The Crimson Diamond Reviews

Boss

Very enjoyable.

This is a gem even more than the title. The artwork is fantastic, the story is good, the music is good, the puzzles are hard by today's standard but I'd say easier than classic PnC games. Anyway, I liked the puzzles, and I think I only had to look up a hint once. Any fan of old PnC games I think would have fun with this modern creation. Enjoy!

One of the most unique, charming, clever, and creative games I've played. Absolutely wonderful experience!

An old-style video game in many senses of the word! From the graphics to the controls, it felt like returning to a time of the first video games and computers I would play. The Crimson Diamond is a wonderful story, in which you use text to navigate your investigation into the strange goings-on at the remote town of Crimson, and unravel the mysteries! I needed to use a guide a couple times, but managed to solve many of the puzzles and mysteries myself, and I really enjoyed this game. A solid mix of new excitement with nostalgic gameplay!

Great game and story. Can be difficult if English isn't your first language and you haven't played this kind of games. I recommend you to have dictionary next to you while playing. Sadly music only played in cut scenes, game was rather quiet.

What a wonderful game. Thank you very much Julia. Actually my first "text-adventure" :) I loved the story and the characters. I didn't think I would get so attached to them. It's a great package all-around. The beautiful visuals, the amazing music, the animations... If you have a soft spot for old adventures, you shouldn't walk by this gem!

loved this game! finished in about 10 hours, with an additional 4 hours for a completionist run. the game rewards exploration and creative thinking without employing any particularly punishing leaps of logic. funny and heartfelt with meaningful choices. if we ever get a sequel, i'd buy in a heartbeat.

Not just a love letter to classic adventure games, but a really clever and charming game in its own right. I grew up on text parser games and I still have a massive soft spot for them, so any game that actually goes to the trouble of including one in today's modern gaming landscape is pretty much guaranteed to get my attention. But the text parser in the game goes above and beyond what you might expect. It's designed in such a way that it pays attention to context like where exactly you're standing in a room, or what you have or have not accomplished so far in the game, and responds accordingly. It understands a huge variety of words and is very smart about figuring out what you're trying to do (a little TOO smart, in some cases, as it can sometimes overcompensate for user error and accidentally reveal things you might not have been looking for). The one thing it very intentionally does NOT understand is the verb "use", which I think is a stroke of genius. No, you don't get to fall back on a generic command--you have to be specific! This game is so smart, in fact, that it's easy to overlook things--which is part of the fun, because it's a mystery game. There's a ton of stuff to investigate and figure out, and there's no shame in not finding all of it. I'm a pretty detail-oriented person, but my first time through I somehow managed to completely miss an entire line of investigation revolving around the fate of one of the characters, which caused me such distress (because I liked that character so much) that I immediately had to restore to an earlier save point and redo a large chunk of the game to correct my mistake. And let me tell you, it paid off in the end. Add to that the absolutely stunning EGA art, lots of really interesting and well-researched information about a large number of subjects, and a cast of characters you'll either love or love to hate, and you've got yourself an intriguing, satisfying, and very replayable gem of a game. Yes, pun intended.

Cozy mystery perfection, with sharp, smart writing and [i]uncompromising[/i] use of the text parser -- which in this age of adventure gaming would typically appear as a mere [i]optional[/i] novelty, if ever. This game shows the strength of doing things the way [b]you[/b] want (when your head's on straight, that is). Never fall back on half-measures, because the limply clamoring milquetoasts usually won't even bother to [i]finish[/i] the warm milque you've set out expressly for them! For all the rest of us there's the ice-cold [b]full-fat[/b]. Our Nancy Maple is an apple-cheeked ingenue with an autistic appreciation of inorganic matter, a budding mineralogist who finds herself wrapped up tight -- and proceeds to wind herself [i]tighter[/i] -- into a web of family intrigue (and more!) after a bridge collapse strands her at a lodge in rural Ontario. What a comfy place Crimson seems! It makes you want to screw yourself down in a lawn chair with a platter of Jack's fresh-baked hallongrotta and a copy of [i]The Night Land[/i] . . . until some agent of mortal peril comes stridin' along, the [b]born enemy[/b] of brilliant waif and strapping Mountie alike! All of that extinct furniture can be found at the lodge, the [i]chaise lounge[/i] (beloved of classic detectives because of the dames found on them), the big wooden cabinets and credenzas with [i]drawers on their drawers[/i] -- and you'll paw through every last drawer for clues and goodies, Nancy, because you can't help yourself! (Though as a rule, Nancy refuses to pocket what she doesn't need, and in that we have some realism.) This is a complex, [i]intensively[/i] detailed mystery with several major (but intertwining) strands (also made of strands). I have honestly [i]never[/i] played a mystery game with so many details; even [i]mineralogy itself[/i] plays a major part, and the creator sure did her research. Unless you've got your [b]eagle eye[/b] plugged in and active all the time (I didn't!), you're certain to miss something by the end. You should take your sweet time, because the ending is highly [i]customizable[/i], in effect -- like all the other parts, it's packed with detail and incident -- and it's [b]hyper-sensitive[/b] to everything you do! The text parser feeds into the detail, with tons of little extra [i]specialty[/i] commands for unique interactions -- all very logical so you can figure out what should be keyed in if you know the language, without any need to fall back on one of those [i]sprawling[/i] [b]eat / drink / smell / walk / punch / molest / beg[/b] command boxes the old GUI adventures loved so damned much. [b]A quick tip regarding one of the more fiddly aspects of the parser![/b] Our sweet Nancy has, in her hyper-fixation on the small, determined that the act of [i]observation[/i] must be split into three commands! [b]Look[/b] is for the general! [b]Search[/b] is for the interior of small spaces, like drawers! [b]Examine[/b] is for the [i]tiniest[/i] details, like fine print, and if you're lucky, Nancy might even pull out her [b]jeweler's loupe[/b] for you! (Homina, homina!!) The [b]three-headed look[/b] is quite logical if you think about it, but seldom used in computer adventures -- so it might not immediately occur to you. It's funny that in this homely, humble-seeming EGA adventure -- with its sidewalk chalk palette and universal spray-tan skin tone (I love it!) -- we have something with far greater depth, and a much larger host of interactive parts than [i]L. A. Noire[/i] (which I found to be a big ol' fizzle, honestly). It's an impressive feat, and it makes me vicariously [i]smug[/i], too, that a driven auteur can pull something off that a billionaire company can't and won't! And bring back the parser for wider use! You can't simulate an entire [i]world[/i] with it any more than you can with a book, but you can certainly expound upon the snug intricacies of cozy spaces! You can hyper-curate slices of fictive realities just like [i]The Crimson Diamond[/i] has, and give players a rich taste of implied [i]hugeness[/i] through it! When you feel you can do more, the world seems so much [b]bigger[/b]! This is the [i]Shenmue[/i] thing in heavenly, homespun 2D! This is the Roberta Williams thing on its more congenial days! This is bringing back something we dropped in the dust too quickly, but oh, how it [b]sparkles[/b], and makes us glance back the way we came! Sometimes, the most elegant and flexible solution is to be found . . . two steps rearward! (Remember how I said you should do whatever you feel like, as long as your head's on straight? I don't even mean that, not really. Because I think you should do whatever you want even if your head's [b]not[/b] on straight . . . as long as nobody gets hurt, okay?)