Picture Cross

About Picture Cross

The classic size: a 10×10 grid with a hidden toy picture. Most take five to ten minutes. Start with the longest clues and work the rows and columns in turn.

Picture Cross is a picture logic puzzle. The numbers beside each row and above each column tell you how many cells to fill, and in what groups. Fill the right cells and a hidden pixel picture appears, then pops into colour. Every puzzle here has exactly one solution, and you can always reach it one row or column at a time, without guessing.

Also called: nonogram, griddlers, paint by numbers, hanjie.

How to play Picture Cross

1. Read the clues. A row clue of 3 1 means that row has a run of three filled cells, then at least one empty cell, then a single filled cell, in that order. A clue of 0 means the whole line is empty.
2. Tap or click a cell to fill it. Right-click (or long-press on a phone) to mark it with a ×, meaning “this cell stays empty”. Tap a filled or marked cell again to clear it.
3. Drag across a row or column to fill or mark several cells in one go. A drag never paints over the other kind of mark, and a drag that starts on a filled cell clears fills instead.
4. On a touch screen, use the Fill / Mark switch under the board to choose what a tap does. On big grids, Zoom makes the cells larger; pan with two fingers, or pick the move tool.
5. On a keyboard, move with the arrow keys, press Space to fill and X to mark. Ctrl+Z undoes and Ctrl+Y redoes.
6. A clue turns grey once its line matches it. When every row and column matches, the picture is revealed in colour and added to your collection.

Rules

• Each number is a run of consecutive filled cells. Runs appear in the order given, left to right or top to bottom.
• Between two runs there is at least one empty cell. Before the first run and after the last, there can be any number of empty cells, including none.
• The puzzle is solved when every row and column matches its clue. × marks are only notes for yourself; they never count against you.
• Check answers is off at the start. Switched on, it turns wrong cells red. Using it, or a hint, makes the solve assisted: it still goes in your collection, but it can’t set a best time.

Picture Cross tips and strategy

• Start with big clues. In a 10-cell row, a clue of 7 must cover the middle four cells, whichever way you slide it. Add up a line’s clue plus one gap per space between runs: if it equals the line length, the whole line is fixed.
• Mark the empties. Once a row’s runs are all placed, cross off the rest of the row. Those × marks are what unlock the columns.
• Work edges. A filled cell touching the edge of the grid must belong to the first (or last) run, so you can often extend it to that run’s full length.
• Look for gaps that are too small. A stretch of blank cells boxed in by × marks that is shorter than every remaining run can’t hold any of them, so cross it off.
• Switch back and forth between rows and columns. Each new cell you fill gives the crossing line more to work with.