Rocket Mosaic

What is Rocket Mosaic?

Rocket Mosaic is a picture logic puzzle for anyone who loves Minesweeper's numbers and Sudoku's pure deduction. Every number in the grid tells you how many tiles are filled in the 3×3 block around it, counting its own tile. Work out which tiles are filled and which are empty, and a hidden pixel-art picture appears. Finish it and the picture is revealed in full colour and saved to your album.

Play a new daily puzzle each day, the same for everyone, with a streak and a daily leaderboard, or as many fresh puzzles as you like in five sizes from 10×10 to 30×30 and three difficulties. Every puzzle has exactly one solution and is checked by our solver to be solvable by logic alone, so you never need to guess.

How to play Rocket Mosaic

1. The goal: decide for every tile whether it's filled or empty. A number counts the filled tiles in the block of up to nine tiles around it: the tile itself and its neighbours, including diagonals.
2. Tap or click a tile to fill it. Switch to Cross to mark tiles you know are empty, or right-click on a computer. Press and drag to mark many tiles in one stroke.
3. A number turns grey when all the tiles around it are settled, so you can see what's left to do. With error checking on, a wrong tile is flagged straight away.
4. Stuck? Hint finds the next tiles you can work out and explains the reasoning. Undo and Redo step through your moves.
5. On a phone, pinch or use the zoom buttons to enlarge big grids and drag with two fingers to move around.

Rocket Mosaic tips and strategy

• Start with 0s and 9s: a 0 means every tile around it is empty, and a 9 means all nine are filled. On the edge of the grid, a 6 or a 4 in a corner fills its whole block.
• Look for numbers that equal the tiles they still have open: all of them must be filled. When a number's count is already reached, the rest of its block is empty.
• Compare neighbouring numbers. Two blocks share most of their tiles, so the difference between their numbers often settles the tiles only one of them covers.
• Cross out empty tiles as you go: crosses make the counting much easier.
• Work outward from what you've settled. Every tile you decide helps the numbers next to it.

Mosaic puzzle rules

The grid starts blank, with numbers printed in some of its tiles. Each number from 0 to 9 says how many tiles are filled in its 3×3 block: the numbered tile and the up to eight tiles touching it. Tiles on the edge or in a corner have smaller blocks. Numbers don't have to sit on filled tiles; a numbered tile can be filled or empty like any other.

Fill in the tiles so that every number is satisfied and the picture is complete. It's a cousin of Minesweeper, with the difference that the numbers count the tile they stand on too and that nothing explodes.

Sizes and difficulty

Puzzles come in 10×10, 15×15, 20×20, 25×25 and 30×30, each at Easy, Medium and Hard. Easy puzzles show plenty of numbers and fall to single-number steps like 0s, full blocks and counts that are already reached. Medium needs you to compare two overlapping numbers. Hard shows fewer numbers and needs you to reason about three overlapping numbers at once.

The game grades each puzzle by solving it the way a person would before you see it, always using the simplest step available. That also proves the puzzle has exactly one solution.

The daily puzzle and the album

The daily Mosaic changes at midnight and is the same for every player. Solve it to build a streak and see where your time ranks on the daily leaderboard. Every picture you reveal goes into your album, grouped into themed collections like space, animals, the ocean and a gallery of grand 30×30 scenes.

Rocket Mosaic FAQ