The Crimson Diamond

This is terrific. An obvious labor of love by someone intimately familiar with The Colonel's Bequest. The graphics are great, music and sounds a little scant but good, story excellent, puzzles fair. The scripting alone in this game must have been a desk-pounding task. This finally realizes all the under-utilized potential of TCB while delivering enough freshness that you couldn't possibly call it derivative.

There's a bit of Greenie/Progressive/Canadian nonsense, especially in the end, but this can be forgiven (by virtue of being Canadian) and doesn't cheapen the story too much. Beyond that minor blot, this is a terribly impressive game that's a bargain even at full price.

This was one of the best retro video games that I've ever played. The developers created a spiritual sequel to the classic Laura Bow Series originally created by Sierra.

This game is a well written mystery that allows you to do some actual detective work without most of the Sierra moon logic contrivance. Solving the mystery felt fair, the game allows you to explore a location interact with a host of well written characters, most likely you will need one or two play through to unlock all of the secrets, but nothing feels cheap. This feels like something out of an Agatha Chritine novel.
If you enjoy classic parser adventures games from the late 80 to early 90’s than this game is for you.

I discovered this game via the creator's Bluesky page, and I loved it! The Colonel's Bequest was my introduction to parser games as a child, and it's is still one of my favorite games. If you have love in your heart for Laura Bow you will adore this game. The parser commands are mostly intuitive, the mystery is engaging, and the game is challenging but not obtuse. If you are looking to scratch a DOS classic itch, this is a great buy.

Loved it - classic point and click adventure, with a lot of charm

Great love letter to old-school adventure games, with modern enhancements that make it not frustrating. Loved every minute of it!

If you liked the old Sierra adventure games, then this is for you. Great music generated on a real MT-32 for the authentic experience. Interesting writing, good mystery if at times a little too fussy. Art style nails it. Well done, Julie!

An entertaining and well-constructed adventure game. I haven't played more than one '80s or '90s adventure game, nor have I used a text parser before to my knowledge, but I found this pretty straightforward. There is a lot of looking for the correct wording to do the thing you want to do, but that's to be expected, and it can also be amusing. (There's an incredible amount of unique responses to specific parser commands!) The actual puzzles and item interactions aren't too obscure, and there seem to be lots of hints to guide players to the right actions. The mystery follows a familiar structure but I still could never quite guess what would happen next; this and the adventure phases are what make me find the game relaxing, I think. I really like the down-to-earth (pun unintended but noticed) story and puzzle-solving, and especially the structure of the ending! I want to play it again more thoroughly.

A must play for fans of mystery games!

The story is a blast, plenty of little surprises and red herrings to keep you guessing through the game. Great pacing, always felt like I was making forward progress, only got stuck once or twice, and the hint page written by the developer nudges you just enough to get back on track without ruining any of the fun. Characters have tons of character and well thought out backstories that tie into the events that play out during the game. Sound track is awesome, although I wish there was a bit more music and ambient noise around the environment (my GF and I did have a great time voicing out all the characters though!).

Great to see another redhead Nancy out there sleuthing and solving cases, I really hope we get more games along this line!

Overall, an excellent text based mystery adventure game, highly recommended!

The platonic ideal of an EGA adventure game. Ever wonder what those old-school adventure games would be like if their parsers didn't suck? This. They would be like this.

I will admit that a couple of the puzzles stumped me, but the silver lining is that I got to take advantage of the delightfully Web-0.1-esque hint book.

I grew up on Sierra point and clicks, and this was pretty close to the mark. There are a few Easter egg references to Laura Bow and King's Quest. Some puzzles are vague and it's very easy to miss certain endings without a guide, which dampens some of the fun when a lot of the investigation is repetitive (did you LOOK and also EXAMINE *every single thing*???).

Ultimately this was very impressive for one developer, but some clunky controls and extra redundant clue-finding brought it down a bit - you can figure out the entire mystery, every culprit AND their motivations AND have evidence but if you forgot to examine something benign three chapters ago you're out of luck. I think a future update could tie some clues together to make it slightly easier for the game to recognize what the player's discovered, and a notebook that is a bit more modern would be more player-friendly.

