Pixelogic Weekly #4
Nonogram puzzles for the week of April 27, 2025
Hope everyone had a great week. As a reminder, Pixelogic for Windows is available to wishlist on Steam, coming out later this year.
What makes a great nonogram puzzle?
Over the past 15 years, I’ve reviewed tens of thousands of player-created puzzles for Pixelogic. Out of that experience, I have developed an intuition as to what makes a good puzzle.
If I had to write them down, here are my guidelines to making a great puzzle:
Solvable without guessing - This is the most important one. If guessing was needed, then its really a game of chance and not a pure logic puzzle. I run a solvability checker on every puzzle that is featured in Pixelogic, ensuring that no guessing is needed.
Uses all available space - A good nonogram puzzle should have a limited amount of empty rows or columns (same goes for rows and columns that are completely filled). If there is too many empty space, its best to use a smaller puzzle size.
Recognizable pixel art - Creating a recognizable image with only one color in such small canvas is really challenging, though this is what makes solving a nonogram puzzle so rewarding.
Concise, clever title - A great title is an underrated, but important aspect of a good puzzle. I find that indirect, clever references to the hidden picture make for a more satisfying reveal when the puzzle is solved. For instance the title “Bad Hair Day” for a puzzle depicting Medusa.
Avoid words - I find nonogram pixel art works best without words (that is the title’s job). Also, Pixelogic is played by players around the world, titles can be translated much easier than words embedded in a puzzle.
At least moderately difficult - Nonogram puzzles that are too easy just aren’t as fun to play. The Pixelogic puzzle creator gives you a score of how many runs it takes for our solver to complete your puzzle. Aim for a score of at least 4.
Avoid symmetry and repeated patterns - A symmetric puzzle or repeating patterns can make a puzzle too easy for players that catch on.
Not all puzzles that are featured in Pixelogic necessarily check all the boxes, though many do.
What do you think makes a great puzzle?
This Week’s Puzzles
Click the puzzle links below to play this week’s upcoming puzzles:
Mini 15x15 Puzzles
🧩 falda larva y bonita by Geralyn - April 27, 2025
🧩 Up and away! by LEXMAN - April 28, 2025
🧩 The Old Maid by LEXMAN - April 29, 2025
🧩 Tree by Anonymous - April 30, 2025
🧩 Mark that spot by Dan - May 1, 2025
👇 Weekly 25x25 (1) and Daily 20x20 (7) puzzles below for paid subscribers👇
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