Cresset

About Cresset

Cresset, by BaLaTix, belongs to the same family as Queens and Star Battle. Each board is a grid split into colour regions. You place fires so that every row, every column and every region holds exactly one, and no two fires are next to each other, diagonals included. Each board has exactly one solution and can be solved by deduction alone, without guessing. When the last fire is placed, night falls over the board and the fires light up.

The Daily puzzle puts one identical board in front of every player in the world each day, and you can compare how many hints you used and how long you took. The menu also offers a Random puzzle (a fresh 10x10 board each time), Endless, an unbroken strip of linked boards where one wrong fire ends the run and no assists are allowed, and The Journey, 60 puzzles in five chapters from 6x6 to 10x10, each chapter with its own music and story. There are also seed codes, personal statistics and leaderboards.

You can drag to mark cells, undo at any time, and play with no timer pressure. Every region carries a symbol as well as a colour, so the game works for colourblind players. The paper-and-ink look shows a desert landscape with a watchtower beacon.

The browser version on itch.io is free with no account, ads or tracking. It has unlimited Daily and Random puzzles, Chapter 1 of The Journey (12 of the 60 puzzles) and Endless up to day 10. Progress stays on your device and does not carry over to the apps. The full game is on Google Play and the App Store, where it is a one-time purchase with no ads or in-app purchases and plays offline.

How to play Cresset

1. Open Cresset in your browser or the app and choose Daily puzzle.
2. Mark cells that cannot hold a fire: a fire rules out its row, its column, its region and all eight cells around it.
3. Place a fire where only one cell is left in a row, column or region.
4. Keep going until every row, column and region has exactly one fire and none touch.
5. Check your time and hints, then come back for the next day's board.

Screenshots

Tips

• Start with the smallest regions: a two-cell region pins its fire to very few places.
• If a region sits entirely within one row or column, no other region can use that line.
• Drag across cells to mark them quickly, and use undo freely since there is no timer pressure.
• Use the region symbols as well as the colours if two shades look alike.

Questions