Hello, dear readers -- Happy August! Summer in Ontario continues to be hot, muggy, and dry. There's still a breeze and it's not too bad in the shade, but it's still the hottest summer I can remember in a long time.

Monarch J-shape

The monarchs continue to metamorphose. Here's one assuming the j-shaped position that occurs just before the cocooning. By tomorrow it'll be encased in a lovely jade pod with classy gold accents.

Monarch cocoons

Here are two that are currently cocooned. It'll take 9-14 days before they're ready to emerge.

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TCD 1-year anniversary

It's hard to believe, but The Crimson Diamond launched on this day, one year ago. On one hand I'm shocked at how quickly that time has passed. But on the other, it feels like the game launched so much longer ago than that.

I continue to be amazed that people play it, review it, even stream it! Thank you so much. Releasing The Crimson Diamond has been my proudest accomplishment. I feel very fortunate that it's been so well received, because I know from experience that even if you pour your heart into something, there are no guarantees. Sometimes things can work out. Sometimes.

To celebrate the anniversary, I've got a few things planned:

1) The Crimson Diamond is a DAILY DEAL on Steam (August 15). It's 25% off, the deepest discount for the game ever. This sale will last for 14 days.

2) I designed thumbprint cookie jewelry and it goes on sale today, for a month only (see below for photos and details)!

3) I will be streaming at 8pm Eastern on Friday, August 15. I'll be giving away Steam keys and Fourthwall merch, answer questions about the game, and hopefully have a special cake!

4) The Crimson Diamond soundtrack is finally available on Steam. Dan Policar's wonderful tunes deserve to be heard! MP3 and FLAC formats available.

The Crimson Diamond is sold on Steam. It's also on itchio and GOG and FireFlower Games. Sometimes people ask me where the best place is to buy the game, to support me as an indie dev. Steam is best (especially if you also leave a review), it's incredibly helpful for visibility on the store. But please choose whichever option is best for you.

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Thumbprint cookies are an important item and plot point in The Crimson Diamond. This is because my mom bakes them every holiday season, and has done so for as long as I can remember. I wanted to design something that would commemorate the game's release in a way that would be meaningful to me; this charm seemed like the perfect choice. Here's where you can buy it, in either 10k gold or sterling silver.

One day, when out and about in Toronto, I stumbled into Cuchara Jewelry and hit it off with Edi, the owner. It so happens that she does custom work AND is a wonderful person. We started talking about creating this custom piece.

I sculpted the prototype for the charm out of polymer clay. Edi then had this scanned in and modelled digitally, and took care of the rest of the production. We decided to do 10k gold and sterling silver versions. I really wanted gold because that represents the cookie's colour, but it was important to me that we have a version that is also more economically priced. Gold prices have really risen in the past decade or so!

Both Edi and I decided we didn't want to do a gold-plated version, as the gold would wear off eventually. That's another reason the 10k gold charms cost what they do. It was also important to me that we used the best garnets we could. These gorgeous 6mm garnets are from Thailand.

Click here to see more photos of the charms on the e-store.

Hallongrotta (aka "Thumbprint cookies") recipe

Here's my mom's thumbprint cookie recipe, if you'd like to try it yourself! There's an image above of the recipe as it appeared in the holiday card, but here it is again, just in case:

Hallongrotta (aka "Thumbprint cookies") recipe
Ingredients:
2 and one quarter cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine
Half a cup of firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 and one half teaspoons vanilla
Raspberry preserves for filling the cookies

Optional: 1 and one-half cups walnuts, finely chopped
Bake at 350C for 12 minutes. Makes 3 dozen cookies

1. Sift flour onto wax paper.

2. Beat butter or margarine with brown sugar in a medium-size bowl until fluffy and light; beat in egg yolks and vanilla. Stir in flour, one half at a time, blending well to make a stiff dough.

Optional: Beat egg whites in a separate bowl until foamy; sprinkle
walnuts on wax paper.

3. Roll dough, 1 teaspoonful at a time, into balls, between palms of hands (optional: roll each in egg white, then into the walnuts to coat all over). Place, 2 inches apart, onto large cookie sheets. Press down in the centre of each cookie with thumb, to make a little hollow.

