The Crimson Diamond
Follow amateur geologist and reluctant detective Nancy Maple to the ghost town of Crimson, Ontario to investigate the discovery of a massive diamond in this retro-inspired, EGA text parser mystery adventure!
The Crimson Diamond is a adventure, mystery and indie game
developed and published by Julia Minamata.
Released on August 15th 2024 is available in English on Windows and MacOS.
It has received 394 reviews of which 389 were positive and 5 were negative resulting in an impressive rating of 9.1 out of 10. 😍
The game is currently priced at 9.99€ on Steam and has a 20% discount.
The Steam community has classified The Crimson Diamond into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at The Crimson Diamond through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows Vista or later
- Processor: Pentium or higher 1.2 GHz
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Storage: 250 MB available space
MacOS
- OS: macOS 10.14 and newer
- Processor: Intel and Apple Silicon
- Storage: 237 MB available space
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
The game is charming and fun. While it heavily borrows the aesthetic of The Colonel's Bequest, it forges its own path and is very much its own thing. I absolutely love the local Canadian flavor (or should I say flavour) and reading the voices out loud is incredibly fun :D Very much worth your time!
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Game is amazing. The game is fully fleshed out and large scale in ways I simply wasn't expecting. The pixel art is extremely lush, atmospheric and detailed and is initially what grabs your attention, but beyond that the scale and depth of the characters and the story really surprised me, ending in an incredible climax where all previous details pay off in an extremely fleshed out and satisfying manner. The music also is worthy of mention, despite the game being mostly silent there are many, many incredible musical interludes that appear at just the right times in the narrative to create more drama, suspense and atmosphere when it's needed. These three elements, the art, music and story itself being all so incredibly well realised and larger scale in volume compared to what I was expecting along with how they all mesh together to create such a focused artistic vision make this a truly remarkable release.
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One hundred and ten years after this game is set, I sat down on launch day and I played. I played until I finished the game. It was that good. I must admit, I've been following the development for a lonnnng time and eagerly awaiting the release. I was completely wrapped up in the game from start to end, running into new challenges at every turn. There were so many surprises and secrets and I can't wait to return to it and find even more. There's a stunning amount of beautifully crafted 16 colour EGA pixel art, and a gratuitous, enormous amount of dialog to explore and many interesting characters to learn about. If you're a fan of adventure games, this is really one you should check out. Julia has absolutely outdone herself. If you're reading this, wishlist or buy the game now. It's great.
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For anyone nostalgic about Sierra On-Line's adventure games, particularly titles such as The Colonel's Bequest, Space Quest III, Quest for Glory I & II, etc. - I'd strongly suggest putting this on your wishlist. The beautiful backgrounds and sprites, the masterful use of the extremely limited EGA colour palette, the soundtrack... It's incredible, playing this is like going back in time, but with a refreshing twist. The text parser is massively updated, there's an options menu for adjusting many UI and gameplay features- it's impressive how streamlined this feels whilst sticking to the classic interface of yesteryear. However, as a faithful invocation of the SCI engine of the late 1980's - the quality-of-life improvements this game brings to the table may seem quite bland for those unfamiliar with its limitations. Modernized features such as a tutorial, a (mostly) point-and-click interface, event-based auto-saving, and less pixel hunting- these newfangled additions make the experience feel up to date, but in a way that might be overlooked by newcomers to this style of adventure game. This isn't a bad thing at all, if anything, it’s a much-needed improvement that’s exciting to see implemented. Well, at least in the same sense of finding an undiscovered sequel or spin-off to a beloved franchise can feel; the game very much plays like one that Sierra worked on but ditched for whatever reasons before they switched over to SCI1. Bucking against the trend of Sierra orthodoxy, the game comes with a built-in hintbook! Instead of being nickel and dimed to solve seemingly impossible puzzles like back in the day, we're given a fair chance once we're stumped. The pacing and flow of the story so far seems logical enough that I hopefully won't have to check it that often, but I'm glad it's still there. Codename: ICEMAN could have used that feature, but at that stage I'm ranting about a game made by Jim Walls, the guy who promised an exciting franchise of espionage thrillers after that came out, and gave us Blue Force instead, but I digress. Anyway, so far this title is really interesting both stylistically and narrative-wise. The attention to detail is nothing short of captivating, plus the story is intriguing enough to have me wanting to come back for more. Definitely consider picking this up if you're into DOS games or adventure games in general!
