Nonograms

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Free nonogram puzzles

Free Nonogram puzzles

Nonograms — Japanese puzzles with encrypted images of people, animals, or geometric shapes. These crosswords have many names, such as Crucipixel, Edel, FigurePic, Grafilogika, Griddlers, Hanjie, Illust-Logic, Pic-a-Pix, Picross, Pixel Puzzles, Anchor Uftor, and Tsunami Picross.

In a rectangular grid, use the numeric prompts to draw the cells that make up the drawing.

Game history

Nonograms appeared in Japan at the end of the last century, the author of the puzzle is still undetermined, although two contenders are known. The first is Illustrator and designer Non Ishida, who claims to have used nonograms since 1970 to communicate with animals. ISIS believed that understanding is only hindered by the lack of communication, conducted research and created a system of signs from black and white squares. 

At the Window Art competition in 1987, the designer designed a skyscraper with dark and burning Windows, and won. The following year, three window Art Puzzles appeared. Around the same time, the second likely Creator of nonograms, the Japanese Tetsuya Nishio, came up with the "drawing by Numbers" puzzle and published it in another publication. 

At first, no one was interested in the new crosswords, as puzzle lovers did not know how to solve them. It was only when nonograms were printed in the UK in 1989-1990 and appeared in every issue of the Telegraph weekly that Japanese puzzles became popular.

From Europe, they spread around the world, got to Russia and returned to Japan. Since then, collections of nonograms have been published in large quantities and are in demand. Now Japanese drawings can be found in many Newspapers and magazines, as well as in the form of computer implementations.

Interesting fact

Initially, Japanese puzzles were two-color, now there are multi-color versions of the game. The maximum size is 150×150 cells. A few minutes are enough to solve a simple nonogram. Complex options require dozens of hours of work.

It is proved that to increase the intellectual potential, you need to spend at least half an hour every day solving puzzles. Nonograms cannot be solved without using logical and imaginative thinking. Solve Japanese puzzles-it's fun and useful!

How to solve nonograms

How to solve Nonograms

In the nonogram, the drawing is encrypted with rows of numbers. You need to draw the crossword puzzle cells correctly to see the picture. The image always has a semantic load and can contain a figure of a person or animal, an ornament, a geometric figure, etc. Each Japanese puzzle has only one solution. There are no lines and rows in the crossword puzzle without colored cells.

The playing field is divided into squares. On the left and top you can see rows of numbers, they show how many colored cells are in the row and column. Accordingly, each number is the number of fused cells separated by one or more pure cells.

In color puzzles, this rule is not observed, groups can touch. Groups of colored cells are arranged in the same order as the numbers in the hints, i.e. from left to right and from top to bottom. 

Tips on the game

  • Start solving with lines with a large number of colored cells. Surely in the crossword puzzle there is a row or row in which only one solution is possible.
  • Match rows and rows with large groups of filled cells. For example, in a 15x15 nonogram, one of the lines contains two groups of 4 cells, the space may be in the fifth column. If groups of four cells are specified in vertical rows 1 and 9, the remaining cells in these columns will be empty.
  • Find the cells that will definitely remain empty and mark them with crosses or dots.
  • Cross out the numbers that have already "played". 

Gradually, the field will be filled with notes that will help you calculate the next steps and you will start to move confidently to the finish line. Japanese crossword puzzle for the smart and patient. We believe you will succeed!