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Nonograms / griddlers on your PC

Introduction

NonoGrid is a puzzle game that lets you play and solve nonograms/griddlers on your computer. The easy-to-use program helps you solve nonograms without using a pencil and eraser.

What are nonograms or griddlers? Nonograms are logic puzzles, in which you need to uncover a picture consisting of black and white squares. You start out with an empty grid and you use clues and logic to find out which squares in the grid should be black or white. The puzzle may have a title which can give you a clue as to what the final picture will be.

These puzzles originated in Japan and are very popular. Nonograms are known under many different names, e.g. griddlers, japanese puzzles, picture crossword puzzles or crosspix. Even Nintendo has created two nonogram games for the Gameboy, Mario's Picross and Picross 2.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge
You can find nonogram/griddler type puzzles in puzzle book form in many countries. Of course, playing a computer version is more comfortable, as you don't need an eraser to erase your mistakes, you can easily try and cancel assumptions and save your progress for later.

How to play nonogram/griddler puzzles?

Let's solve a nonogram puzzle, step-by-step. By working through this griddler, you'll see how the clues and logic can be used to deduce the color of every square. HowTo1
Step 1:
The first and fourth rows have the clue 3. This means there is a group of 3 blacks. Since there are only 3 squares in total this means that each row is filled with black squares. Set these squares to black by left-clicking on them with the mouse.
HowTo1
Step 2:
Notice the third column has the clue 2,1. This means that there is a group of 2 blacks, a gap and then 1 black. Since the first square is black from Step 1 the next one down must be black because the clue is 2,1. The number 2 has to apply to the top two squares, so they should both become black.
The third square now must be white, because there has to be a gap between the top two blacks and the bottom black. Set this square to white by right-clicking on it with the mouse.
HowTo1
Step 3:
The second column has the clue 1, 2. Since the first square must be black from Step 1, the next square must be white because the clue is 1, 2, Thus the third square down this column is black.
HowTo1
Step 4:
The first column is practically solved already. The clue is (1,1) and the position of 2 black squares was determined in the previous steps. All that needs to be done is fill in the white squares.
Congratulations you've solved your first nonogram puzzle!
HowTo1
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includes 150 nonogram/griddler puzzles
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