Opus Cortex: a Nonogram Puzzle Story

You are an AI that finds itself in a strange place without a recollection of what has happened before you ended up here. Try to uncover the truth and find more about who you are and why you are. But maybe start with [i]where you are[/i] first!

As you explore the world around you, you will realize that the visual recognition algorithm is glitching out and you have to apply your deduction skill to properly see the objects for what they are.

Solve handcrafted nonogram puzzles to decipher the surroundings. Each puzzle has a solution that can be found purely by following logical reasoning, there is no guessing needed. But it's OK to guess if you cannot find the next logical step, don't worry!

Learn about the world of Opus Cortex: RoboCorp is the big corporation that manufactures robots and microchips, but things don't go as planned.

Solve the nonogram puzzles with intuitive controls that allow you to mark the correct and invalid squares and mark multiple cells in a row. The hints will also change if the requirements for given line are met, although that does not mean that the line is correct. Only when all rows and columns turn green the puzzle is truly solved!

Explore different locations and solve non-standard nonogram sizes.

Opus Cortex is a visual novel game with nonogram puzzles which I hope you will enjoy!

At the end of the game there should be solve_times.txt file in the same directory as the exe file. If you wouldn't mind sending it over to support[at]rainierinteractive.com that would be awesome - it contains the times it took you to solve each of the puzzles. The file is only generated if you reach the end of the available content!

Controls - mouse by default:

Left click - next dialogue / fill in a box of nonogram / navigate around the level

Right click - mark a box with X, only when solving a puzzle

Shift + left/right click - create a "guess" mark, which should help you with ambiguous or uncertain hints

F - toggle fullscreen mode

R - reset the level

Gamepad:

Stick or D-pad - move the selected box OR move cursor in multi-selection scenes

Bottom Action / Sony Cross / Xbox A / Nintendo B - same as left click

Right Action / Sony Circle / Xbox B / Nintendo A - same as right click

Right Trigger + bottom action / right action - create a "guess" mark, which should help you with ambiguous or uncertain hints

Back / Sony Select / Xbox Back / Nintendo -reset the level

Keyboard only:

Arrows / WSAD - move the selected box OR move cursor in multi-selection scenes

Space / X / E - same as left click

Z / Q -same as right click

Shift + Space / Z - create a "guess" mark, which should help you with ambiguous or uncertain hints (note: when using keyboard you cannot use arrows at the same time as this key combo is pressed, which is a known issue with hardware keyboards)

R - reset the level

Credits:

Game design, story, sounds & music: Mateusz from Rainier Interactive

Art: TwoPennyDoodle, Inkgardenn, Arixaf

Game written in Godot using C#.

Here's a quick breakdown of the differences between the available downloads:

Demo	Full Game
16 levels 2 locations 2 characters to meet (and a mysterious shadow of a character) 15-25 minutes gameplay time*	52 levels 7 locations 7 characters to meet 225-260 minutes gameplay time*

* depends on how quickly you solve the puzzles, they all should have logical solutions and no guessing is required! These estimates are based on my own playthroughs from beginning to end. Note: early levels are smaller and easier to solve than the ones in the further parts of the game.

Note: Linux version has been built using Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, and it's not guaranteed to run on earlier Linux distributions. Please try the demo before buying full game to check if it works for you.