Many Hands

A daily mural of nonograms

Many hands.
One print.

Every day a public-domain painting is cut into 10×10 squares on one shared print. Take a square, solve it by reading the numbers, and it is printed on everyone's mural with your seal. When the last square lands, the whole picture is revealed next to the original.

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Play today's square free New to nonograms? How to solve

  • VINghìn bàn tay, một bức tranh.
  • JAたくさんの手で、一枚の絵を。
Hundreds of handson every print
Today's shared print: a Hokusai painting half printed in teal halftone, with pink seals on finished squares and a square marked YOU

How it works

One square is yours

A few minutes, one small puzzle, and a real piece of a picture that thousands of people finish together.

The shared print with an empty square marked YOU
01

Take a square

Tap Take a square and the print hands you one, right next to squares other people have finished. It is held for you for 10 minutes.

A 10×10 nonogram square with numbers above each column and beside each row
02

Read the numbers

Each number is a run of painted cells in that row or column. Paint what the numbers prove, mark what they rule out.

Result card: Your hand is on the mural, with a pink seal and the squares left
03

Your hand on the print

Submit, and your square is printed on everyone's mural with your seal, a small pink stamp that is yours alone.

Mural complete: everyone's print shown with the painting's title, artist and the number of hands
04

The reveal

When the last square is done, everyone's print appears next to the original painting, with how many hands it took.

New to nonograms?

Five small lessons

Never solved a nonogram? Before your first real square, Many Hands offers five tiny boards, about two minutes in all. Each one teaches a single idea, points at the line to read, and has a Show me button when you are stuck.

  1. Reading the numbersA 5 in a row of 5 paints the whole row; a 0 means empty.
  2. OverlapPush a long run to either end: the middle is painted either way.
  3. Several numbers and gapsRuns stay in order, with at least one empty cell between them.
  4. Rows help columnsEvery cell you learn is a new clue for the line that crosses it.
  5. A real squareA piece of a real mural, with cells from the hand before you.

Replay any lesson from Settings, or open How to play for the rules on one card. On the web, the four lessons are in the solving guide, with boards you can play, and there is a practice square every day.

Row 1 reads 1 · 1: one cell, a gap, then one more. The pink dot came from the previous hand.

Master 1 / 5 · blue platePrevious hand

The house rule

No guessing. Ever.

Every square on every print is checked by a line solver before it ships. If the numbers alone can't finish a square, the hand before you paints a few cells for you (marked with a pink dot) until they can. You only ever need to read a row or a column.

Read, don't guess

Every cell can be proved from a single row or column. No trial and error, no lucky taps.

A hand when you need it

Three wrong submits and a previous hand paints one row for you. You can also Borrow a row, always optional.

No timers on thinking

No lives, no energy, no ads after a mistake. Your square is held for 10 minutes; if you leave, it simply goes back to the pool.

The daily issue

A new print every morning

At midnight UTC a new issue starts: a new public-domain painting from the open collections of The Met, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Rijksmuseum and the National Gallery of Art, a new number on the masthead and a new ink of the day. Everyone works on the same print.

  • Federal Blue
  • Teal
  • Burgundy
  • Hunter Green
  • Watch it fill in. Squares from other hands appear on your print as they land.
  • Your seal is a little pink stamp drawn just for you, with no name and no text. Keep a daily streak and count your hands.
  • The gallery keeps every mural you helped finish, with how many squares were yours.
  • A note when it's done: if you like, the game tells you when a mural you painted is complete.
  • Offline? Open the Sketchbook: practice squares in grey ink that stay on your device.
  • Three languages: English, Tiếng Việt and 日本語.
The gallery: finished murals, each with its issue number and how many squares were yours
Your seal: a pink stamp with your hands, streak and murals

Put your hand on today's print

Free on iPhone, with an optional one-time purchase to remove the ads between squares. Android is on its way.

Download on theApp Store Coming soon Google PlayComing soon

English · Tiếng Việt · 日本語