What a lovely game! It was fun for me to figure out the parser, because I have never played a point and click with a parser text box before. I hear that this is played very similarly to those point and click Seirra games. This game makes me want to discover more games I haven't got the chance to play yet.

The Pixel art is beautiful, the story is engaging and makes me care about the character I play, and figuring out the game play is very interesting. I recommend for point and click lovers, or anybody that's curious about getting into point and clicks.

A worthy update to the text-based adventure genre!

I grew up playing classic text based (and later point and click) adventure games. I have to admit, it's been a very long time since I played a text-based adventure game and it was a bit weird to get used to having to type out all the actions. But as the game went on, I began to appreciate that there is a creativity to puzzle solving using text-based controls that modern games have lost.

I do wish that some of the detective mechanics were made clear earlier in the game as when I reached the end, I realized I had missed a lot. It took a couple of chapters for me to get into the game, but once I was hooked, I played the rest without stopping. This is an awesome game and I hope to see more from the dev!

The Crimson Diamond takes me back to Roberta Williams King's Quest series, albeit with much more quality of life features :)
The characters and dialog are very interesting and the story has some unexpected twists and is told beautifully.
I love the visuals and how much work has gone into them.
This is an easy recommend for anyone who loves adventure games.

Instant classic! If you love point & click adventures, beautiful graphics, and games with well written stories than this is for you. Best new game I played all year.

This is the first game I've been legitimately sad to have finished in a long time. A perfect text-parser EGA graphics throwback, but with all the quality-of-life updates and thoughtful points that you'd expect from a modern game. The art, the music, the sound effects, the writing, all come together perfectly for an incredibly satisfying game that I can't wait for more of.

A perfect modern take on the late 80s/early 90s text parser adventure.

Perfectly treads the line between adapting the charm of early Sierra adventures, without inheriting their worst traits. Which is very refreshing in an era of Lucasarts worship.

amazing game and amazing art

I'm an old man. Some of my earliest and fondest memories are playing Sierra adventures way back when. Among all the fantastic series done by that amazing company (Leisure Suit Larry, King's Quest, Quest for Glory, Space Quest, etc...) was a rather short lived two game series involving the titular character Laura Bow.

Growing up as a kid who watched a lot of TV and read a lot of books whenever he wasn't gaming my favorite genre was mysteries. Agatha Christie in particular so it shouldn't be a surprise that my favorite Sierra games were the Laura Bow games. The Crimson Diamond is a rather loyal homage to The Colonel's Bequest.

The story has you playing as Nancy Maple who is an amateur geologist sent to a small Canadian town to investigate the discovery of a new gemstone. When she gets there she meets a number of eccentric characters each with their own reasons for being there as well as the owner of the estate. Given that this a mystery it's not long before some shenanigans happen and Nancy decides to investigate.

The game plays just like an old school Sierra text parser and all. I did not run into too many instances of the game not knowing a word I had typed out and was able to complete the game after about nine hours (although I will admit I did not get the best ending or all the achievements. I'll have to replay it again soon).

The game has great old school Sierra styled graphics and sound and plays just like a classic. If you're a fan of those then you should absolutely pick this one up. Julia Minamata has done a wonderful job her first time out and I hope to see more games from her in the future. I do highly recommend this one.

EGA handpainted graphics, text parser & a mystery. You don't need anything else.

If you like old Sierra games, like Colonels Bequest, then BUY THIS GAME!!! If you don't like them, probably avoid. If you are unsure, there are some quality of life increases in this game that make it stand out some, but it is not that different from many older games. Must buy for fans, worth considering if you are unsure.

