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Nonograms: a practical guide with interactive examples

There was a fun hacker news post a while back [0] about a website that had generated every solvable-without-backtracking 5x5 nonogram. I found it very addictive, and the creator has since released it as a paid mobile app. Highly recommended for commutes!

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44140918

25 minutes agobspammer

I built this, the list started as a tutorial and then grew out of control. Especially when I started experimenting with mixing text and interactive elements. I think nonograms are underrated and relatively unknown, I hope this text changes it a little.

I link to my app[1] frequently, it's free right now, I hope this is fine. There's no Android version yet; for anyone who wants to try nonograms on an Android smartphone I recommend Simon Tatham's Puzzles[2] - like my app it is also free, has no ads, etc; nonograms there are called "pattern".

Feedback very welcome; thanks! If you use other nonogram solving techniques and want me to add them to the list please share too.

[1]: https://lab174.com/nonoverse/

[2]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details

4 days agomerelysounds

Great js implementation! I don't have any iThing but I'd happily play your js version in a browser for a while.

Since you mentioned Simon Tatham puzzles there's a js version here[1], but it really just isn't quite as good

[1] https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/patt...

(if I were to nitpick, for large grids one might want to make the separating line a bit thicker every 5 blocks for faster counting, and repeat numbers at the bottom/right -- but at the size the examples are in neither are needed)

(BTW you didn't mention for overlapping but there's a nice trick: just try from either end, count how many cells are leftover, and take that off the starting side of each block)

4 hours agoevgpbfhnr

The Google play link is broken for me:

> We're sorry, the requested URL was not found on this server.

an hour agoesperent

Great work but… In app purchase pop up quotes 0.0 for extra puzzles. My card got charged ~25 USD. I feel I was scammed.

3 hours agopolymax

How? If you look at the purchase history in your apple account it should show the actual price, and in mine it shows as free

3 hours agoswiftcoder

Same. 'Unlock Image Puzzles' shows an amount of 0.

3 hours agoxmichelo

Wonderfully done, thanks for sharing!

5 hours agonetghost

Oooh that's nice! I made a nonogram game as well but never made a tutorial because of how much extra work it would be. Good job on doing the work.

My twist on the game is that it's multiplayer. I posted it on the nonogram subreddit a few years ago and to my surprise I still have a few daily players. I'd recommend posting it there as well, they're nice folks.

Here's mine. Multiplayer, free, browser-only, no ads/tracking. https://berendswennenhuis.nl/nonogram/

an hour agoberenddeperend

This is currently the best nonogram game (with random generator) on the Internet:

https://liouh.com/picross2/

I frequently play it on 15x15 and I regenerate it until there are no numbers above 6 (and as few 5s and 6s as possible).

an hour agobananaflag

I've been playing this one for a long time now. You can play both on mobile and on the web: https://nonograms-katana.com/ the game has quite big community.

an hour agozerof1l

I love nonogram puzzles, they're incredibly calming in times of stress.

The only issue I have is I'm limited with the size of board I can comfortably play on my phone, and I rather keep my laptop as a games free zone.

an hour agoesperent

I thought this was going to be about nomograms. TIL that monograms, nonograms and nomograms exist