Typically in a nonogram game like Picross, completing the puzzle and seeing the finished image is all the reward we get for being diligent enough to figure things out. Albune’s Squeakross: Home Squeak Home does that, of course, but there’s a little something else to act as an incentive. Here, every solved situation adds to a catalog of customization elements for a cute little mouse’s home. It really makes the game feel special, as well as provides a reason to get through puzzles as quickly as possible.

In Squeakross: Home Squeak Home, every player is a mouse. We just moved into a new home. It’s empty at the moment. However, it won’t take too long to make that hole in the wall a comfortable place to live. That’s because every puzzle we solve provides us with a new type of furniture or decorative element to enhance our living space. What follows is a nonogram puzzle game like the Jupiter Picross series that gradually gets more difficult and offers more unique furnishings as rewards for challenging ourselves.

The impression I get from Squeakross: Home Squeak Home is that it is designed to encourage completion compared to other nonogram games like Jupiter’s Picross. Now, I always do finish every Jupiter entry I pick up. However, I play them at a more leisurely pace. Two or three puzzles before bed to wind down and relax. Maybe it’ll take me a full month, or even two if its a busy time of year, to gradually beat a game. The nature of Albune’s title makes each puzzle an item in essentially a catalog of items. So if you want more to do, you need to skip around and fill out puzzles.

Said puzzles are, well, standard nonograms, as Squeakross: Home Squeak Home doesn’t reinvent the wheel. A grid is placed before you. Numbers across the top and left side note how many squares need to be filled in to complete the puzzle, as well as how many are in a row. You need to use logic to do so. In a nod to this being a game filled rodents, boxes are filled in with cheese. You can also use notation to mark suspected spots with a “O” and definitively note a space shouldn’t be filled by placing an “X.” The hints at the top will use different colors to note if lines are done, could be filled in, or are almost done save for a missing “X.” 

After finishing a puzzle, you get the piece of furniture in your mouse’s room. In there, you can direct your mouse to go ahead and interact with anything you placed. You can also complete Nini’s Challenge for variants of items that look different and add more options. There’s quite a bit of diversity and even some themes that come up, and you get multiple rooms to decorate. Likewise, you can customize your mouse's appearance, changing how they look and what they wear. The character's personality and tendencies can even change. So it can almost feel a bit like a customizable pet you care for.

The thing that gets me is, while the puzzles are fun to complete in Squeakross: Home Squeak Home, when completed they don’t always look like the furniture items or accessories they unlike like ones found in Picross games. They’ll usually be somewhat close! However, right from the very start, I saw completed designs that didn’t make sense. This happens right away with a cardboard box on the first page, as well as with a cabinet. The pile of books? It does not look anything like a stack of novels. The basic nightstand? No clue how that turned into that! So while the game is fun and we are supposed to use logic, I felt like I couldn’t also rely on my knowledge of what, say, a dresser would look like to finish that. This doesn’t apply to every puzzle, of course, but it’s often enough that it irked me.

While I feel like the Jupiter nonograms in Picross feature some better executed puzzles and final designs, Squeakross: Home Squeak Home offers a fresh take on a nonogram game. The character and home customization really provide an incentive to solve puzzles. The quality of life features and controls work well, so you could easily play with a controller. It’s a cute approach to a classic puzzle genre with plentiful play incentives.

Squeakross: Home Squeak Home is available on the Switch and PC, and a demo is available on Steam.

The post Review: Squeakross Is a Rewarding Picross-like Game appeared first on Siliconera.

Now that the 2025 Wholesome Direct is done, we know the over 60 cozy games featured during the event. While most are headed to PCs, a few console and mobile titles showed up as well. In addition, eight ended up being shadowdrops during the event, among them the Switch and PC games Instants and Squeakross: Home Squeak Home. Quite a few also ended up being playable for the first time, with an array of demos showing up for them on Steam following the presentation. XSEED and Marvelous also announced they would be localizing Milano’s Odd Job Selections for the first time and releasing it on consoles and PCs.

Here is the full list of every one of the cozy games that came up during the Wholesome Direct 2025.

