Grid Painter

Grid Painter is a nonogram, the picture-logic puzzle where numbers beside each row and column tell you the runs of filled squares in that line. A row clued 3 1 has a block of three filled squares, then at least one gap, then a single filled square. Fill the grid correctly and a picture appears.

The twist is that the clues are not handed to you as numbers. They are written as expressions you have to evaluate first: 2 with a small 3 above it means a run of 8, 'half of 6' means 3, and '7 - 4' means 3 as well. So each line is two pieces of work — read the arithmetic, then apply the logic. Difficulty rises on both axes independently: bigger grids make the logic harder, and higher expression tiers make the arithmetic harder.

Every puzzle can be finished by working one row or column at a time, without ever guessing and backtracking. That makes it a good fit for a student who likes puzzles but gets discouraged by dead ends, and the expression clues turn what would be pure logic practice into arithmetic practice they will happily repeat.