Last updated on December 15th, 2025 at 02:20 pm
Nonogram Life – Board Game Review
Nonogram Life is a Board/Puzzle game from Nguyen Loc, first launched in 18th April 2021.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 560+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Nonogram Life Stand Out
Nonograms, also known as Paint by Numbers, Picross, Griddlers, Pic-a-Pix, Hanjie, and various other names, are picture Logic puzzle in which cells in a grid must be colored or left blank according to numbers at the side of the grid to reveal a hidden picture.
Rule
In this puzzle type, the numbers are a form of discrete tomography that measures how many unbroken lines of filled-in squares there are in any given row or column. For example, a clue of "4 8 3" would mean there are sets of four, eight, and three filled squares, in that order, with at least one blank square between successive sets.
Features
● Hand crafted beautiful pixel arts
● There are various topics to have fun with
● Using hint can help you in difficult time
● Easy controls, either using drag or d-pad
● Mindfulness, relaxing music
● Playing session is saved/resumed automatically
● Don’t forget to using Mark (X) to solve the puzzle easier
Strategy
Simpler puzzles can usually be solved by a reasoning on a single row only (or a single column) at each given time, to determine as many boxes and spaces on that row as possible. Then trying another row (or column), until there are no rows that contain undetermined cells.
Some more difficult puzzles may also require several types of "what if?" reasoning that include more than one row (or column). This works on searching for contradictions: When a cell cannot be a box, because some other cell would produce an error, it will definitely be a space. And vice versa. Advanced solvers are sometimes able to search even deeper than into the first "what if?" reasoning. It takes, however, a lot of time to get some progress.
This Board game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Nonogram Life is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 3rd February 2025
Recent improvements include:
Bug fixes and improvements
Download & Availability
Nonogram Life is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Nonogram Life on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
This is such a well-made nonogram game! Our only suggestion would be to release new levels because Ive already finished all of them :).
First of all, the ads are short and do not interrupt game play which is a huuuuuge plus. Secondly the puzzles are all so good. We literally finished all of them and Im really hoping they add more!!! This has been our wind down at bedtime game for the last 8 months.
After clearing all, yes all of the puzzles, we can say for certain this game is very calming and steady. Its a nice mix of making you think and sort of calming you down. The ads arent bad at all, maybe once every three puzzles, and even then they were skippable after like 10 seconds. We enjoyed it a lot and will be looking forward to updates/other games in the future.
The best nanogram game Ive played. INSTANTANEOUS 10/10. SERIOUSLY. We dont ever leave reviews but you can tell the people who made this are huge fans of nanograms for phones, and havent received the credit they deserve yet. Multiple options for controls with the best control scheme(s) on any nanogram game Ive seen thus far. Options for different life modes immediately available and no required tutorial to glumly sit through. You can see what your drawing as you fill in the squares, as in color appears when you select a square. No blindingly white background. No lag whatsoever, game VERY runs well compared to many other nanograms Ive played. And on top of this it gives you little factoids about what you drew in game! THIS IS FANTASTIC!?? Thank you devs, we see you and appreciate what youve created.
This app is amazing! We really like how challenging the puzzles are, and how you get a fact or two about the plant or animal after each puzzle. Theres also a lot of levels to play, so you wont run out quickly. Theres no waiting time for playing points to recharge so you can play as long as you want. There are ads occasionally, but not as many as other apps Ive played. All in all, great game, would recommend.
Such a pleasant Nonogram for relaxing. The puzzles are all easy enough that you dont have to ponder too much, just fill in and chill. Ive not come across a picture yet that requires guessing, there is always at least one sure move. (we HATE nonograms that make you guess!) This is the only nonogram with interesting trivia. We actually learned a lot of little tidbits of info about plants and animals and stuff while playing this game. Some of it was so interesting (like how flying squirrels glow pink under UV light) we had to stop playing the puzzles to go look up more info. We really appreciate all the time that went into making this game. The pictures are really nice, the trivia is so interesting, the ads dont happen too frequently, there are sooooo many puzzles Ive been using this app for a couple months and still havent even finished one category. We really like the feature where you can build either the fullcolor picture or a yellow and black grid.
We had around 70 puzzles done, all in the plants category. Today our progress is showing that we have almost all of the animal and plant levels done and that all the other categories are finished. If it werent for this bug, this game would get five stars.
Nonagrams are fun and relaxing. The heat and battery drain from playing 5-10 minutes is not. Either they severely need some optimizations or they are mining bitcoin in the background.
This game features a life system that basically makes this trial and error rather then a fun puzzle game and there is no way to turn it off.
Ive played other Nonogram games that had like, we dont know, 40 or so puzzles and maybe you could pay to unlock more (while also having to see ads). This one has ads, yes, thats inescapable without paying, but there are a TON of puzzles. Also each one has a little fact about whatever is depicted, thats kind of cool.
We play this everyday! It is one of our go to games! We love that it has so many different things that we can make. We just turn on some relaxing music and do our thing! We also like some of the interactive ads so Im like playing two games in one (we just also love solitaire) so we enjoy ourselves and the ads arent too annoying for us and cheap to get rid of as well for the amount of content the game has! Hope to see it add more.
We completed the whole game and we miss it already. It has no in app purchases and short ads after each puzzle but if you turn off your internet its just straight puzzles.
