How To Solve Advanced Nonograms!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- Shout out to Prasanna Seshadri for recommending the puzzles in today's video:
Grant Fikes: cracking-the-c...
Murat Can Tonta: cracking-the-c...
Serkan Yurekli: cracking-the-c...
Rules: Shade cells to create a single orthogonally-connected group of black cells. No 2×2 region can contain all black cells. Numbers outside the grid represent the groups of consecutive black cells in that row/column in order, either from left to right or from top to bottom. A question mark (?) represents a single group of consecutive black cells whose size is unknown (but cannot be zero); an asterisk (*) represents any number of unknown groups of black cells, including none at all.
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Hi! We're Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe, two of the UK's most enthusiastic puzzle solvers. We have both represented the UK at the World Sudoku Championships and the World Puzzle Championships. We're also "cryptic crossword" aficionados. Mark is the twelve-time winner of The Times championship and Simon is the former record holder for most consecutive correct solutions to The Listener crossword. We hope we can help your puzzle solving while also introducing you to some of the world's best puzzles.
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Simon and Mark
Me: Oh yeah Nonograms are easy
CTC: *shows nonogram with starts and question marks*
Me: Never mind
Easy was never an option!
Come on, the first one is very easy.
Wow I asked Simon if he would ever consider doing nonograms on the discord last week, and from Simon's response I thought it was never going to happen... Really cool you're doing it!
I can understand why he would say no.
Basic Nonograms are arguably the easiest of all logic pencil puzzles.
However, Crossing The Streams (Nice Ghostbusters Reference, BTW) does make it more challenging.
I really hope we'll someday see Basic Aquarium puzzles on this channel though.
I can do the smaller ones, but as they get bigger, I can't seem to find any tricks other than tedious trial and error paths.
Mark did a couple of themed aquarium puzzles for the 3 year anniversary, but there were additional restrictions that made them quite easy to solve.
@@nadeemhajiiqbal9214
I don't understand, I've done some 30x30 nonograms with multiple colors and such that are way harder than at least the easiest puzzles already showcased on the channel.
@@16m49x3 If it uses multiple colours, then I don't think it would qualify as a "basic nonogram". If it's challenging enough, but also solvable in around half an hour, then I suspect they would consider it for the channel.
@@RichSmith77
I am no pro, so I might just be bad, but after trying a lot of nonograms, the ones bigger than 10x10 where most of the clues are less than half the width seem to be rather complex.
@@16m49x3 There can be challenging Nonograms, but they tend to involve quite large grids that may not be accommodating to their software. They also end up requiring quite a lot of repetitive counting and the same logic being applied over and over.
They like variety on this channel. To the extent they very rarely seem to do just standard Sudokus these days. Personally, I really enjoy the variety and being introduced to new variants that require new techniques to be discovered.
I've enjoyed doing Nonograms in the past, too. But the large ones can take time to do and I'm not sure they'd make for great videos on this channel.
I remember discovering picross in grade school and deriving how to solve them. Call them "simple" as many times as you want, it was so satisfying when I solved my first 50x50.
I was so close to solving a 50x50 but my laptop crashed after nearly 3 hrs. I haven’t attempted one since
Where can i find a 50x50 nonogram?
I love picross as well. Very much confused me for these puzzles as I completely missed the new rules here! :D
Max van Gulik I found an app on the Mac App Store but I’m sure if you do a quick google search you’ll be able to find somwthing
@@maxvangulik1988 If you search for the app Pic-a-Pix, by Conceptis Puzzles, they have some 60x45 jumbo sized ones. But they have no ??? or ***, only numbers.
I got so excited when I saw this video! Nonograms are my favorite puzzles. I've been doing them since I was 14!
What, you have been doing Nonograms since you were 87 billion years old??? You're almost as old as Mark!
@@ggeorge02 why does this joke catch me off guard every time
Me too! ...and then I realized these are not Nonograms. They solve more like a Nurikabe variant using a modified Nonogram rule set.
george georgeos
There’s no unit after “14!”, so it could be anything, although there is an upper bound on what the unit can be, given that they can’t (or at least I _think_ they can’t) be older than the Universe.
@@ragnkja assuming Mac is talking about age, I suspect he means 14! milliseconds. If he meant seconds or longer units, He'd have to be at least several thousand years old (unlikely, assuming Mac is human), and the next smaller time unit from second that is widely used would be millisecond.
14! ms equals roughly 2,7 years, so I gotta say, Mac started pretty young!
