cleaned-up port of the PS3 version plus its DLC packs, with some extra streaming-friendly features and new DLC on top. Everything in the other review applies here too. This is the new definitive version - if you haven’t tried Stardust, this is the best one to start with. If you’re sick of it, this won’t change your mind.

A twin-stick shooter played on the surface of a sphere. The core gameplay is Asteroids-like with large rocks that break down into smaller ones and occasional enemies, but with a few sources of added variety.

This game takes the same great formula as its predecessor, but makes some tweaks. Most notably, there are now only two weapon and asteroid types, with the least interesting one of the original three being dropped. The core gameplay - with the frustration-free spherical arena and the large competence zone conferred by the panic buttons - is just as much of a blast as ever. While there are a ton of game modes, since the game is a Vita launch title a lot of new gameplay and features rely on the Vita’s gimmicks (touch screen, rear touch panel, gyroscope) in ways that don’t always work well. As a result, there’s less here for the returning player, but it’s still portable twin-stick Stardust and that’s a good thing.