Project Introduction

The player controls the game with a text parser interface. Everything from opening doors to talking to other characters is accomplished by the player typing simple sentences into the parser. Plenty of schemes are afoot! It is up to the player to make inquiries, eavesdrop on private conversations, and perform mineralogical fieldwork in order to get the figurative and literal lay of the land!

The game unfolds over 6 gameplay chapters, with the 7th chapter remaining to show branching endings. The endings are based on player choices and how much of the game was solved.

The Crimson Diamond fondly calls back to the adventure games of the late 80s and early 90s, with its 16-colour EGA colour palette and Roland-MT 32 soundtrack, but modern design improvements such as auto-save, an automatically updating notebook of objectives, and a flexible, responsive text parser are included.

About Developer

I was born and raised and am based in Toronto, Ontario. I am a solo game dev and this is my first project in which I’m creating everything, except for the music (I’ve created art for other games). I have a degree in art and taught myself how to program with Adventure Game Studio. I also stream making the art and music for my game on Twitch (a_maplemystery)! I’m making the type of game I loved most when I was growing up. I hope I can rekindle the warm, fuzzy nostalgia in players who remember this style of game, but I also want to introduce it to new generations of players!

I first showed an early vertical slice of The Crimson Diamond at Wordplay in Toronto in 2018, which motivated me to see the game through to completion. Since then, it’s been a finalist in Ubisoft Toronto’s Indie Series (2019), was nominated by Canadian Game Devs as a Most Anticipated Canadian Game (2020), and received a Pixelles BIPOC Creator grant (2021). I’m very appreciative for all the support I’ve received from the Canadian indie games scene!