Ok, this is going on my list of favorite detective games of all time for sure. The Crimson Diamond is a cleverly written whodunnit with layers upon layers of detail, and it gives you an absolute buttload of ways to approach solving the (multiple!) mysteries. You will be rewarded for being thorough and looking for every clue you can, and I guarantee you won't find everything there is to find on your first playthrough - especially because sequencing is critical. Beware of accidental story progression! While that might sound frustrating, it makes every clue you find or every deduction you make is all the more satisfying. I had to really engage my brain with some of these deductions too, and I really enjoy that the game makes you do a lot of the work with its parser command system. The notebook can help guide you and there's a handy dandy Hints page to refer to if you REALLY need it, but otherwise the game's puzzles are logical enough to work out almost all the time. Loved the artwork, loved the writing, loved the setting, loved the gameplay, loved the narrative, I just loved it!

Kings Quest IV was the first video game I played, and I still remember it with extreme fondness. This game took me right back there, though with some nice new features to make it (slightly) less punishing than those old classics used to be. Just a fantastic and beautiful game! (Only comment is that I felt a bit battered by all the detective questions at the very end. But this didn't at all detract from the joy of playing the game.)

nice

An amazing new old school game - lots of fun, lots of investigation - took me straight back to about 1985. I had a very fun 8hrs or so hours exploring an old lodge in remote Canada.

This game uplifted my mood. It is a real gem! Congrats Julia!

Love love love it! So reminiscent of the Colonel's Bequest. The creator has truly captured the magic of the original and made a treasure. Thank you!

A really excellent mystery adventure. I almost avoided it because i didn't grow up playing any of the text-interaction adventure games growing up, they were slightly before my time. However it was actually just a really fun and dynamic way to interact, i learned alot playing it. I assumed I wouldn't enjoy such a finicky system and I'll admit it wasn't 100% perfect but overall being able to directly input written commands felt really free and dynamic. It was very immersive and the mystery itself is surprisingly complex, 10/10

I thoroughly enjoyed it!

This is one of the best games I've played all year! The Crimson Diamond is a wonderfully written, dazzlingly faithful homage to DOS-era text-parser adventure games that avoids the most common pitfalls of the genre with its wonderfully intuitive puzzle design.

The only reason my playtime is so low is that I needed to play this game with a CRT filter, so I ran it through RetroArch instead of Steam. I'd love for an official CRT filter option to be included in the base game, but I intend to revisit the game in the future to see the alternative endings and get those achievements.

If this became a series, I would play every entry. Here's hoping for more adventures with Nancy, the cunning young mineralogist/detective!

An awesome game. Such a wonderful rebirth of the Sierra Online version of adventure games. I wish someone had told me to snoop around and ask questions even more than I did! You've been warned.

The platonic ideal of a cozy adventure game. Incredibly charming visually and very well-paced in a way few other modern (or classic) point and click adventures manage. I do think that there could have been more opportunities for unique dialogue based on parser input and I think the conclusion is a little rushed, but I loved this game and will support all future Canadian geological adventures.

Lovely adventure! ✨

It manages to stay original to the EGA text parser style while breaking free of the not-so good qualities of the era.

The writing is excellent and the mystery and the characters are very well presented. Kept us eager to unravel and engage with each chapter of the story!

(playtime not accurate as we played on a different family member's account)

Completely nailed the vibe of a 1989 mystery games, from the writing to the music. Nice to play a game that takes place in Ontario

Absolutely delightful gem (pun intended) of a game. You don't need to love old "classic" text parsers to enjoy it because it has been utterly modernized. I loved every second of it.

I'm not normally a fan of CGA/EGA graphics as they're before my time... but this game is awesome! The writing is excellent and while some of the stuff is telegraphed a little too transparently it feels like the game equivalent of a page-turner. Definitely sat down to play it and finished it by the time the sun came up. Oops!

What an incredible throwback! I felt like I was a little kid getting another Laura Bow type game and the mystery did not disappoint! I really enjoyed the incredible detail put in the items, art, and story of this game and learned quite a few things I didn't know about Canada in that time period! 10/10 will be recommending this game to all my friends! I already can't wait for a sequel!