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Brief Summary (Full in-depth review below this section) Positives ✅ Negatives ❌ • Excellent use of 16-colour EGA graphics that harkens back to Sierra's older classics • Game is more approachable to casual fans with subtle directions and notes to guide them with a 'hintbook' walkthrough also available if all else fails • Unique perspective as a geologist whilst playing detective as the game progresses • Multiple endings depending on how much evidence you gathered throughout the game • Some of the dialogue is lacking the witty humour that many of Sierra's titles are known for • Less deaths than in most Sierra games, which is arguably a key part of the charm of such adventures • The EGA graphics could prove sore on the eyes for those used to more modern adventure titles Introduction The Crimson Diamond is, without any doubt, paying homage to what I will argue is one of Sierra’s finest works in their contributions to the point-and-click adventure genre, that being the fantastic ‘The Colonel’s Bequest’ originally released in October of 1989 which is coming up for it’s 35th anniversary at that! Evidently the sole developer behind this most intriguing indie, Julia Minamata, decided that it has been too long since we were blessed with a game as charming as The Colonel’s Bequest and made it her goal to set out a vision for what’s essentially carrying the ‘spirit’ of Sierra’s first entry into their Laura Bow duology as there’s a lot go into detail concerning the game’s story, graphics and gameplay alongside other relevant factors to anyone curious about this title. Story To start off though, The Crimson Diamond has you play the role of Nancy Maple, a novice geologist who has been thrust into the mysterious and meticulous world of detective work, as it takes place in the province of Ontario over in Canada, certainly a rather intriguing part of the world that isn’t covered nearly as much as other regions of the globe such as Japan, the United States and Europe to name a few! Although I won’t go into any particular details (given the game is still brand new as of the publishing of this review) of The Crimson Diamond, I do quite like how it doesn’t take place on just the one night like how The Colonel’s Bequest does, instead taking place over the course of several days alongside having the unique angle from a geologist that plays a central role in the narrative and overall plot of The Crimson Diamond. It could be argued that perhaps some of the dialogue is a little ‘lackluster’, although the same could be said of The Colonel’s Bequest given that the banter and style of conversations often reminded me of Sierra’s own work, which I can only take as a sign of Julia having done her homework with keeping the spirit of the Sierra game’s intriguing commentary seen in the Laura Bow games alive and well here with her own indie game inspired by their works! Graphics What originally caught my eye when first hearing about this indie from OneShortEye’s video on The Colonel’s Bequest (highly recommend his channel by the way!) was the faithful adaption of the 16-colour EGA graphics from the original as The Crimson Diamond beautifully captures the beautiful and illuminating atmosphere that is pleasing to the eyes even when you consider look at it from the lens of a modern ‘hyperrealism’ gamer in today’s era! Given just how gorgeous some of the cutscenes are from what was inspired by The Colonel’s Bequest, it’s a good thing too that Julia took some steps forward with presenting the game with some extra-needed changes as, alongside the cutscenes themselves being more animated, there exists other improvements such as various buildings/doors that become transparent whenever Nancy is moving behind them to help the player with keeping a track of where she is alongside plenty of close examinations revealing detailed item descriptions that only help to aid the player in immersing themselves into the world carefully built here! It should also be noted that, although the graphics themselves can be perceived to be ‘dated’ compared to today’s triple-A games, one should not underestimate the value in a game’s aesthetics as this can easily become timeless when it is executed well, something I am happy to report that this indie easily excels in! Gameplay Regardless of how one may perceive the story and graphics of The Crimson Diamond, ultimately for some it is the gameplay that truly makes or breaks whether it is worth buying in their eyes. Seeing as this game’s inspiration makes it quite the tall order compared to arguably any other Sierra title, with how The Colonel’s Bequest made great use of a hidden ‘timer’ of sorts that would advance whenever you triggered specific events in one of many rooms of the mansion you inhibited and explored both inside and the grounds outside throughout the course of a from 7PM to 2AM in various acts that would indicate how far you are into the story, however with the beauty of many optional and interesting moments that would easily be lost to first-time players and thus encourage a second, more thorough, playthrough to learn more about the game as well as to perhaps gain a better ending too! (Not to mention that ‘Sleuth-o-meter’, with how devilishly hard it was to get the prestigious 100% ‘Super Sleuth’ rank at the end!) Going ahead with this then, what does The Crimson Diamond do to distinguish itself from it’s inspiration as well as how it perhaps improves upon the formula as well? No doubt the immediate gameplay improvement that stood out to me are the notifications of opportunities to listen into conversations as well as Nancy herself giving subtle hints on certain goals to give the player some form of direction on where to go or giving them an idea on how to accomplish their current task, albeit this isn’t always the case from what I’ve noted. Although it also helps that the ‘Notes’ section does act as a fairly reliable guide on what you are meant to be doing, given that it will note in asterisks what you must accomplish alongside any optional goals and points of interest as far as any evidence-chasing goes, certainly a handy feature that I wish was in The Colonel’s Bequest! Worst-case scenario, should all of the above prove insufficient in helping you out on how to proceed, there's a handy ‘hintbook’ via the game menu that has various hints in increasingly-helpful manners that allows anyone who is legitimately stuck to choose how much help they want, whether it be just a subtle hint to point them in the right direction or to just be outright told in specific instructions on how to get the task done! I will say though that, as odd as it may sound for me to put this forward as a criticism, the reduced amount of deaths compared to most Sierra games is a tad disappointing as these are where some of Sierra’s best humorous and witty moments come from, often creating many a fond (if not funny or perhaps frustrating!) moment for many in the genre here though, to give Julia credit here, there are still some moments of danger where you may not expect it, so it is possibly more of a personal nitpick on my side here than anything else. Conclusion The Crimson Diamond sets out to create a fascinating adventure of intrigue and mystery for it's players to enjoy, and I would heavily argue that it largely succeeds in doing just that! Seeing as I've always enjoyed the prospect of a good and exciting adventure that has a certain kind of 'atmosphere' that many later adventure games simply lack in today's modern era of gaming, I can respect Julia Minamata for dedicating the time necessary to craft such a memorable adventure and, short as it may be, it is one that I will be remembering quite fondly for years to come!
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 29 November 2024 00:40 |
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| SteamSpy data | 22 December 2024 20:27 |
| Steam price | 23 December 2024 12:48 |
| Steam reviews | 23 December 2024 11:55 |
Online players
14
Developer
Julia Minamata
Publisher
Julia Minamata
Release
15 Aug 2024
Platforms