Gemsweeper
Back in April, one Sandra Erb of Lobstersoft contacted me, having through some strange twist in the universe found this website. Seeing my praise for Picross DS, she requested that I try her company's Gemsweeper game; and not being one to refuse free things, I said I would, when I got a Windows PC to play it on. Now, having had my quad-booting rig for a couple months, I've finally remembered my free game.
I quickly saw why Sandra (who is apparently not just a publicist, but also the game's producer and a primary designer) recommended Gemsweeper to me on the heels of Picross. It uses the same puzzle concept - a "nonogram" as WikiPedia has informed me - and, despite the ancient Mayan ruin trappings, plays very similarly. Affirmative blocks in the puzzle are "hidden gems" and must be overturned to retrieve them; negative blocks are "cursed" and must be chiseled away. The primary difference between Picross and Gemsweeper is that the latter tasks you not only with finding the picture, but finding the negative, which is to say, putting an X in the wrong place brings a penalty as well.
Being a shareware title, Gemsweeper is chock-full of bright colors, an active HUD, not-that-funny one-liner dialog, and a single, uninspiring background song on an endless loop. So yeah, it's kind of a casual-esque game, especially considering the difficulty (so far I haven't spent more than two minutes on a stage). But it's also got 210 puzzles. The official figure is 225, but that includes weird bonus stages that play like a different game - and aren't terribly interesting - but anyway, while not quite up to Picross's number, it's still a thoroughly impressive figure.
I'm not exactly stoked about Gemsweeper. It's not really a game "for" me; where Picross was a mix of accessible and challenging, Gemsweeper is mostly accessible. I'll bet you've got a bunch of family members who would love it, but if it wasn't free it would be pretty difficult to talk me into buying. Since it was, though, and since it does tickle my puzzle fetish, I'm sure I'll be starting it up again at some point. Thanks, Sandra!
Progress: Fifth temple