Level 100 in the animals puzzles is not loading for us please fix soon. Thank you.
Sometimes we just need something to quiet the noise in our mind for just a few minutes. This app is perfect! And the info about the image when you complete it is a fun little reward.
After over 1500 puzzles Ive finished and we can safely say it was pretty good.
Disappointed that we are running out of levels. We wish there was more.
We love this game -its extremely well done! Nice interface, lots of levels, the ads arent overwhelming, and the facts at the end of each puzzle are interesting. The only thing we really dislike is that its not more obvious to us if Im filling a square or marking it, so we frequently lose lives thinking we have the other option toggled on. 5 stars if this could be improved.
Is every pet a dog? Or am we just randomly solving dogs? Im not even going in order.
If you run out of hints you have the option to watch an add. But it doesnt work. Tharp stays on add page and there isnt a way to get back to the game. If you close app and reload the game there still iarent hints. Frustrating and needs to be fixed.
The gameplay is great. However the gameplay is brought down by bad controls that dont work half of the time.
The game is simple, fun, and not bloated with ads. A diamond in the rough. Pls add more devs we finished it and now Im sad.
Love this game but Ive finished it and theres no more levels. Are there any hidden or extra levels.
Easy to use and fun! A lot of games too.
We mean it does what is advertised. Its a amazing puzzle nonogram game and doesnt have an atrocious freenium business model. Im not gonna suggest this to everyone we know but its good if you like puzzles.
We play this game every night when we want to clear our head before we fall asleep. We will be very sad when we finish all of the puzzles.
Calming + satisfying + challenging. It would be neat to have volume control for ambient music.
This app is great and we thing its good but we would like if there were 30×30 etc it can extend down the screen but this would be awesome.
The only thing wrong with this game is that youll spend hours playing it instead of doing what you should be (laundry for us right nowoops). Its so fun, its like playing something while also being smart because we get to think about numbers, and theres so many puzzles to play! Highly recommend.
We really really enjoy playing this game. It has some easier puzzles to start you off and then over 1000 harder ones too. They range from 5×5,10×10,15×15,20×20,20×25. An ad plays after you finish one to two puzzles but they arent that bad. After playing the game nonstop for 3 days we decided to pay the $2.99 to stop ads because it was worth it. Really recommend it if you like this type of puzzle. Also really enjoy the fun facts you get after you complete a puzzle.
This game is magical. The puzzles themselves are easy enough to be relaxing but hard enough to not be boring, but the real greatness is in the subjects and the added little descriptions. We discovered so many new and fascinating plants and animals, and we learned a lot about ones we generally take for granted. We highly recommend looking things up, especially the animals. The only sadness is that Ive now finished everythingnew puzzles someday? We hope so, but we can see ourselves working through it all againthere is just so much to learn and enjoy.
Although we have just started playing this game, we are already hooked. The graphics are smooth and the levels are numerous. But we do have one problem, the game sometimes puts an X where a space should be colored. But otherwise, a great game and Im looking forward to playing more.
The game is awesome! Really fun and relaxing. But for some reason, it keeps crashing. Ive uninstalled it and reinstalled the game and this is the second time around and its starting to crash again. We like everything in the game, just wish it wouldnt crash, because we want to play it.
The app keeps opening some survey as if Im tapping the banner ad even though Im not touching the bottom of the screen. This happens every level that we play and is extremely irritating.
The game is fine. However Ive discovered that not only are many of the item descriptions wrong (a strawberry is not a multiple fruit, it is an aggregate fruit), the description of the lotus plant is copied word for word from theculturetrip.com. We appreciate a lot of effort goes into making a game but if youre gonna quote something exactly, please give credit where credit is due.
We love this app. It is so much fun and challenging. We just wish it more puzzles on the Evolution side.
We hoping that the producers do more of the same. The art is really amazing and the puzzles make you think.
Finally, a Nonogram game that not only makes us think, but can also be played offline! We also love the factoids that show up after the puzzle is solved. Nicely done.
Its great but incredibly broken. The game pad keeps breaking and gets stuck in one direction.
Ive tried so many Nonogram apps, and honestly this is the prettiest one Ive seen. They update regularly too. We always think Ive finished all the puzzles & then they add more! We like how they dont always stick to square puzzles & the dimensions can get really big so they are nice & challenging! Theres also a little excerpt with facts about whatever shape you made! We like the zoom in feature too. We only play on our iPad but we used to use the app on our phone & it was helpful since the squares got really small on the harder puzzles! Anyways, Im obsessed! We cant find any Nonogram apps to rival this one.
Very enjoyable. We play a lot of nonograms, and these graphics are superior.
This game is really unique and a neat take on the other nonogram games. However, we do have two suggestions. First it would be nice to have an option to turn the lives off like most games do. It can be a bit hard to be specific with the tiny spaces. Also, we're unsure as to why but our Apple Pencil works with every part of the app except the actual puzzles themselves. We're not sure if that's something you're able to control but it was slightly annoying. Like we said, not too many issues that we've found and with improvement we think this game could really be something great! :).
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.8.14
- Size: 94.88 MB
- iOS: 13.0 or later
- Languages: EN, FR, DE, JA, KO, ZH, ES, ZH
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Nguyen Loc
Last updated: 3rd February 2025 | Genre: Board, Puzzle | Developer: Nguyen Loc