Chokkan Hitofude (Also known as; Polarium, One-Line Puzzle and Hito Fude) is another puzzler for the Nintendo DS, with a very simple idea behind it. You have to flip over black and white tiles to create horizontal rows of a single colour. When you have a row that's all one colour, it's then removed. Here's the tricky part though; you have to clear the entire puzzle in a single stroke with the stylus, and you cannot cross over your line.

When you turn on the game, you are asked to do a tutorial, which is far too basic to be needed, and for some strange reason, even if you complete it, you are always asked if you want to do the tutorial every time you play the game.

Checkmate mode has 100 set puzzles for you to complete. You unlock them ten at a time, and they are all different patterns, with a grey border around the outside. You have to clear the entire puzzle with one continuous line, and the grey border is there so that you can go around the edge of the puzzle to avoid flipping tiles you don't want to. This mode is very addictive, but sadly it's over quite quickly. Most of the puzzles will only take a minute or two of thinking to complete, with five or so trickier ones that'll have you scratching your head wondering how to beat them. There are two hint tools you can use in Checkmate mode; one of which will show you your last attempted line on the 2nd screen, and the other will tell you where you should start from (after a certain number of failed attempts), and then if you still can't beat it, eventually it will show you the end point as well.

You are also able to create your own puzzles in Chokkan Hitofude. For every ten levels you unlock in Checkmate mode, you get ten blank spaces to work with. Puzzles are easy to create: you choose the size, from a 2x2 grid, to an 8x8 grid of black and white tiles. You then just draw a pattern or shape onto them, and save. A nice thing here is that you can share them over wireless link, or by using a 30 digit code. Thankfully there are more puzzles being released on the internet, with 17 new puzzles already on the official website, however it might take you some time to enter all 510 numbers!

There is support for two player multiplayer, but you both need to have a copy of the game, so I haven't had a chance to try it out. In addition to sending user-created puzzles over wireless, you are also able to send a 10 level demo to another system without the game.

Chokkan Hitofude is a fun, but short puzzler that doesn't really take advantage of the DS too well. Checkmate mode could easily have been done on the Gameboy Advance, and although challenge mode is too fast-paced for D-pad control, it's not really what most people will be buying the game for.