Nonogram: Mystery Island

The numbers along the edge count the squares to fill, in a row. "3 1" on a line means three squares together, at least one gap, then one more. Nothing is guessed, everything is deduced — and when the grid is full, the shape that comes out is an object you recognise. Nonogram: Mystery Island is a free logic puzzle, and the whole rule fits in the sentence above.

THE DRAWING ARRIVES AT THE END, AND THAT IS THE REWARD.

A finished nonogram is a shape in big pixels: you know you have won, you do not always know what you have drawn. Here the real illustration lands on your solved grid, long enough for you to recognise it, then it leaves. And they do not all leave the same way: the plane climbs, the anchor sinks, the ball spins, the heart beats twice and bursts.

FROM TWENTY-FIVE SQUARES TO FOUR HUNDRED

Twenty-five squares on the first level, enough to learn the gesture. Then ten by ten, fifteen by fifteen, twenty by twenty — four hundred squares and two-digit clues. 172 black-and-white grids on the map, and sixty COLOUR grids kept for the daily puzzle.

THE DAILY PUZZLE IS IN COLOUR

A new grid every day, and the rule shifts by one notch: two neighbouring blocks of the same colour need a gap between them, two blocks of different colours may touch. "Red 3, blue 2" leaves far more placements than "3, 2". A colour grid of fifteen is worth a black-and-white one of twenty.

TWO MARKS, AND THE CROSS COUNTS AS MUCH AS THE FILL

One button fills, the other crosses out. Crossing out is not scratch work: a square you KNOW is empty closes a possibility on its row and its column, and it is often the one that unlocks the next. Your finger paints in runs — you deduce five squares in a row, you lay them down in one move.

A WRONG SQUARE IS ACCEPTED

The game refuses nothing. Blocking you would remove the pain, but it would turn deduction into trial and error: you would fill at random and keep whatever the game allows. You make a mistake, you find it later, you come back. That is what the genre asks.

THREE HINTS, AND NONE OF THEM PLAYS FOR YOU

Reveal a square uncovers one at random, among those still missing from the drawing. Find the mistake puts a red cross ON the wrong square and leaves it filled: erasing it is up to you. And the dearest one opens a whole line, the most useful one on the grid, never a random one.

CLUES TOO SMALL? TOUCH THEM

On the big grids the clue margins get tight. Touch them: they come forward, enlarged, and close again on the next touch.

NO HEARTS, NO LIVES, NO TIMER

You cannot lose a nonogram: you make a mistake, you fix it. No gauge goes down, nothing stops you, and a grid you started waits exactly as you left it.

A NOTEBOOK WRITTEN BY TWO

You wake up on a beach without knowing your name. The notebook gains a page at every node: what you see, in your own hand, and below it the answer from ORA — who knows where you are and will not tell you.

THE ISLAND SLEEPS UNDER THE MIST

The map is covered. Fifty-six nodes, six branches closed by a lock, a key halfway along each. Every solved grid pushes back a piece of mist, and it is the map that decides what comes next.

TOKENS ARE EARNED ELSEWHERE

Eight detours along the path: the daily puzzle, the gold rush, then pairs, the bomb, the eye, the sequence, the count, the shell game. Short games that pay in tokens, and past ten tokens you leave with something even when you lose.

• 172 black-and-white grids, from 5×5 to 20×20, all solvable by pure deduction

• 60 COLOUR grids for the daily puzzle

• One illustration per motif, revealed when the grid falls

• Fill and cross out, your finger paints whole runs

• No hearts, no lives, no timer: you do not lose, you correct

• Three hints that point, uncover or open — none of them solves

• Offline: everything is in the app, no wifi needed

• Thirty-eight languages, and an island losing its mist