The first Picross on the DS remains one of my favorite games on the handheld. It's the perfect synthesis of logic and creativity. You're given a grid and a set of numbers, and you must use those numbers in order to deduce by process of elimination which squares should be filled in and which should be left blank. The end result is a pixelated image that gives you a feeling of accomplishment that "clear the board" puzzles can't match.

Now Nintendo has released Picross 3D, and I've fallen in love all over again. In Picross 3D, each puzzle starts out as a cube, and you must methodically chisel away to discover the underlying figure, much as a sculptor reveals the hidden form inside a block of marble.

For those of you used to the 2D grid of the old Picross, this is a heady concept to wrap your head around. So let's go step-by-step through a custom puzzle I made especially for Bitmob.

Here's the initial cube. The numbers tell you how many consecutive blocks in a particular row or column should be filled in. In this case, we're going to see a lot of three consecutive blocks. Some numbers are circled, which means the filled-in blocks are split into two sections (two and three for a circled five, for example). Other numbers have a square around them, which means the filled-in blocks are cut up into three or more sections. This will make more sense as we go along.

The first step is to chisel away all of the rows and columns with labeled with zero. That should make a lot of the remaining rows and columns easier to work with.

Next, you start to fill in blocks by process of elimination. For example, if you've got a row of six blocks and the number labeled on them is four, that means four of those six blocks will be filled in. Since you know that no matter whether those four consecutive filled-in blocks start at the beginning of the row or the end, the middle two blocks will be filled in, you can fill those two in now. They may help you figure out the columns crossing that row.

You can use the red and blue diamonds (called "slicers") next to the puzzle to see inside the cube and fill in inner blocks. This comes in handy to access those hard-to-see places and chisel away at more blocks. As you can see, a figure it starting to take shape.

You've probably figured out what I'm making by now. It's simply a matter of chiseling and filling in by process of elimination. No guesswork is involved.

By the way, you're allowed five mistakes in chiseling away blocks before the puzzle is over. Each time you make a mistake, the game corrects you by showing a broken filled-in block. You can see one of those in the bottom left. (Yes, I made a mistake doing my own puzzle. It was an accident!)

Almost there now! Just a few more blocks to chisel away...

Sucess! It's the Bitmob man rendered in 3D! Not a bad approximation if I do say so myself.