I've had this game wishlisted forever, and I'm so happy it finally became available this year! It is beyond charming--a perfect retro throwback to text parser adventure games. With that kind of gameplay comes some inevitable hiccups (trying to get the phrasing just right, making typos and getting aggravated), but overall, it felt like the game was pretty intuitive about doing what I wanted it to do.

The story is a mystery wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a mystery, and all of the layers were compelling. I don't usually say this, but one of the best things about this game was that it was possible to miss clues depending on how you approached certain tasks. Normally, I want to discover every last detail in a game, and in most mystery adventure games, you're pretty much on rails, and you can't proceed without finding all the clues. Here, you can proceed by attending key events without discovering something important, which will change the outcome of your game.

Because of these miss-able clues, you feel like a real amateur detective, trying to piece together information from your limited observations. I didn't find it hard to get enough information to solve the mystery, but I imagine it WOULD be hard to figure out every last detail without a walkthrough. Still, with limited help, I was able to get a solid positive ending, and I don't have any major remaining questions.

The graphics are great--even in the pixel art, it's usually pretty easy to see important details or when something has changed in a scene. There aren't TOO many areas that aren't important, and there's relatively minimal backtracking. I also feel there's very little moon logic, to the point where I found myself intuiting what to do with objects before their ultimate use became apparent. It's by no means an easy game, but it felt like a logical one, and I simply loved it.

A small list of nitpicks: I did see one reviewer complaining that there isn't enough sound, and I agree with that. It would have been nice to have a bit of ambient noise, but honestly, I'd rather there be too LITTLE sound rather than an irritating repetitive soundtrack. I did sometimes get frustrated when I thought I had looked at something only to find that I had to "Examine" it. At one point I typed "pick up strip of paper" about 20 different ways before I realized I had to examine something first, find out what that strip of paper was, and then type that. I also found the tasks in the notebook a little hard to parse. I think this is a game where you'd benefit from taking your own notes so you can remember whom to talk to about what; I didn't ask people enough questions!

If you love a classic adventure mystery, this IS your next game.

An absolute treat of a game, that throws you back to games made long ago, but full of thoughtful design that you wouldn't necessarily find back then. Gorgeous pixel art and great writing.

This is an excellent game; interesting plot, characters and puzzles...the pace is excellent and keeps you interested in the story - highly recommended!

Thumb-up to, but please notice that the game could be sometimes frustrating if you are not used to this type of adventure games.

Crimson Diamond is a retro-adventure in the style of Sierra On-Line: instead of using your mouse pointer to do interactions, everything is managed through a text parser (i.e. "get the pen", "ask Jack about lodge"). You can use your mouse to walk around or navigate the inventory, but is possible to accomplish everything through the keyboard.

The story is a classic Christie-like plot: a bunch of characters confined in a mansion, with some mysterious things going on. Each NPC is very well portrayed: everyone is interesting and shady in his own way... I couldn't wait to progress to discover the truth!

The gameplay consists mainly of eavesdropping, collecting evidence, and analyzing the environment and items. There are a lot of things to uncover and you will likely miss something on your first run, so the game has replayable value too. There are some clever puzzles, too.

The main problem comes with the text parser: if you are used to IF/text adventures, you already know that one of the most annoying things is the "guess the verb" situation, when it is obvious what you are supposed to do, you *know* what you have to do, but you can't accomplish it because you are not using the supposed verb. This happens quite often in the game and particular verbs are required to solve crucial puzzles (fortunately, the game comes with a hint book that will help you in these situations).

Another aspect that could be worth improving is Nancy's notebook, which I found messy and confusing to consult.

Anyway, the game is recommended if you like old-school mystery adventures, especially Sierra's Laura Bow games!

I think I've never played a Text parser before, so I was kind of hesitant to get into this game – despite it's great reviews on trustworthy sites. But I decided to give it a try and loved every second of it. The texting actually gives you a strangely liberating feel as if you're able to do almost anything. It's really impressive how many different (wrong) interactions Julia considered and wrote an answer for. You always feel like the game knows what you mean which is definitely not a given for a game like that. So the puzzling always seemed fair and logical.