4. Bake in a moderate oven (350 ) 12 minutes, or until firm and lightly golden. Remove from cookie sheets to wire racks; cool completely. Spoon preserves into each hollow.

And here's the holiday card from 2024. $5 tier Patreon patrons will get a real printed and personalized holiday card mailed to them, anywhere in the world!

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Wasson Bluff, Sierra AGI style

I've been slowly working on some game art for a new small mystery game. I've been streaming the process on Twitch. I'm also learning how to use Aseprite, which is a good program especially to do this Sierra AGI style of pixel art. It's a really fun challenge to try an even lower resolution than 320x200 (which is the resolution for The Crimson Diamond). I usually stream on Tuesdays at 8pm Eastern. It's a mix of pixel art and retro games. Come hang out!

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AdventureX 2025 tickets are now on sale! They're selling out quickly, so get yours now if you're planning on attending. I'm so overjoyed by this lovely rendition of Nancy Maple, by super talented artist Aviv Or. Bluesky profile here. Also pictured (from left to right: Mick from The Drifter, Prim from Prim, Lola from Rosewater, Arthur from Loco Motive, and Duck Detective from Duck Detective.

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I'm happy to announce I was interviewed for GDoC Expo 2025! The segment will air on September 18. Check out this site for details. If you use the code gdoc20 you'll get 20% off on the price of a ticket!

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Chance's Lucky Escape merch!! Here's Yann, the main developer of the game, modelling one of the available t-shirts and the baseball cap. He says they're excellent quality, check the merch out here.

Here's the Catalog store page for the game, if you're interested in trying it out. It's a little treat of an adventure game. I'm very proud of it!

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Perfect timing! On the day of the annivesary celebration, super-terrific retro Twitch streamer AnnK_ has released an interview we did together! It's got some great editing and clips, please check it out. Also please check out AnnK_'s dank zine and support physical media (especially cool art) if you're into it!

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We Love Every Game is a new site dedicated to helping connect people with games they'd love to play. They are lovely folks that I've met at various events and they asked me if I'd like to do an interview with them! I was happy to participate and I hope their site really takes off. I'm a huge fan of anyone who is boosting games.

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Speaking of boosters of games, Link of The Red Tunic Podcast was kind enough to have me on to talk The Crinson Diamond. Give a listen here. If you'd like a video version where it's our voices and a video of Mega Man being played on Youtube, give a listen here.

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fourthwall store

If you'd like some awesome The Crimson Diamond stickers, hats, t-shirts and more, I have some fun stuff on my Fourthwall store. I particularly like the embroidered items, and they all ship and arrive quite quickly, no matter where you are in the world.

And if you're interested in setting up a Fourthwall store of your own, here's my referral link (I'd get $15 credit :D).
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Twitch Stream thumbnail

Livestream VOD round-up. All the streams since last gazette are here:

July 15th art stream, July 22nd art stream, July 29th art stream, August 5th art stream

Crimson C'Tuesday happens every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern on Twitch. Come and hang out.

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August Portopia Let's Play

I got to Kyoto in Portopia! I'm also stumped, so I think my next attempt will heavily depend on consulting a walkthrough. It's an amazing game, but pretty tricky! Portopia playlist (work in progress).

I'm using an emulator called WanderBar and it's been easy to use and lightweight.

I'm happy to report I finished one of my childhood favourite games, the EGA DOS port of Double Dragon, on stream. It felt really good. Watch here.

Double Dragon card from 1989, from HungryGoriya

Does this scene look familiar? It's that same end screen as seen in the above Double Dragon Let's Play image. I was gifted this by wonderfully amazing retro Twitch streamer HungryGoriya, when I visited her and her husband recently. More on that later in the gazette!

