CiniCross
A downloadable game for Windows
Wishlist CiniCross now on Steam + Demo : https://store.steampowered.com/app/3933120/CiniCross/
CiniCross is a roguelike puzzle game set in a dark fantasy universe. Solve increasingly difficult nonogram puzzles, choose your path through a tree-like dungeon, and adapt your strategy using artifacts and items with unique effects.
Each room is a new puzzle, each boss a challenge to overcome.
Increasing difficulty
Deeper you go into the dungeon, the more complex the puzzles get, but the rewards are also greater. You'll be able to solve lots of puzzles with several grid sizes, which are procedurally generated and have a single solution.
Use the power of artifacts and items
During your perilous journey, you will collect numerous artifacts and items with various powers that will change the way you play throughout your run.
Face all the bosses as you traverse procedurally generated dungeons
Each floor has several paths, all of which lead to the floor boss. You must defeat him to progress. Each boss has his own power, forcing you to adapt your playing style and approach to nonograms. You will also find all kinds of places to help you in your exploration, such as shops, campfires, etc.
Perish and retry
Every mistake, every second wasted, and much more will cost you dearly. That's why you will surely perish many times in this dungeon filled with dangers. Start again, collect new treasures, and try your chance once more. You will need to manage your time carefully.
Disclaimer --------------------
Please note that ExuCross is still in development (and probably closer to the beginning than the end). The ultimate goal is to release it on Steam (as a paid game).
Development is done in my free time, so please consider providing feedback on your experience or any bugs you encounter, or making a donation :) . Thank you very much for your interest in my game.
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Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Demo Updates - Gameplay, Items, Bug Fixes69 days ago
- CiniCross Demo is available on Itch.io (and Steam)88 days ago
- New CiniCross Playtest Available !Sep 14, 2025
- CiniCross has just been announced on STEAM!!Aug 08, 2025
- First Update to my first playtestJul 31, 2025
- Launch of the first ExuCross playtestJul 30, 2025
Comments
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Hi! Love the concept of this, I'm experiencing a bug with the bounding boxes/clicking areas on the play button and other interactables, they will flicker and sometimes not work, I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling and am not sure what the issue is!
Love the concept and the game! Is there any chance that this will be deck verified in the future?
Hi, Thank you. I have planned to do it <3
I have been enjoying the game, but I have a few pieces of feedback. First, the timer stops being a concern once you have gotten a couple Silver Coins, as puzzles will start consistently giving more time than they take to solve. Second, the low health sound should probably be quieter, as it is much louder than all the other sounds currently. It also shouldn't be cancelled by puzzle solving sounds, as the sound cutting out is jarring. Third, there should be a way to drop items, as picking up items with downsides like the Sacrificial Dagger forces you to use them before getting a new item to hold on to. Fourth, shops should be able to do more than buy 1-2 items like maybe healing, and should have the money providing items removed from the pool in the shop. Fifth, the bosses should probably have a unique pool of puzzles to reduce the chance of having seen one of them earlier in the Floor (though this is more subjective). Finally, there should be an "end" to the game (or if there is one after floor 7 you can disregard this part). Having an endless mode after it is fun, but a You Win screen is hard to top.
This is fantastic! The penalty system worked phenomenally and the timer really made me focused. I literally found myself getting jumpscared each time I got hurt because of how focused I was (in a good way)! Any chance you're looking for a composer?
I've been revisiting this page daily to get my nonogram fix. Very well made, and the aesthetics are phenomenal. I can't wait to see how this project develops further, amazing work so far!
Thank you very much for your comment ♡ Many things are planned for the future of CiniCross. I just posted the steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3933120/CiniCross
Wishlist now if you want to follow the project.
Thanks again
Very good job !
Love seeing the visuals/animations coupling so well with the gameplay : )
I know even more can be done to truly give satisfaction for each actions ! Keep going !
Thanks for your feedback!
We'll be adding new features to the juice for the next playtest, including progressive graying of clues and automatic crosses when a line is completed. Wishlist now to track additions: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3933120/CiniCross
I commented it on reddit too, but an option to deselct would be great!!
An idea for the text, because it is a bit difficult to read. It would be nice as a design choice to have this as the title font and another font that has a better readability as the text font :) (maybe it is just me though)
Thank you for this feedback !
The option to deselect will be available in the next playtest. I received other feedbacks on the sometimes bad readability of some of the fonts. I will try my best to improve this point in the future. Thanks <3
LOVE IT! will definitely be keeping a close eye on this! ^-^
Thank you very much! I will do my best to make it even more enjoyable <3
This is fun as hell, i can see myself sinking hundreds of hours into this.