It sounds like so much fun at Simon’s house: play-doh tea party, trampolines, pancake day…
Oh man, I love nonograms, I'm so glad you guys are covering them in the channel
I love nonograms! Seeing this makes me very happy.
"I know I'm due at a Play-Doh tea party any moment now"
Wow. That could just be the most British dad thing I've ever heard somebody say.
I solved the third puzzle in 1 hour and 7 minutes, and I’ve never felt more proud of myself.
Please give me a slight clue on how to start it
@@rsotelo14 Start with the edges and look for cells that must be a 1 cell clue both vertically and horisontally. When you find one you know it can´t be black. That´s because it now has nowhere to escape, otherwise you will make a 2 cell region in any direction.
@@Someone-ig7we The Black cell that has to be a 1 both vertically and horisontally has to be connected with another black cell. But if you colour a cell black that has to be a 1 both vertically and horisontally, the black cant connect to another black anymore. Now there would be a black cell by itself and that's braking the puzzle. Now you know that the cell can't be black
@@Someone-ig7we look at both one column and one row that has no * or ?:s in it, only 1:s. In these rows and columns there can't be 2 black cells connected to each others because they comes in set of only 1. Where this row and column meets you can't have a black cell. That's because if you put a black cell there, you can't have a black next to it. Then the black will be all by itself and that breaks the puzzle
@@Someone-ig7we start with colouring some blocks that you know CAN'T be black. Thes can help you move forward
5:15 1st
12:46 2nd
I don't consider myself a master or anything, but I do solve a lot of Picross puzzles. I've fully completed all of the Picross games on Switch and 3DS as well as played a bunch on mobile (Nonograms Katana being my favorite there). Thanks a lot for including these here. I'm not that great at sudoku and rarely am able to solve the puzzles you post do videos on. These are right up my wheelhouse though and it feels great to be halfway good at some of these master puzzles for once!
Have you tried Hungry Cat Picross on android? Its really amazing and fun twist on the standard nonograms.
Lovely video as always, Simon!
I'm a huge fan of nonograms, so this was definitely a blast, had tons of fun solving having a go at them.
I love this. Nonograms were actually what got me into grid puzzles, and eventually Sudoku, so I'm really glad you're featuring them on the channel!
Honestly a playdough tea party sounds like fun, thanks for giving me something to do tomorrow 😂 I found this interesting, I've never tried a nonogram before. Maybe now I will! Anyone for a nonogram and playdough tea party tomorrow?
Used to do nonagrams a lot until I got familiar enough with all the tricks that the solutions just started feeling mechanistic. Didn't expect to discover an interesting fresh variant on this channel!
(BTW, ~24:15 could have shaded the one square where the two possible placements of the 3 overlapped, which also disambiguates the crossing 2 clue, doesn't make a huge difference since you can get to it otherwise but always looking for whether there are overlaps common to all possible arrangements in nonagrams...)
I noticed that 3 clue overlap as well.
Never mind Nonograms... what are the rules for Play-Doh Tea Party?
Presumably about the same as for a regular tea party, but all the food is pretend food made of Play-Doh. That said: what _are_ the rules for a tea party?
Normal tea party rules apply.
@@StephaneBura You need a thermometer to check the temperature of the water :D
Hopefully no killer cages are involved:D
@@ewejka Yes, but sandwiches are xD
I thought I'd watched every vid you guys have made at this point - then I search up people doing nonograms and HERE YOU ARE! What is this magic?
Think I solved all three puzzles. Took me about 18 minutes on the last one, I think. Have to recognize that if the cell is part of a 1 either horizontally or vertically, it cannot be part of a 1 on the other.
Yeah, the last one was solved more by eliminations in that form starting with the outer edges and working inwards. Satisfying, but difficult, especially if you aren't careful about your logic. I made one miss step on my first attempt and had to start over as it was unrecoverable. I think my problem was I had assumed a connection had to be made in one way and there was another way out for one of the regions. At first glace I said nope, but I'm glad I took a second look. The logic was nice, even though it was difficult. 1 hour for the last one, 4 minutes for the first one, and about 10 minutes for the second one. Out of the three, the first was a good intro, but a little too easy. The second one had the most satisfying logic and wasn't very difficult, that one being my favorite, but the third one got me thinking well, so a close second for it.
