If you ask me, 2024 was a pretty dire year for large, mainstream games. Sure, there were some gems there, but most of the games I played felt too protected or focused on gameplay ideas that I didn’t think were successful. However, against this backdrop, some of the “smaller” games really shined, and one of them is the most memorable Crimson Diamondan old-school text parser adventure game with EGA graphics that is both gorgeous – drawn with incredible attention to detail and full of bright and expressive colors and animations – and also looks like something you might have played in 1987.
Existing in the same lineage as the classic Sierra adventures The colonel’s record, Crimson Diamond you play as Nancy Maple, a juvenile museum employee in early 20th century Toronto with a keen interest in geology, who seizes the opportunity to travel north to the miniature town of Crimson to investigate the discovery of a huge diamond. But Nancy gets more than she bargained for when guests at the isolated cottage where she’s staying start dying and what was a geological investigation turns into a murder investigation.
Which I think makes it Crimson Diamond what’s so effective, apart from its compelling mystery and gorgeous graphics, is the way it reclaims the largely discarded device of the text analyzer, which disappeared from mainstream adventure game design after the popularization of point-and-click graphical interfaces. It turns out, as designer Julia Minamata effectively demonstrates here, that a text parser can still be a wonderful device for facilitating deeply engaged gameplay, encouraging different ways of thinking about and interacting with the environment than would be possible if one relied on the constrained verbs found in point-and-click game.
Combined with a fun Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery that drives the game’s plot – filled with colorful characters, each with their own desires, plans and motivations – the text parser here, despite being an “old” adventure game design convention, makes for it feels fresh and lively, which is strange Crimson Diamond feels more adventurous and forward-thinking than many of the “modern” big-budget games I’ve played this year – Carolyn Petit
