3D Nonogram A free 3D logic puzzle game for Android. Carve a hidden model out of a block of cubes, using number clues alone.
A solid block of cubes, with a shape hidden inside it. Every row running through the block is labelled with how many of its cubes belong to that shape. Work out which cubes are waste, break them, and the model underneath comes out in colour: an owl, a crown, a music box.
3D Nonogram is a free 3D logic puzzle game for Android, made by BetuWorks, in which you carve a hidden voxel model out of a block of cubes using number clues alone. It appears on Google Play as “3D Nonogram: Voxel Puzzles”.
What a 3D nonogram is
A flat nonogram, also called a griddler, hanjie, Japanese crossword or picture cross, gives you numbers along the edges of a grid and asks you to work out which squares are filled. This is the same idea with a third axis added, and one important difference: the clues are not only around the outside. Every line of cubes through the block carries its own number, on the faces at both ends, including lines that are buried in the middle.
The number tells you how many cubes on that line belong to the model. The marker around the number tells you how those cubes are grouped: a bare number means one unbroken run, a circle means exactly 2 groups, and a square means 3 or more. That grouping information is what makes the puzzle solvable in three dimensions instead of merely tedious.
If you have played Picross 3D, this will be familiar territory. If you have not, the closest comparison is stone carving with arithmetic: the sculpture is already in there, and the numbers tell you what to take away.
How to play
- Read a number. It says how many cubes in that row belong to the model. Turn the block to read rows from every side.
- Break the waste. Tap a cube you have proved is not part of the model to break it.
- Paint what stays. A painted cube is protected, so a stray tap cannot break it.
- Clear the zeros. One tap clears every row marked 0.
- Finish the carving. When the last spare cube is gone, the model is revealed in colour and goes on your shelf.
Breaking a cube that belongs to the model is a mistake: it costs 1 of your 5 lives and paints the cube for you, so the mistake still leaves you the information it bought. Lives can be switched off entirely, and then a mistake never ends a puzzle. Undo reverses any break or paint except a mistake. The first pack, First Cuts, teaches all of this in 5 short lessons. For what the circles and squares mean and the deductions that solve a hard block, read how to play 3D Nonogram.
47 free puzzles, and 2 packs of 30
First Cuts
5 lessons, starting on a slab 1 cube thick. Each one introduces one idea, in the order the rest of the game uses them.
First Finds
30 puzzles in 5 themed chapters of 6: Kitchen, Home, Forest, Castle and Keepsakes. Each chapter adds one new idea, opens gently and climbs.
Two Tones
12 puzzles in two colours, in 2 chapters. Each colour has its own numbers, and a group can be split by a cube of the other colour that you must not break.
Your own
The level builder turns a model you make into a puzzle, and levels friends send you are kept in the game, up to 200 of them.
Landmarks
30 famous places in 5 chapters, from the Parthenon and the Great Wall to the Eiffel Tower and Mount Fuji. One chapter, Waterfronts, is in two colours. Optional pack; the first puzzle is free.
Animals
30 animals in 5 chapters: Pond and River, Farm, Cold, Savanna and Woodland. Farm and Savanna are in two colours. Optional pack; the first puzzle is free.
The models are hand-made rather than generated, and they are deliberately ordinary things that read at a glance: an apple, a carrot, an owl, a crown, a teddy bear. Boards are rarely cubes. Most are oblong, from a 5×3×1 slab in the first lessons up to 10 cubes along an axis.
No guessing, verified
Every puzzle is run through a solver before it is allowed to ship. The solver works out the valid fillings for each line and propagates the constraints the way a person would, until nothing more can be deduced. If it finishes the board, the board needs no guessing and has exactly one solution. If it cannot, the puzzle does not ship.
The check runs over every model and fails the build on any puzzle that does not pass, along with several other gates: a level must not be finishable by counting alone, a model must not fall into detached pieces, and the reveal colour must not be confusable with the marker colour. Levels made in the builder go through the same check before they can be shared.
Hints that teach
The first press of the hint button lights up the clue you should be reading and its row. Press again and it points at the cube. It never tells you whether to break or paint; that deduction stays yours.
Each puzzle has 3 stars: one for solving it, one for making no mistakes, and one for using no hints. Taking a hint costs the third star once, and every hint after that is free for the rest of the puzzle.
Make your own and share it
The level builder lets you build a voxel model cube by cube and colour it. The game checks that the result can be solved, you pick Easy, Medium or Hard, and the level becomes a short text code. Send it through any chat app; your friend pastes it in and plays.
There is no server behind this. The code is the level, so sharing works without an account and without BetuWorks ever seeing what you made.
Comfort and accessibility
- Colour-blind dots mark the colours so they do not have to be told apart by hue.
- Left-handed layout moves the slice strip and Undo to the other side of the screen.
- Reduced motion, and a choice of turning speed.
- Daylight and Dusk colour schemes.
- Calm music in 2 styles, sound effects and haptics, each adjustable or off.
- Resume any half-finished puzzle where you left it.
What leaves your phone
The game runs on the device. There is no account and no game server, and your progress, your stars, the levels you build and the levels friends send you are stored on your phone only. There are no ads and no advertising ID.
The app does send crash reports and anonymous usage statistics, such as which levels players get stuck on, to Google's Firebase. The full detail is in the privacy policy.
Specification
- Android 7.0 and up
- 47 free, 60 more in 2 optional packs, plus your own
- From 5×3×1 up to 10 cubes along an axis
- Free to download. No ads. Optional one-time pack purchases
- Google Play, worldwide
- Not needed to play. Crash reports and analytics only
- English
- Everyone
- Published · Google Play
Questions
What is a 3D nonogram?
A logic puzzle played on a solid block of cubes instead of a flat grid. A shape is hidden inside the block, and every line of cubes running through it on all three axes is labelled with how many of its cubes belong to that shape. You reason out which cubes are waste and remove them until the model is left standing.
What do the circle and square markers mean?
They describe how the cubes on that line are grouped. A plain number means one unbroken run. A circle means exactly 2 groups, so there is a gap somewhere. A square means 3 or more groups. The number is always the total count of model cubes on the line.
Is it free?
Yes. 3D Nonogram is free to download on Google Play, in every country, and 47 puzzles are free to play. It has no ads and does not use an advertising ID. 2 optional packs of 30 puzzles, Landmarks and Animals, are one-time in-app purchases, and the first puzzle of each is free to try. No subscriptions, coins or energy timers.
Does it work offline?
Yes. The puzzles ship inside the app and there is no account and no game server. Sharing a level uses a code you send yourself, so that needs no server either. The network is only used for crash reports and anonymous usage statistics.
How many puzzles are there?
107 hand-made puzzles. 47 are free: First Cuts (5 lessons), First Finds (30 puzzles in 5 themed chapters) and Two Tones (12 two-colour puzzles). The optional Landmarks and Animals packs add 30 each. You can also build your own and play the ones friends send you.
Do you ever have to guess?
No. Every puzzle is checked by a solver before it ships, and one that cannot be finished by reasoning alone does not make it into the game. Levels made in the builder are checked the same way before they can be shared.
Can I make my own puzzles?
Yes. Build a model cube by cube, colour it, and the game checks that it can be solved. Choose Easy, Medium or Hard, and send it to a friend as a short code. No account is needed.
Is there an iPhone version?
Not at the moment. 3D Nonogram is on Google Play for Android 7.0 and up, and an iOS version is not released.
Which languages does it support?
English only, for now.