NonoPop: nonogram puzzles that reveal a picture

Nonograms — also called griddlers, hanjie, picture cross or paint by numbers logic puzzles — give you a blank grid and a list of numbers for every row and column. Each number is a block of filled squares. Work out which squares the clues force, cross out the ones that must stay empty, and a picture slowly appears. If you have never played one, our guide What is a nonogram? explains the rules in a minute.

NonoPop is our take on the genre, and it starts from one promise: no guessing. Every puzzle in the game is checked by a solver before you ever see it. A puzzle only makes it in if it has exactly one solution and that solution can be reached step by step from the clues. When you are stuck, there is always a logical move waiting — you have not been handed a coin flip.

The second idea is the reveal. Most puzzles in NonoPop are pictures worth uncovering: 114 hand-picked picture puzzles in the collection, from cute animals and food to museum photos, plus ten themed packs of 100 puzzles each. Finish one and the picture is yours to keep in your collection. There is a new Daily Puzzle every day, the same one for everyone, and Quick Play makes a fresh puzzle in any size from 5×5 to 25×25 whenever you want one.

The third is personal. NonoPop can take a photo of your pet, a trip or anything you love, find the subject, remove the background and turn it into a solvable classic or color nonogram. All of that happens on your device; the photo is never uploaded.

We designed NonoPop to be calm. There is no timer pressure, no lives and no account to create. You decide how much help you want: mistake checks can stop a wrong move or stay out of your way, completed lines can fill in their own Xs, and color patterns make similar colors easy to tell apart. It works for a two-minute 5×5 on the bus and for a long 25×25 evening session, and your progress is saved as you go.

NonoPop is free to play with ads. A single one-time Premium upgrade — no subscription — removes every ad, adds 46 more hand-picked picture puzzles and unlocks unlimited puzzles from your own photos. The themed packs are separate one-time purchases, and you can try five puzzles from every pack for free.

1. Install NonoPop from Google Play and open it. There is no account to create and nothing to sign in to.
2. Choose how you play on the Play setup screen. It explains the two marks — a filled square is part of the picture, an X means "leave this square empty" — and offers three switches: Prevent incorrect moves, Auto-mark empty squares and Color patterns. The first two start off. Tap Save & continue, or Skip to keep the defaults; you can change them later in Settings under Review play setup.
3. Try the short tutorial. New players are offered a tiny 5×5 puzzle that explains the clues one at a time. It is short, and worth it even if you have played nonograms before.
4. Pick a puzzle from Home. Play today's Daily Puzzle in Classic or Color, start a Quick Play puzzle in the size you choose, browse the Photo Collection or open Puzzle Packs. A Resume your puzzle button takes you back to anything unfinished.
5. Solve. Choose a brush at the bottom of the board — fill (or a color in color puzzles) or X — and tap squares. Use Move to pan, Zoom to get closer, and Clues to read a row or column's numbers at a larger size. Undo and Hint sit right below the board.
6. Reveal and share. Fill every correct square and the picture is revealed, along with your time, hints used and grid size. Tap Next puzzle to keep going or Share your picture to send it through your phone's share sheet.

New to the logic? Read how to solve nonograms — it walks through a full 5×5 puzzle — then try a few 5×5 and 10×10 Quick Play puzzles before the 15×15 Daily Puzzle.

NonoPop is free to download and play, with ads. Premium is a one-time lifetime upgrade, not a subscription. The ten themed packs are sold separately, one at a time, and are not included in Premium. Purchases go through Google Play and can be restored on your devices with the same Google Play account.

NonoPop has no account system and no NonoPop server. Your progress — solved puzzles, streaks, statistics, settings and purchase status — is saved in the app's private storage on your device.

Photo puzzles get extra care. You choose a picture with the system photo picker, so the app never browses your gallery or asks for broad photo or storage access. Finding the subject, removing the background and building the puzzle all happen on your phone, using a small machine-learning model bundled inside the app. The photo is never uploaded. When you save, NonoPop keeps only the puzzle, the name you gave it and a small preview — not a copy of your original photo, its location data or its file path. Deleting a photo puzzle removes it from the app and leaves your original untouched in your photo library.

On Android, your game progress may be included in your device's Google backup if you have backup turned on; personal photo puzzles are excluded from that backup and stay on the device. Uninstalling the app deletes its local data. After reinstalling, you can restore your purchases with the same Google Play account, but photo puzzles saved on the old install cannot be recovered.

The puzzles themselves are built into the app or generated on your phone, including the Daily Puzzle, so you can solve without a connection. The network is used for ads in the free version and for Google Play purchases. Ads are delivered through Unity LevelPlay with Unity Ads and Google AdMob; where the law requires it, Google's consent form appears before any ads are requested, and you can change your choice any time under Settings → Privacy choices. Your puzzle photos are never shared with advertisers, and Premium removes every ad.

For the full details, read the NonoPop privacy policy.