Picture Cross

Picture Cross is a nonogram: a grid with a row of numbers down one side and a column of numbers along the top. Each number is an unbroken run of filled squares in that line, in order, so a clue of 4 2 means four squares, at least one gap, then two more. Work out where the runs have to sit, fill those squares, cross out the ones you have ruled out, and the grid slowly turns into a cat, a lighthouse or a paper plane. Every one of the sixty pictures was checked with a line solver before it shipped, so there is exactly one solution and pure logic always gets you there.

Three sizes, three moods. A 5×5 is a minute of quiet deduction on the bus. A 10×10 is the sweet spot: enough room for a real silhouette, small enough to finish over a cup of tea. A 15×15 is a proper sit-down puzzle where you will be crossing out squares for twenty minutes before the picture gives itself away. There is a daily puzzle too, picked by the date so everyone gets the same picture on the same day, and a list of every puzzle with a tick and your best time next to the ones you have finished.

When a line reads right its clue numbers grey out on their own, so you always know where you stand. Hint fills one correct square, Check flags anything you have got wrong, and both cost a few seconds on the clock rather than ending the round — this is a game to relax into, not a test you can fail. Fill with a click and a drag on a desktop, or tap and hold on a phone, where a size toggle keeps the squares big instead of asking you to pinch and zoom. The picture fills with colour the moment the last square lands, the name is revealed underneath, and your times and solved pictures stay in your browser. Sixty small puzzles, one at a time, exactly the kind of thing your brain likes chewing on.