Due to the popularity of pen-and-paper nonogram puzzles at the time in Japan, Makoto Nakayama, founder of Jupiter Corporation, pitched a video game version of nonograms to Nintendo. Since Jupiter had little experience in game development,
Ape Inc. (known now as Creatures Inc.) assisted with the game's development.
Shigeru Miyamoto oversaw the process from Nintendo's side and proposed adding Mario to the game. ''
Mario's Picross was released for the Game Boy in 1995. While it did not take off in the West, it sold well in Japan and led to several Japan-only entries, including Picross 2
for the Game Boy, Mario's Super Picross for the Super Famicom, the Picross NP
series for the Nintendo Power service, and Tamori no Picross
for Satellaview. A Picross
minigame was also planned to be included in Pokémon Gold and Silver'' during its development, although that idea was scrapped.
Picross DS was the first
Picross title in 12 years to be released internationally, launching on the Nintendo DS in 2007. Shortly thereafter, HAL Laboratory, known for the
Kirby series, developed
Picross 3D for the Nintendo DS. The game used similar mechanics to traditional
Picross but adapted them to a three-dimensional environment. The sequel,
Picross 3D: Round 2, was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2015. After unsuccessfully pitching a
Picross DS sequel to Nintendo for the 3DS, Jupiter opted to self-publish
Picross games under a licensing deal.
Smapic, and ''
Sumikko Gurashi the Movie: The Kingdom of the Sky and the Two Girls Let's Play Characross. Logiart Grimoire
and Juufuutei Raden's Guide for Pixel Museum
were also created as original nonogram video games for Microsoft Windows (through the Steam digital store), with them later receiving a PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Microsoft Windows release (through the Microsoft Store), but for their Nintendo Switch versions, both games use the Picross'' name with permissions from Nintendo. == Games ==