I'm about half way but stuck now on the third one
Love the Sudoku solves, but I am happy to see a puzzle type I can actually wrap my head around without spending hours 🙌
the first one was rather easy, for the second i needed you to point at the 5 clue in the beginning, and for the third one i needed the comments to tell me about the elemination. my times are around 10min, 40min and the third just under an hour. i really enjoyed them!
What a refreshing spin on Picross! I'm a sucker for classic puzzles with twists, and I'm a bit of a fan of Picross.
That said, Picross has always been easy for me. Massive kudos to these setters and creators.
Also, Kudos to you for showing this to us.
Congrats on cracking a million views on the Miracle Sudoku!
I don't think I've ever done a Nonogram puzzle before, but they seem very fun! Just solved the first one in 6 minutes which I think wasn't too bad for a start. Very intuitive and interesting!
Just finished solving all of them, and I have to say: wow. I'm astonished that the third one is even solvable, and even more that I managed to do it. I even went back to the video like "yeah no I have no idea how to start, let's just watch it" but right away decided I wanted to try one more time after all.
That last one took me 3 tries, over an hour total. I am already quite familiar with nonogram puzzles myself, but this is absolutely a new twist on them.
@@Stratelier I think it took me around 45 minutes on my second try. Definitely a fascinating puzzle, I hope Simon does a video on it!
i used to do Nonograms on my phone all the time with numbers give up to 15 x 15, and got bored because they got to be too easy - thank you for this, i’ve found something new to come back to this hobby
Amazing video, never knew there were nonograms with asterisks and question marks, had a lot of fun solving the last one!
This puzzle is honestly one of my favorites, so I’m glad to see a video on it!
Times:
1. 3:16
2. 7:01
3. 8:40
Please give a hint on #3
Start with the 1’s on the edges of the puzzle. There can’t be an edge black space that is a 1 in both directions or it will be cut off from the rest of the puzzle. Then go from there.
@@maxscherzer9521 Watch last row. On columns where there is a 1 on the bottom, the case cannot be black because it would connect to nothing
The 1s at the edges are a lot more restricted than they appear!
Thank you for doing something other than Sudoku. I love the Sudoku content but as brilliant as you both are you should definitely do more types of puzzles than just that and crosswords.
Cheers!
A tip for people unfamiliar to this type of puzzle. For every number at the side or top, you can add 1 to the row or column to account for the space in between numbered sections of the row or column.
Me: "Okay, I'm quite competent at Picross (nonograms) so how hard could these be?"
_(sees DOS wildcards in grid clues)_
Me: Oh. *OH.*
However, once I noted the two extra rules it fell into place easily. Except for that last one, wow that was a doozy! Multiple restarts needed, successful attempt in 22:00.
Definitely an enjoyable Nonogram variant, with far more satisfying logic than nonograms tend to have.
I am so happy you made this video! I've always had an interest in nonograms, especially during the lockdown. Try out mega-nonograms, which have combined clues in adjacent rows or columns.
Excellent puzzles! Solved them in 5, 13 and 11 minutes respectively. The third puzzle really is faster when you see the trick.
Oh man, picross! I LOVE these things! Definitely want to see more!
First one was super easy, second one was a fun challenge. I'd certainly be interested if you do more nonograms in the future.
These were great. Usually I am not able to solve the most difficult puzzles here, and when I looked at the last puzzle of this video, I thought: no way. But in about half an hour I did it!
I was able to get times of 3:33, 11:46, and 19:52, respectively. I struggled on the last two a bit more than I should have, but these are pretty new to me, so I felt I did well. Would love to see more of these!
Wow, I LOVE classic nanograms! Didn't know this advanced stuff even existed. Finally something I can solve as well :D
33:43 for the last puzzle! It’s nice to do a puzzle type I have a little more experience with instead of sudoku which I’m still a complete novice at. Still not amazing or anything, but I’m proud of it
I adore nonograms!! I like that these are a different variant than the usuals
I love nonograms! I didn't know this style existed, I'll have to look up some more of them!
These were beautiful puzzles. I've always liked nonograms, but the really big ones are just too much counting. This were just the right amount of counting matched with good logic. The last one was fun as I was able to deduce the location of the first "1" in the last row by the fact that the puzzle must have a unique solution.
I love nonograms. I used to buy every book of them I could find. Thanks for the vid.
Ooh this is one of the first I've been able to do in a reasonable time! I do a ton of normal nonograms, this a fun version ive never seen
As a fan of Picross games, I was unaware of this variant to make them a bit more challenging. These were really fun to do and rather refreshing after only knowing about basic nonograms.
