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Nonograms - Japanese Crosswords
- gurchik 3y agoWhen Hurricane Irene left me with no power (and no wifi), I played hundreds of these nonograms on my Kindle Keyboard 3rd Gen. I was amazed by the battery life I could get even in a game that required many screen refreshes. I had bought the Kindle only a few days earlier, and the unlimited 3G access came in handy!
- simonbarker87 3y agoI’m not into puzzles at all and is one of the reasons I find typical dev interviewing so frustrating, problems and puzzles are not interchangeable afaic. But my wife LOVES puzzles, her favourite type are nonograms. She’s spent many a long haul flight casually watching films while really just devouring these things one after the other. They all end up making a picture of some kind (as far as I can tell anyway) so they scratch the itch of a logic puzzle and also the feeling of something creative, revealing the image at the end, be it a lions head, a windmill, landscape or whatever. If you’re into puzzles and haven’t tried these I second hand recommend it. Second hand since I can think of nothing worse than these things but I enjoy seeing the satisfaction and enjoyment my wife gets out of them. Them
- neontomo 3y agoI love this comment, probably because I relate so much. I enjoy designing puzzles more than actually solving them. The one exception is crosswords.
- simonbarker87 3y agoInteresting, I suppose the problem of creating the puzzle gives the tangible outcome of knowing that you made something for others to enjoy - which relates to the sibling comment to this and my reply.
- dietr1ch 3y agoI find that both, puzzles and problems can pet your brain with the reward of getting something right through reasoning. I guess the joy you get from problems maybe stems from the results or impact beyond the reasoning and solving part.
- simonbarker87 3y agoExactly, the best part of a problem is the solution and its positive impact. Also, a viable solution to a problem is to go around it/avoid it. Since a puzzle (to me) has no tangible impact/benefit the best solution is to simply go around it/avoid it … which apparently misses the point!
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- philshem 3y agoThe site isn’t readable on my mobile device, so here is the Wikipedia article for “nonogram”, for others who don’t know what they area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram
- willis936 3y agoFor the tiny intersection of HN users, nonogram enjoyers, and people who own functioning 3DS: I highly suggest playing picross 3D.
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- GlumWoodpecker 3y agoAlso for the 3DS is the Picross e series of games [0]. For a more modern console, the Picross S series of games [1] currently spans 9 whole games on the Nintendo Switch, and is made by the same company that did Picross e and Picross DS. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picross_e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picross_e [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picross_S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picross_S
- sirlantis 3y agoPaint it Back (2013) was the first nonogram game I devoured and still have a great memories of playing it by the pool. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1PjruB8wDLQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1PjruB8wDLQ https://apps.apple.com/us/app/paint-it-back-gameclub/id1491508092 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/paint-it-back-gameclub/id14915... Less pretty but very functional app with near infinite content to play these days is Nonograms Katana. https://apps.apple.com/de/app/nonograms-katana/id1037710023?l=en-GB https://apps.apple.com/de/app/nonograms-katana/id1037710023?...
- deaddodo 3y agoThe android version of Katana looks and functions a bit better. I don't know if the devs are just less informed or just care less for iOS but, having made the switch recently, it's a pretty drastic difference.
- hadrien01 3y agoNonograms Katana also has a Web version: https://nonograms-katana.com/play/ https://nonograms-katana.com/play/ I use it almost daily on my laptop. On my phone, I use Nonogram Galaxy. So much that my previous phone has some of the app layout burned-in on the OLED screen.
- marban 3y agoMario's Picross — Highly recommended.
- ChrisClark 3y agoThat's where I got hooked as a kid. And I've been solving them ever since. Nonograms Katana on the Fold 3 with the S Pen is amazing. For someone as addicted to them as me, it almost made the price of the phone worth it in itself. Yeah, I'm a bit crazy.
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- drooopy 3y agoThat game was a gateway drug!
- endemic 3y agoYep, was inspired by Mario’s Picross to make my own nonogram game.
