Hello, dear readers -- Happy January! The darkness and greyness continues. Thankfully it hasn't been too cold (yet), and we haven't had much snow here in Toronto (yet).

New Year's card, year of the horse

Welcome to the Year of the Horse! According to TABIMANIA JAPAN, horses are associated with energy, action, freedom, independence, speed, progress, passion, and motivation. Traditionally, the Year of the Horse is considered auspicious for starting new challenges, making bold decisions, and travelling and moving forwards in life. I hope you have a good Horse Year!

Holiday cards 2025 mailed out

2025's holiday cards have reached my amazing Patreon patrons. I even managed to mail them out before Christmas this year, whew. Here's the design:

Holiday card 2025 design

This was the first time I depicted the inside of the lodge for the holiday card. I liked the idea of decorating the trees outside of the conservatory and letting Nancy enjoy some yummy thumbprint cookies with a big blue mug (the Adventure Game Studio mascot!) of hot tea.

Thumbprint cookie recipe

Speaking of thumbprint cookies, I put my mom's thumbprint cookie recipe on the back of this year's card, too (it first appeared on the back of the 2024 holiday card).

Holiday card 2025 animation

And here's a little animated gif of the card's design process. A huge, heartfelt thank you to all of my incredible Patreon patrons for your support. It means a lot to me. Check out my Patreon here.

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The Crimson Diamond key art

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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Chicago Gamespace sent me their The Crimson Diamond prints and they're gorgeous. The EGA colours are reproduced very well, the images are sharp, and the printing is smooth and even. Top notch. Find the prints here. They're available framed or unframed!

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vicek83 has put out his annual "Adventure Games Plans for 2026". It's become somewhat of a holiday tradition for me to contribute to the video. I was very happy to do so. If you watch the video, you'll see many wonderful adventure games to look forward to in 2026 :).

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Wasson game WIP 1

New dev blog update! The Deadly Bluff: A Mini-Maple Mystery (working title) is currently my focus for 2026. I've started to build it in Adventure Game Studio, using the backgrounds I've been drawing with Aseprite on my livestreams.

Wasson game WIP 2

It's very exciting to get back into AGS, making something fresh and new. So far I've completed three backgrounds and am nearly finished a fourth, out of a total of about fourteen backgrounds.

I've also managed to implement a crude version of "look at x" and then "take it" or "examine it", and the game knowing what the "it" is. It's not super flexible, but it might be a nice quality-of-life improvement for players. Infocom text parsers were quite flexible and allowed for inputs like this, but The Crimson Diamond didn't. A small and hopefully welcome addition!

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I treated myself to two of Goemonsama's amazing paintings recently. Goemonsama is a tremendously skilled painter and a frequent contributor to AnnK_'s legendary Dank Zine, where his renderings of retro games inspired by livestreams can be seen on a monthly basis. Here's a gallery of Goemonsama's work. and a link to his ko-fi. You can also follow him on Mastodon.

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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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thumbnail from my livestream

Art streams continue! I livestreamed some fun watercolour painting over the holidays. I created modern versions of Nancy and Margot from The Crimson Diamond.

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

December 16th art stream, December 23rd art stream, December 30th art stream, January 13th art stream

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

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I finished Heart of China (in EGA) and it was epic and painful. That train arcade sequence might be the most frustrating thing I've streamed since... The arcade sequence in Rise of the Dragon (both are by Dynamix). I'm glad I finally experienced this game. It was one I'd never really played back in the day. The converted EGA art was lovely!

Here's the playlist.

Now that I've wrapped up Heart of China, I'm back at Karuizawa Yūkai Annai (MSX version 1986, Enix). I got pretty stumped, but I've done a bit of research and experimentation and I'll be unstuck the next time I stream it. Looking forward to it.

Here's the playlist so far.

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)

Double Dragon EGA (Technos Japan, 1988)

Double Dragon CGA (Technos Japan, 1988)

Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (Enix, 1985)

The Twilight Zone (Gigabit Systems Inc., 1988)

Heart of China (Dynamix, 1991)

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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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elbaite, my photo from the American Museum of Natural History

Photo of a massive elbaite, taken by me, at the American Museum of Natural History.

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Elbaite is one of the most spectacular minerals of all! It's a type of tourmaline, so named for being first discovered in Elba, Italy in 1913. It's coveted for the depth and variety of its colours. Take a look at this stunning, raspberry-coloured specimen in the photo above. Trace amounts of mineral impurities will colour the elbaite, and specimens can be multi-coloured. Elbaite has a Mohs hardness of 7.5, making it a great choice for jewellry. In 1994, a significant elbaite deposit was discovered at O'Grady Lakes in Yukon, Canada!

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CRAFT CORNER

My secret cross-stitch project is nearly complete. I hope to show it soon, possibly next gazette. Stay tuned...

EGA DMC embroidery floss colours

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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 January!

-- JM