Play Free Picross Online — Pick a Grid, Solve the Picture

Nine grid sizes. Six difficulty levels. Every puzzle free, instant, and playable in your browser. Choose your starting point below.

Choose Your Grid Size

First-timers & warm-ups

→ 5×5 Picross — 25 cells · solves in 2–5 min

→ 6×6 Picross — 36 cells · ideal first step up

Building fluency

→ 8×8 Picross — 64 cells · where multi-line logic kicks in

→ 10×10 Picross — 100 cells · the classic Picross benchmark

Intermediate sessions

→ 12×12 Picross — rich pixel art, 15–30 min per puzzle

→ 15×15 Picross — 225 cells of satisfying multi-step deduction

Advanced play

→ 20×20 Picross — 400 cells · immersive sessions

→ 25×25 Picross — expert territory · stunning reveals

→ 30×30 Picross — 900 cells · the hardest format on the platform

Choose Your Difficulty

All nine sizes are available at every level. Use the table to jump straight in — or read the size guide below if you want a recommendation.

Difficulty	What to Expect	Jump In
Easy	High-overlap clues, clean two-pass solves	10×10 Easy
Medium	Multi-block clues, four to six passes	10×10 Medium
Hard	Full arrangement enumeration across every line	10×10 Hard
Expert	Hypothesis-and-verify across the full grid	10×10 Expert
Extreme	Consecutive hypothesis cycles, near-maximum density	10×10 Extreme
Evil	Nested hypothesis trees at maximum grid complexity	10×10 Evil

Not sure where to start? Brand new → 5×5 Easy · Played before → 10×10 Medium · Want a real fight → 15×15 Hard

New to Picross? How It Works in 60 Seconds

A Picross puzzle is a grid with numbers running along each row and column. Each number tells you the length of a consecutive block of filled cells in that line — in order, left to right for rows, top to bottom for columns.

Your three moves:

1. Fill — click a cell you know is solid
2. X-mark — click a cell you know is empty (the X-mark is a Picross tradition, not just a visual — it's information you'll use on every future pass)
3. Deduce — use the numbers and what you've already marked to confirm more cells, until the full picture is revealed

The key insight: you never guess. Every cell in every Picross puzzle on this platform has exactly one correct logical answer. If you feel like you're guessing, something was missed earlier — usually an X-mark that wasn't placed.

Your First Puzzle — Four Steps

Step 1 — Look for nearly full lines first. A clue of "9" in a 10-cell row must fill at least cells 2 through 9 regardless of where it lands. Find these lines and fill the overlap immediately.

Step 2 — Apply overlap analysis to every line. For each clue, mentally place the block as far left as possible, then as far right. Any cell that falls inside the block in both positions is confirmed filled. Mark it.

Step 3 — X-mark everything you can rule out. If a cell can't be reached by any valid arrangement of a line's clues, it must be empty. Place the X now — you'll use it in the next pass.

Step 4 — Switch between rows and columns. Every cell you fill updates two lines at once: its row and its column. After each fill, immediately check what it tells you about the perpendicular line. This rhythm is the core of Picross technique.

Repeat until the picture appears. On Easy, two or three passes is usually all it takes.

Find Your Starting Point

Never played Picross before

→ 5×5 Easy or 6×6 Easy

These grids teach overlap analysis and X-marking in under ten minutes of actual play. The puzzles solve quickly and the techniques click fast. Once a few 6×6 Easy puzzles feel smooth, move to 10×10 Easy — the size where Picross starts to show its full personality.

You've played Picross on a console or phone

→ 10×10 Medium or 12×12 Easy

Fluency from Picross S, Picross DS, or Mario's Picross transfers directly — the logic is identical. Jump to a size that felt comfortable on console and try Medium difficulty; the browser format is instantly familiar.

You want a genuine challenge, not a warm-up

→ 15×15 Hard or 20×20 Expert

At this scale and difficulty, systematic notation and multi-pass tracking become essential. Set aside 45–90 minutes per puzzle.