When I did the second puzzle by Murat Can Tonta I think I found several alternate solutions. I think Simon and I placed a center shade differently. I went through the clues for the rows and columns and I didn’t see where one was broken. It was a fun puzzle for sure.
I remember playing games like this a while ago. Never knew what they were called. Did the first and third one here, which were much fun. Watched the solve for the second one in between, because #2 and #3 appeared to be too hard, at first. Definitely one of my favourite puzzle types.
I live for these puzzles. Nonograms for the win!
30 min on the third puzzle. Absolutely mindbending 😁
Enjoyed that last puzzle (the one you didn't solve), took me a shade under 11 minutes. Quite memorable (particularly for a nonogram that doesn't make a picture). I really enjoy it when you showcase a different puzzle type on the channel as a change from Sudokus. (Not that I don't enjoy the Sudokus, obviously!)
Took me 4:32 for the first puzzle and 11:38 for the second. My brain is NOT ready for that third puzzle at the present time!
At 24:30, you can place a black cell at R5C8. Regardless of which way the 3 clue goes, it will always hit that cell. That fills out the row 5 clues, and it also gives you the 3 clue in row 6, because there's only one place it can go without creating a 2x2 region.
Very amazing. I like nonogram puzzle. First puzzle was easy, second puzzle is a bit tricky, but the third one is very hard for me need to read the comment to solve it. That will be amazing if you guys can cover more of this nonogram puzzle. Keep uploading awesome content!
I took a recent interest in doing simple monograms in my free time I would've never have thought there would be a video about it on here
I love nonograms! This is such a neat variant.
This looks fun, I've pretty much mastered regular picross, but this looks much more interesting.
I had memories of easy nanograms, not really challenging. Here it's another story. I had fun to crack them!
Oh yeah love nonograms, this was a great variation on it. Did the first one in about 12 minutes but I had the puzzle open while I read the ruleset.
Got a couple of squares in column 3 on the second, but the asterisks could essentially equal zero, they presented too many variables for me to determine what was what.
Did even worse for the third. Figured out the bottom right corner must be filled, and the one above it, but nothing further.
Better than me, I figured out the bottom two had to be filled and stopped there after half an hour!
Yeah, that third one was a doozy. A key deduction to get started is that if the only clues for a given cell are "1" then that cell MUST be empty, otherwise it would be surrounded on all four sides by empty cells, cut off from the rest of the puzzle. For example, r1c2 must be empty since r1 must start with 3 groups of 1, and c2 must start with a single group of 1. Likewise, looking along the bottom row, the only possible locations to put its black cells are c4-5 and c10 since every other column must end with a group of 1.
If it helps check your solution, here's mine and what I think might be a hint if someone wants it,
imgur.com/a/2UB0VhD
cracking-the-cryptic.web.app/sudoku/4FfmrdfFRh
Hints for it:
I focused on not having 1s intersecting on one square because that would make it impossible to then connect that to the rest of the river.
So lines without * or ? were useful for that, as were the borders of the puzzle.
After that, you can rely on the rows with * and ? to connect things with longer lines.
I Love nonograms, bring more of it to the channel please
I love me some nonograms/pixel puzzles, not least because of the slowly revealed picture, but I'll definitely give these a go.
I got them all, although I had to do uniqueness logic on the third one. Very cool.
I LOVE Nonograms I wish you’d find more reasons to keep doing them
I was able to solve the third nanogram (Serkan Yurekli's) on my own and I'm pretty proud of that. It was definitely fun. Took me about 30 min.
Oh Nonograms. Fun.
I've been playing some Picross on Nintendo Switch recently (Picross S series, Murder by Numbers, Pictoquest), they all have pretty simple puzzles with just the regular rules with the normal numbers and no orthogonal limitations (and some Mega Picross which adds interesting multi-row/column numbers), this is quite different from what I've seen. Would be cool to see this kind of puzzle in future Picross S releases or something.
imagine there was a youtube channel of CTC quality dedicated to difficult nonograms
2:57 this man solved racism for good
these i can do them all really quickly! i feel smart i love nonograms
I enjoy nonograms but they always seem easy unless their gigantic even then its more a grind than a solve, i look forward tp trying this 🤗
Always struggled with large traditional nonograms. Tended to end up getting stuck every time. Would love to see a large one done on the channel
Yay, what I’ve been waiting for!!!
