takara
Like Nonograms? Try Takara
Nonograms (Picross, Griddlers, Hanjie) are solved by reading rows and columns against each other until the picture appears. Takara keeps that habit: its numbers sit along the edges too. But what you fill in is a single route, from an entrance to a treasure, and each number is simply how many of its squares that route covers.
Play Takara →Play today’s puzzle
What you already know
- Rows against columns. As in a Nonogram, a square is settled when its row and its column together leave it no choice, and every settled square helps with the next line you look at.
- Full and empty lines. A 0 clears a whole row; a count equal to its free squares fills it. These are often the way in, as the big blocks are in a Nonogram.
- No guessing. Every puzzle has exactly one solution and is checked to be solvable by reasoning alone.
What is new
- A count, not blocks. A Takara number says how many squares the route covers in that line, not how they are grouped.
- The squares join up. What you fill in is one route that never branches or crosses itself, so every square you fill has to link up with the squares around it: a dead end or a closed loop is never allowed.
- Walls, voids and arrows on the board itself say where the route may and must go.
The rules of Takara
- Find the one route from the entrance to the treasure 宝. It steps up, down, left and right, never crosses a wall or itself, never enters a void, and never visits a square twice.entrancewallvoidtreasure
- A number beside a row or column says how many of its squares the route covers. The entrance and the 宝 also count as squares of that row or column. No number means no constraint. A clue with ≥ or ≤ is a bound rather than a count: ≥2 says the route covers at least two squares of that row or column, ≤2 at most two.rowcolumnat leastat most
- An arrow is a square the route must pass through, leaving in the direction it points. A four-way marker only says the route comes through — any way in, any way out. It is drawn with only the ways that are open, so one in a corner has two arms.arrowfour-waycorner
- More than one 宝 means only one is real. The rest are decoys: exactly one sits at the end of a route that satisfies every other clue.特 specialimpostor