The Crimson Diamond Gazette #62
Welcome to the latest issue! News and fun facts inside!
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Find game bugs? feedback@thecrimsondiamond.com
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Donate on PayPal!
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MEDIA
Rock Paper Shotgun mention
Adventure Game Hotspot interview
FireFlower Games interview article
Hello Playdate Podcast interview
FMM Live: Discussion with Julia Minamata Dev of The Crimson Diamond
2D Game Art Tips for Solo or Small Teams -- Pre-recorded panel
Scene World Podcast #160 - The Crimson Diamond with Julia Minamata
vicek83's "Plans for Adventure Game Developers for 2023" (guest spot)
Exposing Decades-old Secrets of The Colonel's Bequest (guest spot)
Adventure Game Hotspot Streaming Event Guest Spot #1
Adventure Game Hotspot Streaming Event Guest Spot #2
Current "The Crimson Diamond Demo" Speedrun World Records
The Crimson Diamond on Speedruns.com
Disaster SquadCast episode
"Talking To Women About Videogames" podcast episode part 2 of 2
"Talking To Women About Videogames" podcast episode part 1 of 2
Joystick interview (in English)
Joystick interview (in Greek)
Plans of Adventure Game Devs in 2022 (timestamped link)
IGDA Twin Cities Talk: "The Practical Magic of Pixel Art"
Steam Next Fest (Oct 2021) Developer's Let's Play of The Crimson Diamond Demo
Interviews from the Multiverse: Julia Minamata
Lockdown Con II "The Indie Games Revolution" Panel (first panel of the day)
WIRED.com's Geek's Guide to the Galaxy
Pixelles BIPOC Creator Program grant recipient
usesthis interview (interview about my hardware and software set-up)
8-bit Ninja interview about The Crimson Diamond (in German)
CAAD52 magazine article about The Crimson Diamond (in Spanish)
Cabel Sasser's Photoshop Revelation clip
HomeTeam GameDev Podcast -- Guest Julia Minamata
CityNews - Canada Showcased Through Video Games
CBC Thunder Bay - Superior Morning Radio Interview
PAX East 2020 "What's Next for Adventure Games" Panel
Adventure Games Podcast episode
Classic Adventurer, Issue 07 -- Featured
Adventure Gamers AdventureX Round-up, part II
Adventure Gamers Announcement Article
Adventure Corner Article (German)
The CGG Podcast: # 44 Third appearance, updates since April 2019!
The CGG Podcast: #20 The Crimson Diamond updates & The Colonel's Bequest
The CGG Podcast: #1 Episode featuring me discussing The Crimson Diamond
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CLASSIC GAMER? JOIN CLASSIC GAMERS!
I part of a thriving classic gaming community called the Classic Gamers Guild on Facebook. We host plenty of events during the week, as well as contests and a bunch of other great stuff. We even have a podcast and I was the first guest!
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Editor: Julia Minamata - julia@thecrimsondiamond.com
November 2023
The Cutty Sark in Greenwich. Photo taken by me, 2023.
Ahoy, dear readers! Happy November! This month has been full of adventure, so let's set sail with this month's gazette!
I was in London attending AdventureX and seeing the sights! Here's what I was wearing on day 1. This is a particularly photo-heavy edition of the gazette, so hold onto your hats! (My Sideways Nancy hat is available on Fourthwall)
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Developer update: The alpha version of The Crimson Diamond is now complete! This milestone was actually reached before I flew to London, I just didn't realize it. I'm currently writing the complete walkthrough (which is also an opportunity to go over the entire game) before sending it off to my beta testers. I've also quietly updated the demo (on Steam, itchio, and Fireflower Games) because there was a bug that erased the player's notebook and didn't allow new notes to be added. Yikes!
Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out!
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I'm very excited to announce that The Crimson Diamond has been nominated for Indie Cup Canada's Rising Star award! Here's a link to The Crimson Diamond on the Indie Cup Canada's website. Indie Cup Canada was one of the reasons I wanted to update the demo before I left for London. The other reason was Application Systems Heidelberg was hosting an AdventureX Steam event! I did a special Crimson C'Wednesday stream on my Steam store page for that, during which I played the updated demo. I also showed my trip photos, though I did that again the following Crimson C'Tuesday (I link to that stream below).