You want the hardest Picross available

→ 30×30 Evil

Nested hypothesis trees across 900 cells. Bring a notepad and a clear afternoon.

The Picross Tradition

Picross has one of the cleanest origin stories in puzzle history. Two Japanese designers — Tetsuya Nishio and Non Ishida — independently invented the grid-based picture logic format in 1989. Nintendo brought it to a global audience with Mario's Picross on the Game Boy in 1995, establishing the name, the visual vocabulary, and the X-mark convention that players worldwide now recognise immediately.

The format appeared on every major Nintendo platform that followed — Picross DS, the long-running Picross e series on 3DS, and the Picross S series on Nintendo Switch, which is still receiving new installments. Outside Nintendo, the puzzle type spread under the names nonogram, Griddler, and Hanjie, reaching puzzle books, newspapers, and mobile apps across Europe, the US, and Asia.

What's kept Picross alive for thirty-five years is a property almost no other puzzle format has: it scales perfectly. The same ruleset that produces a five-minute warm-up on a 5×5 generates multi-hour analytical sessions on a 30×30. The core never changes; the depth is always exactly one tier away.

This platform brings that full spectrum to the browser — nine sizes, six difficulty levels, zero paywalls, no download required.

Picross Solving Strategies — Beginner to Evil

1. Overlap Analysis — The Starting Move on Every Puzzle

For any line, place the clue blocks at the leftmost valid position and then at the rightmost valid position. Any cell that falls inside a block in both arrangements is confirmed filled.

Example — 10-cell line, clue "8": leftmost fills cells 1–8; rightmost fills cells 3–10. Cells 3–8 appear in both — six confirmed fills, immediately, from a single analysis step.

This technique works at every difficulty level. On Easy it resolves most of the grid in a single pass. On Evil it's still the mandatory first step before anything more advanced is attempted.

2. X-Mark Discipline — Your Memory in the Grid

A confirmed empty cell is as valuable as a confirmed filled cell. If no valid arrangement of a line's clues can reach a given cell, that cell must be empty — X-mark it immediately.

The discipline matters most on Hard and above, where grid states become complex enough that an unmarked empty cell is indistinguishable from an unsolved one. Complete X-marking prevents this ambiguity and makes subsequent passes significantly faster.

3. Line Priority — Process High-Information Lines First

Don't process lines in reading order. Begin each pass with lines where the clue's minimum span is closest to the full line length — these have minimal slack and yield the most confirmed cells per step. Return to high-slack lines after cross-referenced data from other lines has already reduced their valid arrangements.

4. Cross-Reference Rhythm — Rows Then Columns, Consistently

Develop a reliable alternating rhythm: complete all rows, then all columns, then return to rows. Every cell you fill in a row updates exactly one column; switching after each full row-pass means column constraints are never stale for more than one cycle.

Breaking this rhythm — jumping between rows mid-pass — wastes information and creates missed deductions.

5. Hypothesis Technique — For Expert Level and Above

When all standard techniques are fully exhausted and no cell can be confirmed directly, select a line that still has exactly two valid arrangements. Assume one arrangement is correct and apply all consequences through the grid. If a contradiction appears — any line whose valid arrangements drop to zero — the assumption is wrong: mark the opposite and continue.

Document every intermediate deduction while hypothesis-testing. An undocumented mark from a rejected hypothesis left in the grid will corrupt every subsequent deduction. Clean unwinds are the single most important habit at Expert difficulty and above.

Stuck? Use the Solver

For any puzzle where your arrangement sets have stopped reducing, the Nonogram Solver accepts your exact clue configuration and identifies the next logical step — including the optimal hypothesis cell for Expert, Extreme, and Evil difficulty.

Available for all grid sizes:

5×5 · 6×6 · 8×8 · 10×10 · 12×12 · 15×15 · 20×20 · 25×25 · 30×30