I just realized that I’ve played Picross DS every day for the past 50 days. What keeps me coming back? “Daily Picross,” a special mode that challenges you to complete 5 different puzzle sets as quickly as possible, plots your results on a graph and allows you to track your progress (or lack of progress, as is often the case for me) over time. The whole thing only takes about 5 minutes to complete, but it’s an incredibly addicting and rewarding feature.
But Picross DS isn’t the only game that encourages a short daily play sessions. Features similar to Daily Picross are creeping into many of Nintendo’s Touch Generations games. Brain Age, Big Brain Academy and Plant Puzzle League, for example, all have similar modes that track the player’s progress over time. I know this might not seem like a big deal, but what was the last game you played at least once every day for 50 days?
It’s been a long time since I had a game like that. This is mostly because I have so many games, and buy so many often. The last game I remember playing the hell out of like that was probably Street Fighter 2 Turbo. I played that religiously during summer break when I was a kid. I may very well have played that for 50 days straight. Now, I have games that I’ve played a lot, but not 50 days straight. I’ll admit, though, that I played a ton of Gears of War for quite some time. I still go back to that one every now and then. Great game.