Thank you very much! Now that I've fixed most of the issues pointed out in this first playtest, I'm going to refocus on development and adding content. I'm also thinking about creating a Steam page. Thank you for your support <3
Awesome! Something that just happened to me, i lost one because i had to get the door. It would be useful for there to be a pause screen (that also hides the screen like on tetris so you can't cheat). Will follow steam page if/when created, this is super fun.
A pause menu and lots of other things that I would like to add and that playtesters have given me feedback on are planned. I hope you will like it.
Softlocked for some reason. Tried to right click a sacrificial knife but it disappeared and now I can not click anything.
Hello, thanks for the feedback.
Have you a screenshot ? To know if you had a lot of money, time, your floor, ...
And what's your OS (Windows, Linux, ...) and browser (if you played the web version) ?
Thanks again
I do not know if this counts for a lot of money. This was on Linux with ZEN Browser (which is basically Firefox)
You're the 2nd person to have this bug and the first was also on linux on Firefox. I'll try to find out where the problem comes from. I have build a linux version for the moment.
Thanks for the feedback.
Altego
Ooh, another bug report, I hope these are helpful!
Thanks to golden spoon, it's rather easy to double your gold past the maximum value assigned for it, and because you're using a signed type, that buffer overflows to a negative value.
It may be worth running a quick check on if gold*2 would be << 0, and if it would, either don't use the spoon, or set gold it to a tested maximum. (Probably worth using a similar check on any function that increases gold, in fact.)
All feedback is obviously very useful. This bug had already been reported to me. I'm thinking of adding a limit of double the gold spoon. For example: Double your gold (Max +2000 gold). I would still need to plan for overflow.
Thank you very much :)
I've noticed something that I'm not sure if it's a bug, or just maybe a mechanic that needs some clarifying.
I got to a shop. It was selling a bag of gold for 120g. Using a bag of gold gets you 100g. I had 6 bronze coins; the first increase income by 20%, the other 5 should boost that to 30%. So I bought the bag, expecting that this would wind up with me 10g up; -120g for buying the bag, + (100g +30% =) 130g.
Instead I wound up 20 down, as though the income hadn't modified. I don't know if that means the bronze coins don't work at all, or if it doesn't affect gold gained from gold bags (and if the latter, if that's intentional or not); either way, it's a little confusing.
Not the most critical thing, just thought I'd mention it :)
Oh, good to know. You've understood perfectly how it works, but there must be a bug. Bronze coins normally increase hp healing, not gold gains. It's gold coins that increase gold gains (just like green coins, which improve everything). I'll check the descriptions, effects, etc. anyway. I'll look into it and fix it.
But if you had gold coins, then you should have made a profit. (That's why it costs 120 gold coins when it only yields 100 gold coins in base value.)
Thanks again <3
Altego
Ahh, ignore me, I think I somehow got confused between the bronze and golden coins! Sorry about that :)
I will double-check anyway. And I will add the value after the artefacts in brackets. That will make it much clearer.
Oh daaaaamn! That is so good!
I would like a few more ways to spend money (perhaps let us buy more item slots for exponentially-increasing costs?), and big puzzles get hard to read when columns have runs of 10+ cells... the two-digit numbers trying to get crammed into a thin space wind up overlapping... But this is awesome. Felt real tense the whole time in the perfect way.
Matter of taste, but; my first run died at the fourth boss because, although I had max health (and a high max), I tried to draw a line of cells that it turned out weren't there (see above comment about wide puzzles with long vertical runs overlapping each other and being hard to read...), and ever one counted as a bit; instakill. It might be good if drawing a line resulted in it stopping when it would be an error, so taking one hit for one wrong cell and then not giving you any information about the rest... But I can see arguments with way. (Maybe something for different difficulty levels?)
Regardless, I want to make clear that this is brilliant, you should be very proud!
Wow, thank you so much! The first comment I've received on Itch.io for this playtest. And so soon after launch.
I'm very happy that you enjoyed it, even though it's still in the early stages of development.
As for spending gold, there isn't much to spend it on at the moment. There are few items, few artefacts, few ‘places’ (only the campfire and the item shop), so yes, I completely understand that you don't really know what to do with your money at the moment, but that should be sorted out during development. As for the inventory slots, there are only 2 to unlock, but I already have all the script and other elements to have up to 9 for now (see image below or above). I'm thinking about how this will take shape (a place to spend gold exponentially, an artefact, at each boss, etc.). I'll think about it.
The grid UI is currently not responding well to 10x15 and other large puzzles, but I will resolve that. At first, I didn't even think that so many people would give me feedback having gotten so far in the game despite the small amount of content. The idea of stopping at the first error during multiple selection seems like a really good idea to me. I will definitely take a look at that. Thank you very much!
Once again, thank you so much! It's very nice to see the feedback I'm getting here on Itch and on social media. It motivates me to keep going.
<3
Altego
You're very welcome, and I hope you do keep going! I'm getting a lot of fun out of this already, looking forward to seeing how it develops :D