Contents
- Index
Methods for solving Nonogrids
Here are some very useful techniques for solving Nonogrids.
i) Minimum space or no choice
Sometimes there is no optional position for a grouping of blacks. If there is none you can just fill them in. For example a clue such as 2,1 for a 4 square column.
ii) Overlap
If there is one grouping of blacks for a row or column you can sometimes deduce that some of the squares can be nothing but black. For example if the clue is 3 and the row length is 5 then there are only 3 possible positions for the group of 3. If you draw these out, you see for every possible position the middle square must be black. Thus you can mark this down as an extra clue to help with other rows and columns.
iii) Assumptions
When you have used all the available clues, you might be stuck because there are still undefined squares left. In this case, you need an assumption. You assume a square to be black or white, and continue solving the puzzle with this extra information. So it's best to put an assumption in a square that enables more clues.
If you see that the puzzle becomes impossible, it means your assumption was wrong, and you know that that square must have the other color.
To learn more, read up on Assumptions here