- jprete 3y agoNonograms are not bad but I wouldn’t consider them either crosswords or puzzles. There’s a cap on how much skill is needed to solve one (of a reasonable size) based on the need to make a solvable piece of art. (Nonograms in general - without the need for a pictoral reward - might well be NP hard or even able to encrypt information. I’m not at all sure.)
- bluepod4 3y agoThey’re not crosswords. But they are logic puzzles. Regarding your skill cap comment, even children’s jigsaw puzzles that have 4 pieces are still considered puzzles lol. Wikipedia says NP-complete under “Nonograms in computing”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram
- jprete 3y agoYour point is well-taken.
- GuB-42 3y agoThey are definitely puzzles. But they are closer to sudoku than crosswords in that no knowledge is required besides the rules of the game. As for the skill cap. It is the same for the Rubik's cube, once you know the algorithms, solving it is straightforward. It doesn't make it less of a puzzle. And if you want to up the skill cap, time it (as in speed cubing).
- marcos-dv 3y agoNonograms provide nice BW pictures, I love solving them through general techniques such as Constraint Programming. Nonograms solver through Python in Jupyter notebook using ampl and highs mip solver: https://colab.ampl.com/tags/mip.html#solving-a-nonogram-puzzle https://colab.ampl.com/tags/mip.html#solving-a-nonogram-puzz...
- CatAtHeart 3y agoHungry Cat Nonogram [Google](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tuesdayquest.logicart&hl=en_US&gl=US&pli=1 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tuesdayque...) [iOS](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hungry-cat-nonogram/id737744473 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hungry-cat-nonogram/id73774447...) was always my favorite of these as it had full-color puzzles. It was also called "Hungry Cat Picross" until Nintendo trademarked "Picross" and went after everything branded with it. This actually caused me to learn about the nonograms as I had assumed the type of puzzle was always called picross.
- BuenosNachos 3y agoI thought they've owned the trademark for 15+ years at this point? That's part of the reason why Jupiter, the main dev for Nintendo's picross games, can't use the name when they create a picross game for a non-Nintendo system That's why they had to use the awkward Logiart name for the game they just published on Steam
- aqme28 3y agoHungry Cat Nonogram uses a kind of numbering system that will really annoy you if you're coming from a different nonogram app.
- beaugunderson 3y agocan confirm... went right back to nonograms katana.
- tetha 3y agoIf you have an itch to solve a few, https://griddlers.net https://griddlers.net has you covered for just about a lifetime. Even huge multi-grid-puzzles, triangle ones, colors, no colors.
- haunter 3y agoThe Picross series on 3DS is perfect. The stylus makes the whole solving as close to paper as possible with all the upsides of being a digital game.
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- phforms 3y agoAs a teenager, I loved solving Nonograms in puzzle magazines on train rides or when I was bored, they are the perfect time killer. Somehow I forgot about them but recently rediscovered them through a Twitter post, which was a real pleasure. The linked website seems to be very nice, especially since there is a community aspect to it, where people can send in their own puzzles (it seems like). My recent goto app for Nonograms is https://nonograms-katana.com https://nonograms-katana.com , which works great on browsers and mobile alike with lots of well thought-out features (e.g. it asks you if you want cells automatically crossed out if a line is complete) and beautiful artwork, good interaction, etc.
- uoaei 3y agoThis one was always my favorite app but I had to move to a tablet once I got above 35x35 or so. Couldn't stand all the scrolling around.
- Noumenon72 3y agoI bought a tablet with a stylus just to play this game. (Samsung Galaxy Tab) The UI is the most convenient I could imagine.
- TylerE 3y agoThe one thing I really wish with Katana is that it had some accessibility options. The stylized font and less-than-ideal contrast aren't super readable, at least for me.
- gilcot 3y agoUsing the same app daily here.
- sogen 3y agoBeen playing it since I read your recommendation, nice, but as others commented, I might need to move to the tablet to continue with the larger ones. Thanks again !
