Play color by number on a Chromebook, PC or Mac

Most color by number games live in an app store, which leaves laptops out. GRIDANGO is a web page: open gridango.com in the browser you already have and the game runs there, nothing to download or install, no sign-up, no email. It works the same on a Chromebook, a Windows PC and a Mac, and on a big screen the large boards finally get the room they deserve.

What you need

A current browser and the link. That is the whole list. Every one of the 142 puzzles is free to play, from the 2x2 warm-up to the 128x200 boards. If a browser is too old to run the game, the page says so instead of showing a blank screen, and updating the browser fixes it.

A Chromebook needs nothing from the Play Store, because there is no app: Chrome opens the page like any other site, including on managed Chromebooks that block installs. On Windows and macOS any of the usual browsers will do.

Mouse and trackpad controls

Click a swatch in the palette under the board to pick a color. Click a cell to fill it, or press and drag across a run of cells to fill them in one stroke. Zoom in for the small cells of a big picture, then pan around. With the single-cell brush a stroke is exactly one cell wide, what you drag over is what you paint, and that is easier to aim with a pointer than with a fingertip.

Keyboard shortcuts

Keys for the same moves:

Big boards on a big screen

The high-res sets are where a laptop earns its keep. A 128x128 board has 16,384 cells; on a phone that means constant zooming, on a 14 inch screen you can see a whole region at working size. On boards with 33 or more cells on the long edge, Settings offers a "Color in patches" switch that divides the picture into patches of roughly 24 cells a side, never more than six across or down, so you finish one patch and jump to the next with the ] key. It is off by default on a desktop and on by default on a phone from 40 cells up.

Every unfilled cell shows the code of its color, numbers first, then letters. On a large monitor the codes stay readable at lower zoom, which is the main reason a 35 color board feels calmer on a desk than in a hand.

Touchscreen laptops

A Chromebook or Windows laptop with a touchscreen gets both sets of controls: tap and drag to fill, pinch to zoom, two-finger drag to pan, and the mouse for the fiddly cells. A browser window narrower than 768 pixels switches the game to its phone layout; widen it and the desktop layout comes back.

Where your progress lives

Progress is saved in the browser on the device you play on, as you go. Close the tab mid-puzzle, come back later in the same browser, and the board is where you left it; the Continue card on the home screen takes you straight there. Finished puzzles, your streak and the tools you have unlocked are stored the same way.

Progress does not travel between devices, so a puzzle started on a Chromebook is not on your phone, and clearing site data in the browser resets it. The optional painter name (a name plus a number tag, no password) keeps your gem balance; the boards themselves stay local.

Dark mode, sound and other settings

The Settings button in the game toolbar opens light, dark or system theme, grid lines, color hints, a hint style switch (numbers first or symbols first), volume, and the patches switch on large boards. Sound has its own on and off button in the same toolbar, and the pages around the game have their own theme toggle.

Start here

New to color by number? The Starters collection has ten small pictures, and how to play explains the rules. For a first big-screen project, the Beach Day High-Res set at 128x128 is a good pick. The gallery shows every puzzle with its board size, and easy or hard color by number explains what those sizes mean in minutes.

One moment