• All Will Rise - on Kickstarter - PC
• Ambroise Niflette & the Gleaned Bell - on Kickstarter - PC
• Anxiety Puppy - Q4 2025 - PC
• The Berlin Apartment - November 2025 - PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC
• Big Hops - 2025 - PC, Demo on Steam
• Camper Van: Make it Home - Out today - Switch and PC
• Capy Castaway - TBD - PC
• Clawsome - 2025 - PC
• Collector’s Cove - TBD - PC, Demo on Steam
• Crescent County - on Kickstarter - PC and Xbox Series X
• Danchi Days - TBD - PC, Demo on Steam
• Discounty - August 21, 2025 - Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC, Demo on Steam
• Dosa Divas - 2026 - Switch, Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC
• Everdeep Aurora - July 10, 2025 - PC, Demo on Steam
• Fireside Feelings - Out today - PC
• Fishbowl - TBD - PS5 and PC
• Gecko Gods - Fall 2025 - PC, Demo on Steam
• Gemporium - August 2025 - PC
• Gourdlets Together - 2025 - PC
• The Great Coffee Caper - TBD - PC, Demo on Steam
• Guardian of Nature Episode 1 - Out today - PC
• Haunted Paws - Alpha on June 7, 2025 - PC, Demo on Steam
• Heidi’s Legacy: Mountains Calling - 2026 - PC
• Hotel Galactic - July 24, 2025 - PC
• Instants - Out today - Switch and PC
• Is This Seat Taken? - August 2025 - Switch and PC
• Islanders: New Shores - July 10, 2025 - Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC
• KuloNiku: Bowl Up - Q3 2025 - PC
• Leaf Blower Co. - 2025 - PC, Demo on Steam
• Let’s Build a Dungeon - TBD - Xbox Series X and PC
• Letters To Arralla - TBD - Demo out now.
• Little Kitty, Big City - Free Content Update Summer 2025 - Switch, PS4, PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X
• Llamalandia - TBD - PC, Demo on Steam
• Luma Island - June 20, 2025 - PC
• Lynked: Banner of the Spark - Out now - PC
• Mafate - TBD - PC, Demo on Steam
• MakeRoom - August 7, 2025 - PC
• Mazey Village - TBD - PC
• Mecha - TBD - PC
• Milano’s Odd Job Selections - 2025 - Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC
• Muri: Wildwoods - 2025 - PC
• Monument Valley 3 - Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC - July 22, 2025
• Omelet You Cook - Out now - PC
• On-Together - TBD - PC
• One Move Away - 2025 - PC, Demo on Steam
• Out and About - Playtest out today - PC, Consoles in 2026
• Outside the Blocks - TBD - PC
• Pawsta - on Kickstarter - PC
• Puni the Florist - TBD - PC
• Seasonala Cemetary - Out today - PC
• Sheepherds - TBD - PC, Demo on Steam
• Shiba Sweet - TBD - PC
• Squeakross: Home Squeak Home - Out today - Switch and PC
• Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar - August 27, 2025 - Switch and PC
• Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game - July 29, 2025 - 
• Tiny Wander - TBD - PC and mobile
• Town to City - TBD - PC
• Townbox - TBD - PC
• Vending Dokan - Early Access out today - PC 
• Week in the Life of Asocial Giraffe - 2025 - Switch, Switch 2, and PC
• Winter Burrow - 2025 - Switch, PC, and Xbox Series X

The Wholesome Direct 2024 roundup included about the same number of cozy games as the 2025 one.

Camper Van: Make It Home, Fireside Feelings, Instants, Omelet You Cook, Out and About, Seasonala Cemetary, and Squeakross: Home Squeak Home are all available on PCs now, with Instants and Squeakross also available on the Switch. 

The post All the Wholesome Direct 2025 Cozy Games and Shadowdrops appeared first on Siliconera.

Thanks to Jupiter’s various Picross games on Nintendo platforms, nonograms gained quite a bit of notoriety. The puzzles, which involve filling in spaces on a grid to reveal a picture, are essentially a puzzle staple due to the efforts of that developer and other creators. From my time spent with it, I feel like Squeakross: Home Squeak Home attempts to build on that by adding in elements to appeal to the growing cozy game audience.

Squeakross begins with the player creating a mouse avatar. This is the little friend whose home you’ll be decorating, and the character will appear as something of a mascot as you play. The character creator is more robust than I expected, with different ear, eye, mouse, nose, tail, and fur options all available. Since you do see the lil’ critter around quite a bit, I found it a novel touch. 

The puzzles start out very simple and small. You know it’ll be some sort of decorative item, which might help once the design takes shape as a “clue” of sorts. But it’s all really a fairly typical nonogram experience. A grid is presented in front of you on lined paper. It almost feels like building instructions. You fill in boxes that you know meet the criteria based on the numbers above and below for the line, with “cheese” showing up to highlight the spot. You can also tick off boxes that aren’t going to be filled. It’s possible to get a hint, to help you along. 

Now, I was playing an early build. So things aren’t finished, of course. However, I liked the incentive that came from going through a puzzle to get an item, then seeing it rendered in 3D in a mouse’s house. Early items are incredibly basic, such as a plain wooden chair or a cardboard box. But as the size of the puzzles get past 10x10 grids and you get further into the game, there are some really elaborate items as rewards for sussing out the spots to mark. It seems cute!

Squeakross: Home Squeak Home seems like it could be shaping up into a totally fine puzzle game. The preview build features an irable number of nonogram puzzles. The design portion is a cute way to essentially show off and make use of what you unlocked. It’s cute and may motivate people who normally don’t play through these types of puzzles or burn through them quickly to invest a little more time in it.

Squeakross: Home Squeak Home debuts on PCs in 2025. 

The post Preview: Squeakross Combines Nonograms With Interior Decorating appeared first on Siliconera.