- berenddeperend 3y agoNonograms are great! I created a multiplayer co-op nonogram browser game that works with websockets, it was a lot of fun to create. https://berendswennenhuis.nl/nonogram/ https://berendswennenhuis.nl/nonogram/
- whoopsie 3y agoThe top puzzles are penises.
- berenddeperend 3y agoUsers can make new puzzles by drawing pixel art, so I guess it was unavoidable.
- harryvederci 3y agoI like this. And as a Dutch guy, I like your user name.
- NooneAtAll3 3y agoThat Was Awesome Thank you for making this. It's so much more fun to play when someone else notices tricks you don't see
- aidenn0 3y agoAw man, there was an adventure game back in the day where you had to solve a bunch of these, but the numbers were from an alien script. Earlier in the game, you encounter a clock using the same script, which if you didn't notice and record, you were going to have a hard time. Of course this being an old-school game, they specifically disable the load/save feature as soon as you go into the puzzle room.
- Avshalom 3y agoI stick to good all Simon Tatham https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/pattern.html https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/patt... (also available in most linux distros and both the android and apple stores)
- mdtrooper 3y agoSimon Tatham is a small group of people that I want to meet and invite to beers and torreznos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torreznos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torreznos). It is awesome his collection of puzzle games. There is android version in https://f-droid.org/es/packages/name.boyle.chris.sgtpuzzles/ https://f-droid.org/es/packages/name.boyle.chris.sgtpuzzles/ .
- joeframbach 3y agoWould be nice if I could keep tapping multiple times on a single cell to iterate through the states. Would make it mobile friendly with the least invasive changes to the existing UI.
- Avshalom 3y agohttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.boyle.chris.sgtpuzzles https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.boyle.chr... works like that.
- o11c 3y agoThe "picmi" program is by far superior for nonograms (though a couple of its builtin puzzles are unfortunately ambiguous), though it still doesn't support color like most proprietary implementations do. It's easy to create and add an XML puzzle collection if you have a directory of black-and-white images (though images not specifically designed to be nonograms are likely to be ambiguous). Actually, this generalizes: SGT's puzzle implementations are never as good as a dedicated program; their value is in their bulk and relative uniformity (though that is not very complete; half the programs don't support possibilities (and none support multiple flavors of possibility or global usage tracking; see e.g. any halfway-decent Sudoku program) and several require keyboard or require mouse where others don't). I'm also irritated that there isn't a command-line interface to automated generation/rendering/solving at least (I wouldn't want to play most of them in a terminal).
- uoaei 3y agoOne of my favorite kinds of puzzles, one of those I played so long that I felt it necessary to build a solver in order to formalize the (slow, manual) algorithms I was employing. Once you get the hang of it, see if you can progress to Cross The Streams[1], a variant with wildcards and also more constraints so the solutions are at least achievable. [1] https://www.gmpuzzles.com/blog/cross-the-streams-rules-and-info/ https://www.gmpuzzles.com/blog/cross-the-streams-rules-and-i...
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- userbinator 3y agoThis is the first time learning about these, but it resembles a compression algorithm: an image of m * n bits is represented by m + n + d numbers, which may take less than m * n bits, a sort of 2D RLE. The compression algorithms used by faxes, T.4 and T.6, are also based on this idea. Not be confused with nomograms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomogram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomogram
- sdenton4 3y agoSadly, nonogram solving is in general NP-complete, which limits its usefulness as a compression algorithm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram#Nonograms_in_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram#Nonograms_in_computin...
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- NikkiA 3y agoI have a distinct memory of being about 4 and getting a magazine/book that had physical nonograms using little coloured stickers that you had to place in the grid pursuant to the numerical rules; I recall the memory mostly because it was the last time I visited my grandmother's old house and can remember standing in the hallway excitedly explaining how the stickers had to be placed, to her; so it was prior to 1976 when she moved a few hundred metres to a new build bungalow.
- wodenokoto 3y agoI really hoped this was cross-words in the word sense, but it is a numbers game. If you have a switch with the online plan, there is a super mario themed version of this game available on the Super Nintendo emulator.