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My Twitch chat is full of amazingly talented artists, programmers, and developers! Sakanakao has written a program to automate "draw steps" for artwork and has created these gifs of The Crimson Diamond! Follow Sakanakao on Mastodon, Twitter, Patreon, Youtube, and Twitch, as well as their personal site!
Artists who use SCI Companion to draw their art (Karl Dupéré-Richer, currently working on Betrayed Alliance, is one of them!) can have their backgrounds show the actual steps they took in the process of drawing them. I am using Photoshop, which means I don't get to genuinely show this cool effect! Thanks to Sakanakao, I can get the next best thing.
Thanks so much, Sakankao!
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The Level 0 NPCs have returned to playing The Colonel's Bequest! This series was on hiatus to celebrate Horror Month by playing (and finishing!) Phantasmagoria, as well as for Krulltember. But we're back now, chattering at length while Laura stands stock-still, staring out at the screen at us. Occasionally and accidentally we do make progress in the game!
Luke sent me this GORGEOUS Level 0 NPCs shirt just in time for my trip! I proudly sported it on day 2 (see those photos below). I've been a fan of the Level 0 NPCs for years, I'm so happy and proud to be a member now. Check out their channel here!
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If you'd like some awesome The Crimson Diamond stickers, hats, t-shirts and more, I have some fun stuff on my Fourthwall store!
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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This just in! I contributed a Recommendation Dog!! piece for this 2024 calender project by Xania Lasagna that celebrates the Playdate! A portion of the proceeds will be going to adopt an animal through the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature).
Recommendation Dog!! is a FREE on Playdate Catalog! I did art and art directed the game, which was produced by Strange Scaffold and Sweet Baby Inc.! The other artist on the project was Rafael Batista de Lima, an amazing pixel artist and fellow indie game dev!
Xania sent me a sample of the calendar -- It's gorgeous! The calendar cards are printed on glossy cardstock and are presented on a handy little wooden stand. The package comes with this little booklet that has profiles of all the contributors! Check it out!
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A reminder that my Patreon tiers have changed! Now, all current patrons will have their names in the credits of The Crimson Diamond when it launches. The default is to have names included, and the name used will be the Patreon profile name. If you'd like to opt-out or use a different name, please message me on Patreon! Here's a link to my Patreon page.
I've also retired my $1 tier, but patrons on that tier will still get their name in the credits, and nothing changes for them! Retiring a tier just means no new patrons can join it.
A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3
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I did a pre-Hallowe'en stream (because I was in London for actual Hallowe'en), but I did want to dress up and have some fun! I did a Fourthwall giveaway, showed my past costumes and spooky art, and started a new Let's Play: The Dark Convergence. It was spooktacular! I've since finished it, it's a very tough text parser game but I love the art and greatly admire Jeffrey Kintz, the solo developer who made it. In fact, Jeffrey found the video of my Let's Play on Youtube and offered to supply me with a copy of the sequel, The Dark Convergence II! I'm very pleased to announce that I will be Let's Playing the sequel next!
If you'd like to see more photos of my AdventureX/London trip with commentary, check out this VOD! I show more food, more bits of art, and tell my story of the Three Harrod's treasures that I encountered!
We had a Dan on stream! We revisted some Crimson Diamond tracks and Dan polished them up. It's always good times with Dan!
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Livestream VOD round-up! All the streams since last gazette are here!
Oct 17th art/music stream, Oct 24th Pre-Hallowe'en Special art stream, Crimson C'WEDNESDAY Steam event stream ,and Nov 24th art stream!
Crimson C'Tuesday happens every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern on Twitch!
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)
Mortville Manor (Lankhor, 1987)
Legend of the Sword (Silicon Software, 1988)
Altered Destiny (Accolade, 1990)
The Dark Convergence (Jeffrey Kintz, 1993)
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CRAFT CORNER
The Rise of the Dragon Dragon cross-stitch continues! Roddy (that's his name to me) is slowly taking shape. Slowly but surely!
Here's what he'll look like when he's finished!
Here are the DMC embroidery floss colours I used for my EGA palette:
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MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION
DID YOU KNOW: Rocks come in incredible varieties, all over the world! I've become very familiar with the rocks on the Lake Ontario shore. When I went down to the bank of the Thames by Greenwich, it was immediately apparent how different those rocks were. They had glossy surfaces, which I initially thought was due to them being wet. I then thought I was looking at fragments of glazed ceramics. But when I saw the large-ish rock on on the upper left in the above picture, it was clear that this is actually a feature of the rocks! Upon doing a bit of research, I've concluded it's a type of chert, specifically chert nodules.