Third puzzle took 58min but no regrets. And I feel relieved and a bit proud :)
10 minutes while annotating the logical solve path is definetely making Simon a super grandmaster
I love nonograms so much!!! I’m so happy
Just under 1hr 15m for the Serkan Yurekli, which I feel is good, because it was my first ever nonogram. Also my first complete solve using the software, and when it told me I was wrong, I spent quite some time double-checking, before being assured (thanks discord) that the checker wouldn't actually work for a nonogram :-)
5:49 got it all by myself
31:37 got stuck right after the *43* clue(that 5* is obvious in hindsight) plus another 6+ times.
41:00 another comment helped me get started. then it was a lot of 'guess and check'. Had to walk away for a few things so maybe 35 minutes is a closer time.
I've only done the ones where it makes a picture in the end; liked these more
I know that nonograms is pretty basic, but I'm going to suggest when doing something like this that is based on an easy type of puzzle, just spend a couple minutes talking about the base version, because there might be people that don't know what a nonograms is (Maybe not nonograms, but maybe other "hard" versions of easy puzzles).
On an unrelated note, I'd love to see some Heyawake on this channel.
5:50 "Let's get cracking"
14:25 "Let's get cracking" #2
36:00 on puzzle 3
The rules are a bit vague - the example around 4:00 really helped.
It wasn’t immediately apparent that * could indicate nothing at all; I thought it meant there was something there, we just weren’t given whether it was a segment or empty space.
There doesn't seem to be any sense in the use of the *. Half the time, it's ignored.
It is useful - or rather, a hinderance - in that it prevents you from making the usual Nonogram assumptions... but yeah, once you’ve ascertained all the numbered clues in a row/column, any relevant * are effectively useless.
The absence of a * can tell you more than the presence of of one.
If there's no * between a number and the edge of the grid, then nothing appears between the cells representing that number and the edge of the grid. Similar, if no * between two numbers, then nothing but space is between the cells for those numbers.
1: 13min
2: 1hr 05min
3: 55min
Ive never done a nonogram so yay!
Looked at, but didn't record, all of my times. They were in the ballpark of:
6:30 (I remember thinking I was right by the "Expert" level)
16:00 (I remember it being several minutes slower than "Expert")
22:00 (This one I actually noted down)
Last one would have been several minutes faster if I didn't go down a rabbit hole where I isolated a block and didn't notice it.
First : 13:00
Second : 22:40
Third : 43:00
First puzzle- 4:26
Second puzzle- 32:20
Third Puzzle- 16:30, but i heard the trick from someone first.
Never seen variations of this puzzle like these! I wonder if you'll consider doing Kenken puzzles!
I instinctively clicked "check" and watched it delete my solution :'(
The amount of company time I've spent over at Griddlers.net is probably grounds for dismissal. Love me a good nonogram!
Shocked after solving it, despite a break for brushing and cuddling with the cat: 13 minutes. Ok, for the first one. One down two to go.
I realize that this video is old now, but I've got to say that I would absolutely love to watch CtC play the Hexcells series by Matthew Brown.
Yay, a Nonogram :D
I love Nonograms, and this variation is great too!
More interesting logic, less satisfying end states based on this sample (and I suspect it's a lot harder to make the solution work as pixel art when they have to be a contiguous area and not contain 2x2 blocks)
Damm you Simon and Mark. You guys are so infectious, I went and joined your discord, and bought your thermal app..
FG:4:46
MCT:32:45 (had some help from Simon)
I usually love solving nonograms but I couldn't quite get used to the nurikabe-esque variation... think I'll stick to watching ^^
Yay!! More nonograms!
Grant Fikes: 5:40
Murat Can Tonta: 18:20
I"M SUPER HECKIN EXCITED
The third one took me 27 minutes on my third try, but I'm not intelligent and I suck at puzzles, so it makes me proud that I even completed it.
Murat Can Tonta & Serkan Yürekli 🇹🇷🇹🇷
42 minutes on the third one. Very cool challenge!
just a quick thing I noticed, the 3 clue in row 6 of the second puzzle could have been used earlier by the 2x2 rule.
Can we put your solve of the last one on TH-cam?
Where could one find more of this kind of puzzle?
I was able to do the first two, but I'm not sure how to start on the 3rd. Help!
I used to play nonograms a lot because I like puzzle games but sudoku is too hard to me and I found that nonograms are generally easier and more suitable to me.
Coming next week - puzzles where the clues are regular expressions!