Additionally the story was really nice. As much as I enjoy Point and click adventures I am really thrown off by their humor quite often. Obviously a video game doesn't have to be super-serious or anything, but it's just nice to meet a game that takes itself serious enough once in a while. Doesn't mean Crimson Diamond is super bleak and without any fun, but really it seems more focused on telling it's story than entertaining you with countless dad jokes.

A few additional things I want to point out that I really enjoyed:
- the hint system (which is basically a website) is awesome. There are numerous clues for each potential issue so it doesn't give away the answer immediately but tries to lead you in the right direction step by step.
- the graphics are really beautifully done
- there are several different endings one can explore and the ending really gives you the opportunity to show how much of the story you actually understood/uncovered
- one character in the game (Karl L. ) basically has my dad's name. <3

Overall really recommend this one. Give it a shot!

this was fun and hard. f dark souls, this was hard
and I can't wait to play it again in about six months when I've forgotten enough of it that it's hard still!

This is a really fun mystery that makes you feel like you actually have to get your hand dirty to solve.
Highly recommend!

This is a fantastic adventure game with a parser. Well thought out and highly enjoyable, the game provides a good challenge without ridiculous puzzles. The story is engaging and the visuals evoke the EGA era. Highly recommended for adventure fans who don't mind a bit of typing.

Just finished my first gameplay. It's a fun retro detective game and awesome that they consulted someone with indigenous knowledge in the staff, however, the stereotype towards the Asian female character, Kimi, is disappointing from Chapter 1. Kimi approached me on the train and said hi to me first, yet she was described as a shy and petite woman over and over again. It doesn't make sense - seems like you're describing Kimi based on your stereotypes, not the behaviours you actually assigned to the characters.

Not quite through yet, because I'm trying to get everything perfect the first time, but I'll probably get there soon :D My impressions so far:

The Crimson Diamond does a phenomenal job of capturing the spirit of a classic whodunit murder mystery in game form, maybe moreso than any other game I know (and I've played lots). It gets plot, characters, atmosphere and gameplay perfectly right at the same time.

It was really fun using a text parser again after many years and having to come up with my own ideas of what to ask people about and what to examine more closely. I am also glad that the game always remains fair to the player and is far more forgiving than classic Sierra games in the 80s. Deaths are present, but are either hinted at or directly after an auto-save.

Many thanks to the talented indie developer Julia Minamata who has obviously put her heart in this work. I would buy a sequel without even blinking an eye and recommend this game to anyone who likes classic mystery stories and/or classic adventure games. Just give it a chance.

The atmosphere and overall vibe of this throwback game is a total treat. It really feels like an authentic 80s Sierra title but with far fewer of the frustrations that would date it poorly. Sometimes the music/sound feels a bit too sparse, but what’s there is totally lovely. I can’t wait to see how the mystery resolves!

Very fun and enjoyable classic parser text adventure game! There is a lot to investigate and discover on your own. Highly recommended if you are a fan of the old parser based adventure games!

I loved this game for all the same reasons more eloquent people have stated; I am simply adding another well deserved positive review. Though I will say one thing -- there was one instance where I wept, not from sorrow, but from the true beauty of a particular statement made by one of the characters, so I give extra high praise for that.

I always loved the idea of some of the old mystery games Crimson Diamond draws inspiration from, but their often arbitrary consequences and softlocks marred the experience in practice. Julia Minamata has crafted a charming puzzler with an even more charming amateur detective at its heart.
The Crimson Diamond takes inspiration from its predecessors without being beholden to them, eschewing the ethnic stereotypes that could plague old Sierra games in favour of more well-realised characters, and providing more modern quality of life features like an in-game notebook and autosave feature which avoid aimless plodding and losing all progress to a sudden death.
My first playthrough did not result in the best ending, so I will be returning to Crimson soon. If I eavesdrop at the right doors, find the right clues, perhaps it will be different. Even if not, I will enjoy wandering through its EGA woods and searching for precious stones. It was a pleasure to be budding geologist Nancy Maple, and I hope this is just the start of her adventures.