Last week, Kombo’s Joey Davidson and I had the opportunity to interview Wei Hwa Huang, the spokesperson for Nintendo DS’ Picross 3D.
Wei-Hwa Huang is a four-time individual winner of the World Puzzle Championship and winner of the 2008 Sudoku National Championship. He has co-written two books of handcrafted Sudoku variants, one book on the Rubik's Cube and related puzzles, and was a key organizer for the first World Sudoku Championship held in the United States. When he isn't working on puzzles he develops and designs games, and has been playing on Nintendo consoles since 1984.
1. Of the 350-plus puzzles in the game, how many did you create?
I wish I was involved in the Picross 3D puzzle creation, but all the puzzles were created by the developer (HAL Laboratory). I've personally created a few puzzles using their built-in editor and if you can find me and my Nintendo DS I'd be happy to share them with you!
2. How long does it take to make one of these puzzles?
Designing the puzzle is pretty easy and is as simple as building something out of colored bricks; it's the creativity that's difficult. Of course, this assumes that you have a good puzzle-generation engine, and Picross 3D definitely has one, so you don't have to be good at the puzzles to be able to make a good one.
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