{{nihongo|Mario's Picross is the first in a series of Mario themed Picross titles released in the 1990s. It is a collection of nonogram logic puzzles involving a grid with numbers for every row and column which refer to the amount of marked squares within the grid. The game features Mario as an archaeologist who chisels away to form images on the grid. It was followed by two Japan-only sequels, Picross 2 on the Game Boy and Mario's Super Picross on the Super Famicom.
Gameplay
The objective of each logic puzzle is to reveal a hidden picture in a grid by scraping specific squares of it. Each puzzle starts with an empty grid and several numbers are given at the side of each horizontal row and vertical column of the grid. The numbers tell the player how many squares have to be scraped in each line. The revealed pictures show food, animals and other objects, but also make some Mario series references.
For example, a "5" means that the player has to scrape five consecutive squares in the respective line. If there is more than one number, then there has to be at least one blank square between the scraped areas. For instance, "4 6 2" means that four consecutive squares have to be scraped in the line, followed by at least one blank square. After the blank space(s), the player has to scrape an area of six squares. Again, there has to be at least one blank square between this area and the last two consecutive squares that have to be scraped. If the player is sure that a square doesn't have to be scraped, e.g. when a blank square is needed or all required squares in a line have been scraped, he or she can mark it with an "X". Finally, the player will be able to reveal the hidden picture by logic thinking