Double Dragon Tradewest trading card, back

Here's the back of the card. The grey circles on the front of the card are meant to be scratch-offs, and whether you win or lose depends on what you reveal. There is no prize for winning, merely personal satisfaction. :)

My completed Let's Plays:

Personal Nightmare (Horrorsoft 1989)

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Rise of the Dragon Let's Play (Dynamix, 1990)

The Sorceror's Appraisal (Yahtzee Croshaw, 2002)

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991)

Mortville Manor (Lankhor, 1987)

Legend of the Sword (Silicon Software, 1988)

Loom (Lucasfilm Games, 1990)

Altered Destiny (Accolade, 1990)

The Dark Convergence (Jeffrey Kintz, 1993)

The Dark Convergence 2 (Jeffrey Kintz, 1994)

High Seas Homicide (Sherwood Forest Software, 1993)

Denarius Avaricius Sextus (Thorsoft of Letchworth,1992)

Earthrise (Interstel, 1990)

Lord Avalot d'Argent (Thorsoft of Letchworth, 1995)

Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess (ERE Informatique, 1989)

Omnicron Conspiracy (First Star Software, 1989 / Streaksy, 2025)

Neuromancer -- UNFINISHED LP (Interplay, 1989)

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Do you love it when people are wearing pants? You might enjoy Pantsmo's Pantaloon Adventure, a free, modded version of Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure. eviltentacle is the mastermind of the project, with some assistance from me and Emmfoolery.

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Millerite 3

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Sudbury, Ontario is famous for its nickel mines -- But there are many other minerals present in the area, including millerite! I learned about millerite during my visit with HungryGoriya, when we visted a flea market that had a vendor selling rocks and minerals from all over the world. I bought two samples of millerite from the Broken Hammer Mine in Sudbury (all of these rock photos are taken by me). They cost $6 and $8.

Millerite is an important ore of nickel because it contains a relatively high percentage of nickel and can be processed economically. It can look like lustrous golden needles, or (as seen in my samples) areas of golden metal kinda compressed amongst other rock.

Millerite 1

Millerite 4

One of the most interesting properties of millerite is how it changes colour as it oxidizes. It can turn a gorgeous light lavender purple, or even more vivid colours. This is my photo above. You can see a similar colour in this specimen from an auction site.

This specimen on this other auction site differentiates the brassier yellow colour as chalcopyrite, and the more silvery-gold metallic areas as millerite.

Millerite

Millerite 3

Millerite 5

The Broken Hammer Mine is a fascinating example of a relatively recent mine (it was in operation from 2014 to 2015) that took the time and care to preserve specimens like this before going into production. You can read more about the mine here.

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HungryGoriya Cross-stitch

CRAFT CORNER

Here's a little project that was fun to start and finish pretty quickly (with a little help with the quilted border from my mom). I gifted it to HungryGoriya when I met her. These are still using the same EGA colours I used for all the other projects I've done. I got visual reference for this piece from Hungry's Fourthwall merch store.

Here are the DMC embroidery floss colours I use for the EGA palette:

EGA DMC embroidery floss colours

The Crimson Diamond logo cross-stitch

Here's my next project (Ranger Murdoch for scale) :D.

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Blue Mountain Pottery Duck 1

I bought a ceramic duck at the same flea market as the millerite. When I found him, I thought he looked very 1970s, from the glaze colours to his shape. I'm not sure if that's true, but I did find a listing on ebay that's very similar. I paid $19 for mine!

Blue Mountain Pottery Duck 2

I read about Blue Mountain Pottery and was happy to learn that it was a northern Ontario pottery based in Collingwood. It was founded by three Czechoslovakian immigrants and was in operation from 1953-2004. Jozo Weider owned the Blue Mountain ski hill and wanted items to sell in the gift shop. His friend Dennis was trained in ceramics and their other friend Mirek was trained in glazing. They even used clay from the area! I love that their ceramics were genuinely made from the local earth, making these wonderful souvenirs.

Blue Mountain Pottery from below

Harvest Moon GBA cartridge

HungryGoriya took me to a retro games store, too. I bought this Game Body Advance catridge of Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town. Hungry recommended it and of course the theme appeals to me! I enjoyed Stardew Valley and really enjoy playing on original hardware. I'll be playing this one on my DS Lite.

There's one more item that I bought from the flea market when visiting HungryGoriya... But I'll save that until the next issue of the gazette. This issue is long enough!

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Holiday card process animated GIF

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

I have Patreon and PayPal. Or visit The Crimson Diamond's Steam page to purchase or follow the game. (Steam reviews are super helpful and appreciated!) It's also available on GOG, itchio and FireFlower Games.

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Thanks for reading. Happy August :D.

-- JM