How to play Nonograms
A nonogram is a grid with a picture hidden in it. The numbers beside each row and above each column say how its filled squares run. Work out which squares are filled from the numbers alone, and the picture appears.
Reading the clues
- Each number is a block of filled squares in a line, with no gap inside it. A clue of 3 means three filled squares side by side.
- The numbers come in order: in a row, from left to right; in a column, from top to bottom.
- Between two blocks there is at least one empty square. A row with the clue 2 1 holds two filled squares, then a gap of one or more, then one more.
Marking the grid
Press a square to stitch it filled. Switch on Empty and press to dot a square you know is empty; dots matter as much as stitches, because they show where a block cannot go. Drag to carry the same mark along a line. On a computer, right-click dots a square, Z takes back and H asks the owl. Take back undoes your last mark.
The sizes
Pictures come in 5 × 5, 10 × 10 and 15 × 15. Every picture can be solved one line at a time from its clues, with no guessing, and has only one answer.
Solving, one line at a time
Ask the owl and it names the step that settles the next square. The steps run from easiest to hardest:
- Overlap. Push a line's blocks as far left as they go, then as far right. Squares a block covers in both places are filled whichever way the line lies. In a 10-square row with the clue 8, the middle six squares are filled before anything else is known.
- Gaps. A run of open squares between two dots that is shorter than every block in the clue must be empty.
- Reach. Do the same pushing, but respect the marks already made. A square no block can reach is empty, and a block that can only sit in a short stretch fills its overlap there.
- Every fit. List every way the clue fits the marks in the line. A square that is the same in all of them is settled.
Each settled square is also part of a line the other way, so a stitch in a row gives the crossing column something new to work with. Go back and forth between rows and columns until the picture is complete.
Where to start
- Start with the biggest numbers: a block longer than half its line always has an overlap.
- A clue whose blocks and gaps add up to the length of the line fills it completely.
- Dot the squares on either side of a finished block: nothing else in that line can touch it.