CrossMe

I've played a number of nonogram puzzles on various platforms. While I've only just started with this one, it seems like a good incarnation. The interface is simple and effective. I particularly like that it logically crosses out numbers as you fill the spaces. The hold-sweep move to mark a line of squares is useful as well (and it works for coloring them in, marking as Xs, or erasing as well). The fonts and graphics are very readable.

There is one thing you can't do with CrossMe's interface: mark a square as a guess and move forward to see if your guess pans out, with the ability to lock in or revert all those deductions at once. The iOS game "Shady Puzzles" does an admirable job of this, and even allows up to three nested or parallel guesses. When you get to the more complicated puzzles, you occasionally do need to try out a possibility and see if it leads to a contradiction or not, so I miss this facility. I'm debating knocking a star off my rating for this, but for now, I'll let it stand. CrossMe does seem to have unlimited levels of undo (although no redo), so you can with some care at least explore one guess at a time.

As others mentioned, some of the larger puzzles are a bit tricky to fill precisely - you'll be best on a tablet for those, and a stylus certainly wouldn't hurt. However, pinch-zoom is implemented very smoothly, which will let you mark things accurately at the expense of not seeing the whole picture.

The tutorial is not particularly good. If you don't know how to play nonograms, you'll be pretty confused. It barely adequately covers the rules, and the one or two strategy tips it offers are confusingly worded. This part of the product could stand to be improved. Still, the gameplay is the thing, so I didn't strike a star from my rating for this.

The product description is a bit bit vague about the number of puzzles. When asking the relatively high price of $4.95 for this normally, this is critical information for deciding the value. Anyway, I've gone through each level's selection screen and added them up, and (assuming there aren't any "hidden" puzzles or other things like that) there are 245 different puzzles here. Only 2 of these are throwaway tutorial levels; they're mostly the real deal. I haven't gone through even the first level yet so I can't say how well the difficulty scales, but I can at least say there's a nice variety in sizes and shapes of grids throughout.

Absolutely grab this while it's the Free App of the Day. After that, $4.95 is as I say perhaps a little high, although that still works out to basically $.02 per puzzle so it's a bit miserly to complain. Most of these puzzles will take anywhere from two to 20 minutes to solve; $5 for that much intellectual entertainment really shouldn't be too much to ask.

If you like Sudoku and crossword puzzles you'll love this game! It's a great thinking game that can keep you entertained for hours. I've been playing it for the last 45 minutes and love it! It's pretty hard, but worth the effort. Here's what I love about it:

-Tons of levels: It's divided into 8 individual levels, with up to 37 boards per level. They get really hard as it goes on. It lists the difficulty of each level (easy, normal, advanced or expert)

-Pinch: Pinch to zoom makes it easier on smaller screens to hit the cell you're trying to hit

-Ability to jump ahead. You can start at level one or jump ahead to any level you want. You don't have to beat the previous levels to move on.

-Tutorial: Great tutorial that helps a lot as this is a complex and sort of confusing game.

-Interface: Easy to use menu and settings for music on or off. You can also set it to display time and battery in the upper left hand corner of the board. It's nice to be able to monitor battery life, especially with phones with large screens that drain your battery fast.

I also want to note that if you're having problems learning the game, do a Google search on "nonogram" and you'll find additional help. The tutorial in game is good, but some sites (like Wikipedia) have great solution techniques to help you!

CrossMe is a type of Japanese logic puzzle called a nonogram. You are shown a grid surrounded by numbers, which represent the number of consecutive squares in that particular row or column which much be filled in. For instance, "5" would mean that you have to fill in 5 squares all next to one another, while "3 4" means there are 3 filled squares, followed by an unknown number of blank spaces, then 4 more filled squares. Filling in all the appropriate squares will reveal a picture.

The game can look very intimidating to the novice, but once you learn a few tricks, it becomes very simple.

Step one: Look for rows or columns that are completely filled in. In a 10x10 puzzle, that would be a row with a "10". Then look for rows that are completely blank.

Step two: Look for rows or columns with a number that is more than half the width of the puzzle. For instance, in a 10x10 puzzle, a row with "6" or higher will always occupy at least a few of the squares in the middle of the row, so you can fill those in.

Step three: If you have any squares filled in along the edges, then you already know how many to fill in from that edge. In a 10x10 puzzle, if a row is labeled as "3 4", and the first space in the row has already been filled, then the next two must be filled as well.

Step four: Fill in gaps between squares. If a row is labeled as "4" and you have one space filled, then a blank, then another filled space, then you know the blank between the two must be filled.

Step five: If you tap on a square twice, it will place an "X" instead of filling the square. Use these whenever possible. If you've filled in all the appropriate spaces in a row, fill the blank squares with "X"s and it will be help you figure out the columns. For instance, if a row is labeled "3 3" and you already have two sets of 3 squares filled in, then the rest of the squares in the row should be X'ed out.

Hopefully that made sense. Like I said before, it's a bit tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes much easier.

This game works perfectly on my Motorola Xoom tablet. My only complaint is that the price, $4.95, feels a bit high.