Guide
How to play Mosaic
Mosaic is a nonogram: every row and column shows the lengths of consecutive filled blocks. Paint cells to match those runs and mark empties with ×. When every clue is satisfied, a hidden picture appears — a house, animal, flower, and dozens more silhouettes.
Rules
- Paint cells to match the clues — Paint cells to match the clues — the filled cells form a real picture (house, animal, and more). Every number is an exact run of fills.
- Do not ignore a clue — Every number is exact. A row clue of 3 1 means a block of three, a gap, then a single fill — no extra fills allowed.
- Slide to paint a run — Hold and drag across cells to fill or mark in one stroke. Right-click (or the Mark tool) places × on empties.
- Guessing random fills stalls the board — Wrong fills light up on Check. Deduce from overlapping row and column clues instead of spraying blocks.
Tips
- Edge and full-line clues — A clue that sums to the board width fills the whole line. Large edge numbers pin blocks against the border.
- Cross off finished lines — When a filled run is sealed by an edge or × and matches a clue number, that number grays out. The counter above the grid shows painted cells vs the picture total.
- Mark empties early — Turn on Auto × to mark remaining empties as soon as a row or column’s fills match its clue. You can still right-click × by hand.
- Start small in Unlimited — Practice 5×5 boards teach the logic fast; step up to 8×8 and 10×10 when the daily feels easy.
Where it comes from
Nonogram-style grids appeared in Japanese puzzle magazines in the late 1980s, then reached a huge audience through handheld Picross games and browser paint-by-numbers dailies.
How it differs from similar puzzles
Mosaic’s daily is a 10×10 picture. Unlimited practice adds 5×5 and 8×8. A curated silhouette bank plus seeded procedural houses, creatures, letters, and more yields thousands of unique boards.
Also known as
Looked up as nonogram, Picross, griddler, hanjie, or paint-by-numbers. Mosaic is the Coronet Arcade name.
- Nonogram
- Picross
- Paint by numbers
- Griddler
- Hanjie