Paint by Numbers

No, it's not what you think. It's actually a logic puzzle in which you're given a gray grid and have to fill in the black and white picture. To help you with this, numbers are printed to the right and the bottom of the grid. These represent the sizes of the contiguous blocks of black squares within that row or column. You have to determine where those squares actually are.

It seems that this game has many names. Some of the others are CrossPix, Descarte's Enigma, FigurePic, Griddler, IllustLogic, Japanese crosswords, Logigraphe, Nonograms, Oekaki-Logic, Picross, PictureLogic, and StarPic.

Oh, yes, before I forget. I'm afraid that your browser needs to know Java to run these puzzles. But if you'd prefer to do them with pen and paper, you can find printable versions of these puzzles here.

And if you'd like to try out a slightly different paint-by-number applet, you can do it here.

(Note: I am no longer adding to or maintaining these puzzles. But I'll leave them up for your enjoyment.)

Hints:

Start out by looking for the longest blocks. A block that takes up more than half of a row must have some black squares in the center. You can count in from both edges to figure out which. Conversely, a single black square in a row or column that contains only one block can determine a number of squares which must be white. Work back and forth between rows and columns until you've set each square, either to black or white.

Credits:

This puzzle was invented by Tetsuya Nishio. I first stumbled across it in an issue of Games Magazine. The pictures themselves came from Anthony's Icon Library. (Some of these were modified to make them smaller and/or easier to solve.)

And I found ImageMagick and Steven Simpson's nonogram program invaluable for modifying the images and checking their solvability.

Puzzles:

16x16: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80
81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94
20x20: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80
81 82 83 84
24x24: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80
81 82 83 84 85
32x32: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80
81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91
Misc: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

... and more puzzles:

These are more difficult puzzles, although each one has a unique solution.
16x16: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
20x20: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
24x24: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58
32x32: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52
Misc: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13