There is a English pasttime called mudlarking, which consists of searching those rocky shores not only for interesting rocks, but bits of pottery, coins, pipes, any number of things. There's a long history of humans using the Thames as a trade route. This has filled the shore with all sorts of objects, with new objects washing up every day. Here's an article on mudlarking. Cloak & Dagger Games has even made an adventure game about mudlarks!
I spent about twenty minutes on the shore, I could've easily whiled away an entire day. What wonderful mysteries lie just at our feet?
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Here are the AdventureX/London photos! I had an amazing time.
My AdventureX day 2 outfit. Featuring that gorgeous Level 0 NPCs tshirt and an AGS Blue Cup sticker on my id badge, given to me by ioannis John KarAvas!
AdventureX swag! Nice to see an ad for Rosewater! Cover art by Hannes Pasqualini.
The event was hosted by Greenwich University, and the talks were given in this theatre. It was a good venue, except pretty warm and airless. I'm glad I wore my Flo mask (the most comfortable mask I've tried so far).
So happy to run into Adventure Game Geek, wearing his EGA bucket bucket hat! Hat buddies! Adventure Game Geek is a fantastic Youtuber who reviews adventure games, both new and old. Check out his channel here!
This is Meridian House, Greenwich's former town hall. It was built in 1939. I love the massive brickiness of this industrial Art Deco building.
Here's me and Graham Round! His Usborne Solve It Yourself books made a HUGE impression on me when I was growing up. I never thought I'd actually get to sit down to lunch with him. I feel incredibly lucky.
"Escape from Blood Castle" was the first Solve It Yourself book. The art style, the bright colours, the puzzle/mystery/adventure aspects... It's contains everything I love and want to create.
Graham signed my copy and drew this lovely sketch!
I made this card to give to Graham, to thank him for meeting up with me. And to thank him for inspiring me for all these years. It combines the characters, settings, and some items in all four of his Usborne Solve It Yourself / Puzzle Adventure books!
I also got to visit his studio and see some stunning original art.
AND he gave me a copy of "Hangdog" the one published book that he wrote and illustrated!
Here's his cat Tiger, who is a sweetheart.
Fellow EGA adventure game developer and AdventureX attendee Stephen Schroeder tipped me off to the Greenwich art store that was attached to the AdventureX venue. I found these tubes of Winsor Newton (English brand!) watercolours, some the pricier professional grade, on clearance sale for £1 each!
Here are the colours. I can't wait to try them in an art piece.
There was a small exhibit on Beni (a red pigment derived from safflowers, which has a Japanese origin) at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The coolest thing about Beni is that if it's applied thickly it appears irridescent green, otherwise it's flat red. Magic!
Another online friend I got to meet for the first time in real life was Jamie Benning, host of the Filmumentaries podcast! He's interviewed many film and tv industry legends, including Walter Murch (Return to Oz), Garrett Brown (inventor of the Steadicam), and Ryan Condal (House of the Dragon showrunner)! He's also co-written the book Return of the Jedi Unauthorized Timeline!
I made sure to get my fill of English cuisine. Such as the full English breakfast!
Fish and chips (with the best thick-cut chips and tartar sauce I've ever had).
And Sunday roast!
I suppose this amounts to the Harrod's food court! I LOVE Harrod's. It's basically the best, most opulent department store on the planet. Here's a timestamped link of me talking about my 2023 Harrod's experience, including the 3 Harrod's Treasures that I encountered during my visit.
I also visited the very excellent Saatchi Gallery and nearly bought one of these ultra vibrant tea light holders from the gift shop. So many tempting goodies!
The Young V&A had an exhibit called Japan: Myths to Manga. It had this famous Hokusai print in it. As many times as I've seen this piece online, it's still mindblowing to see an original.
The Painted Hall in Greenwich was also stunning. One of my favourite parts was these trompe l'oeil (trick the eye / visual illusion) stairs. This is a flat wall!
The glorious sunset at Heathrow, marking the end of my adventure. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
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INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?
Check the sidebar for links to my Patreon and PayPal! Or visit The Crimson Diamond's Steam page follow the game, and add it to your wishlist! There's a FREE playable demo too, for Windows PC and Mac! <3
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Thanks for reading! Happy November!
-- JM