Squeakross: Home Squeak Home

I've been a fan of nonograms, also known as Picross if you want to get Nintendo-y with it, ever since I picked up a random free game on my phone in high school.

- By Erin McAllister

Publisher: Alblune

Developer: Alblune

Genre: Puzzle Release

Date: Out Now

Platform: PC, Switch

There’s something so addictive and exciting about these puzzles, and I constantly find myself spending hours just completing as many as possible. However, after that first app, I've struggled to find any nonogram games that have been any fun to play. Either there are too many ads or the block selection process is oversensitive.

That is, until I played Squeakross: Home Squeak Home. It is, without a doubt, the best nonogram videogame I've ever had the delight to experience. It's stylish, robust, widely customisable from both a gameplay and visual perspective, designed with accessibility in mind, easy to pick up, integral to everything else the game has to offer, and best of all, it doesn’t treat you like an idiot.

Notably, Squeakross, developed and published by Alblune, isn’t just a collection of 650 nonogram puzzles. The game starts with you designing your very own little rodent in a surprisingly in-depth character creator. There are the typical features you might expect, like eye, mouth, head, and nose shapes or size meters. However, you can also find a variety of fur patterns (including no fur at all for that naked rat look), full colour customisation for fur and skin, ear damage, limb removal, and whether or not things like your rodent’s ears, tail, or toes have fur. I wound up making an adorable rat named Brie, but you can get a lot more wild in your design than I did.