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The Crimson Diamond

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Crimson Diamond
Developer(s)Julia Minamata
Publisher(s)Julia Minamata
Composer(s)Dan Policar
Platform(s)macOS, Windows
ReleaseAugust 15, 2024
Genre(s)Adventure
Mode(s)Single-player

The Crimson Diamond is a mystery adventure video game developed and published by Julia Minamata for the PC. The game features a text parser, requiring players to solve a mystery through inputting instructions via text to the game. Solo developer Julia Minamata designed the game featuring an EGA color palette, inspired by the adventure games she enjoyed in her youth like The Colonel's Bequest.

Reception to The Crimson Diamond has been positive, with reviewers praising it as a strong homage to past adventure titles with modern features, despite noting that some puzzle solutions could be too challenging.

Plot

Nancy Maple eavesdrops on a conversation in the Crimson Lodge. This cutscene starts after the player inputs an "Eavesdrop" command at a specific location in the game.

The player controls Nancy Maple, a Canadian geologist who travels to investigate a diamond that was found in a fish at Crimson, Ontario, a fictional garnet mining town that has fallen on hard times.[1][2] She stays at the Crimson Lodge, meeting several characters who have various reasons for being in the area.[1] After a character is killed, Nancy reluctantly investigates the murder.[1]

Gameplay

The player navigates the game by using a text parser to direct Nancy's actions, inputting various text commands to interact with her environment.[3] This system allows for a wide range of interactions, offering flexibility in how the player engages with the world.[3] For example, the command "Look at desk" might prompt the game to describe the desk, noting two drawers and various items on top.[1] The player can then choose to examine these items further, with the game providing detailed text descriptions of each.[1] The text parser is relatively flexible, allowing multiple verbs to arrive at the same point for finding solutions to puzzles.[1] Progression through the game requires the player to solve mysteries and use the text parser to find clues that help them advance the plot.[1] A notebook allows the player to automatically keep track of clues and evidence they have received.[4] The game is designed to take at least 7 hours to reach the finale.[2][4]

Development

Julia Minamata, the solo developer for the game, spent a decade working as a freelance illustrator for publications like The New Yorker before pivoting to developing The Crimson Diamond.[2] Minamata had played adventure games like The Colonel's Bequest, Quest for Glory and The Secret of Monkey Island as a child and read books like Agatha Christie and The Hardy Boys.[5][6] After discovering the free Adventure Game Studio, Minamata realized that developing a game was more accessible than she had expected with modern tools, and set out to create a game.[6] She initially started illustrating using pixel graphics in her free time to recreate scenes like those from games in her youth like The Colonel's Bequest, creating rooms and furniture in the style.[2] To ensure that the illustrations were to scale, she added a character to the scene – and as she made the character walk around, she realized she was beginning to develop a game.[2] She finished creating a full pixel art-style house first, deciding to create a mystery that took place inside of it afterwards.[6]

Minamata wanted to avoid the need for the regular use of a hint book inside the game, hoping to avoid punishing puzzles that Sierra games from her childhood sometimes featured.[2] She decided to use an EGA color palette because its limitations force artists to put a perspective on how the world is perceived, instead of recreating reality.[6]

Reception

The Crimson Diamond received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.[7] Reception to the game has been positive from critics, who praised the text parser's flexibility in particular. Alice Bell of Rock Paper Shotgun called The Crimson Diamond a "beautiful piece of work" and praised the modern implementation of old systems while lamenting some specifically difficult puzzles that she struggled with.[1] Kenzie Du of Adventure Gamers praised the game's depth and the game's unique graphical style, calling it a "wonderful game."[4] In a review of his impressions of the game's opening, Kevin Purdy of Ars Technica praised the game's visuals and sound design, noting that the EGA graphic restrictions created a beautiful visual for the game's story.[8] A PC Gamer review of the game's demo by Tom Sykes praised the game's more modern text parser system, calling it "a neat balance between the flexibility of parser games, and the more approachable nature of the more modern point and clicks."[9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Bell, Alice (2024-08-14). "The Crimson Diamond review: an enthralling retro-inspired EGA game with modern mystery style". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on 2024-08-18. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Nelson, Samantha (2019-12-03). "How an Illustrator Made the Mystery Game The Crimson Diamond by Mistake". The Escapist. Archived from the original on 2024-08-19. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  3. ^ a b Purdy, Kevin (2024-08-16). "The Crimson Diamond is a wonderful EGA-like graphic adventure game for 2024". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 2024-08-19. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  4. ^ a b c Du, Kenzie (2024-08-17). "The Crimson Diamond review". Adventure Gamers. Archived from the original on 2024-08-18. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  5. ^ Adler, Mike (2019-11-01). "The Crimson Diamond is Scarborough woman's 'retro' adventure game". Toronto.com. Archived from the original on 2024-08-19. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  6. ^ a b c d Yarwood, Jack (2024-06-21). ""I Have No Interest In 3D Games" - Meet The Devs Keeping EGA Alive In The Modern Day". Time Extension. Archived from the original on 2024-08-19. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  7. ^ "The Crimson Diamond PC Critic Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved September 18, 2024.
  8. ^ Purdy, Kevin (2024-08-16). "The Crimson Diamond is a wonderful EGA-like graphic adventure game for 2024". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 2024-08-19. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  9. ^ Sykes, Tom (2019-05-28). "The Crimson Diamond is an old-fashioned mystery in the style of Sierra's Laura Bow". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
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