Nonogram

How to use it

• Play — a puzzle at the chosen size: 5×5, 10×10, 15×15, 20×20, 25×25. Size is the difficulty.
• Daily — one puzzle per date, numbered from 22 October 2026, larger through the week: Monday 10×10, Tuesday 10×10, Wednesday 15×15, Thursday 15×15, Friday 20×20, Saturday 25×25, Sunday 15×15. A daily you are playing at midnight stays on the page until you finish it. Opened on a later day, the page shows that day's puzzle instead, and an earlier one you had started counts as played, not won.

A tap or click fills a cell. Choose Cross to mark cells you know are empty instead; with a mouse, the left button does what is chosen and the right button the other. A tap on a cell already filled (or crossed, in Cross) clears it. Dragging along a row or column does the first cell's change to every cell it passes, and keeps to the row or column it first moves along. On a keyboard, the arrow keys move, Space fills, X crosses and Backspace or Delete clears; Ctrl+Z undoes and Ctrl+Y redoes. Cells shrink with the screen down to 18 pixels: on a phone about 360 pixels wide, 5×5 and 10×10 fit, and 15×15 and larger scroll sideways inside their frame with the row clues pinned to its edge.

A clue number is struck through once its run is in place: closed off by crosses or the edge, counting in from either end of the line, or every number at once when the line's filled runs are its clue. Auto-cross crosses out the rest of a row or column when a fill makes its filled runs match its clue. Hint first points out a wrong fill or cross, then finds the next step by line logic from your correct cells and explains it; the second press applies it.

The puzzle is solved when the filled cells are the picture; crosses are only notes and never count against you. The finished picture shows on its own, named from 10×10 up. A game finished after a hint, a revealed cell or with Auto-check on counts as played, not won, and ends your streak. Stats are kept per size, and puzzles print 1, 2, 4 or 6 to a page with their solutions after.

How to solve a nonogram

Every step works on one row or column at a time, from its clue and the cells already known. Overlap. A run that can only lie within part of a line covers the middle of that part wherever it goes, between its latest start and its earliest end (the first worked hint below). Reach. A cell no run can reach is empty: every cell of a line whose clue is 0, the cells beyond a line's last run once it is in place, and gaps between runs fixed in place.

What one line settles feeds the lines crossing it, so a good start is the rows and columns with the largest clues, then each line those cells cross. Now and then a cell is settled only by trying every way the runs could fit; Hint names such a step plainly.

Each size from 10×10 up holds 500 pictures, drawn from the glyphs of Noto Emoji, Google's open emoji font (SIL Open Font License). The 500 5×5 puzzles are random patterns, since a picture needs more cells to read. Every puzzle was solved by line logic alone before it was kept, which proves its picture is the only solution: no puzzle needs a guess.

Worked hints

Frequently asked questions

See also

• Minesweeper — for another grid of deduction from numbered clues.
• Sudoku — for the classic number placement puzzle, with explained hints.
• Kakuro — for another puzzle whose clues sit at the ends of each line.