The Crimson Diamond Gazette #70
Welcome to the latest issue! News and fun facts inside!
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Find game bugs? feedback@thecrimsondiamond.com
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MEDIA
"Indies In Depth" episode 2: Julia Minamata & Andrew Dickinson
Time Extension article: Meet The Devs Keeping EGA Alive In The Modern Day
"The Crimson Diamond: A Cozy mystery adventure beckons": Adventure Gamers
"Digging for Gems and Clues: The Crimson Diamond Launches on August 15": A Gaming Network
"A Gem Found In The Belly Of A Fish": Vulgar Knight article
IGN Live debut of The Crimson Diamond release date trailer
Pixel Pizza Podcast: Julia Minamata (The Crimson Diamond)
Indiepocalypse Radio - Episode 0143: Keenardo and Julia Minamata
Final Round -- "The Crimson Diamond: sedici colori, interfaccia testuale, è subito 1989" (Italian language)
8BITdigi -- GDC 2024 The Games We Played
Save Your Game Podcast with PushingUpRoses and Matt Aukamp
YakWaxLips video: Most Anticipated Adventure Games of 2024!
Adventure Game Hotspot's PIXEL ART Adventure Games you MUST PLAY in 2024
Adventure Game Geek's Upcoming Adventure Games 2024...And Beyond!
vicek83's "Plans for Adventure Game Developers for 2024" (guest spot)
Rock Paper Shotgun Screenshot Saturday Monday
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!
To view this issue in browser, click here
Click here for the entire DevBlog
Editor: Julia Minamata - julia@thecrimsondiamond.com
July 2024
Hello, dear readers -- Happy July. We're in the midst of summer here in Ontario, which means periods of intense heat and stuffy humidity alternating with sudden thunderstorms and blissfully cooler temperatures.
I've recently gotten interested in mushrooms. I'm pretty sure these ones are poisonous, but they're pretty spectacular.
I met this fine painted turtle, too.
Amazingly, it seems that eschewing exclamation points has reduced the number of times this e-newsletter gets caught by spam filters. You are now reading the Crimson Gazette: Very Few Exclamation Points Edition.
Developer update: This is it. The last Crimson Gazette before LAUNCH! August 15. It's happening. There's still so much to do: The complete hintbook is still unwritten, not all the Steam achievements are implemented, not even the key art is finished yet. All in good time.
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It's always a thrill to see TCD included in other people's videos. Grim Beard made this awesome Next Fest video and said such lovely positive things about my game :). Here's a time-stamped link.
(Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out.)
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Time Extension's Jack Yarwood wrote this article about modern day EGA game devs. I'm so fortunate to be among such talented, hardworking devs who share my love of this odd, bright, nostalgic palette.
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Bulbachu on Twitch streamed The Crimson Diaond demo, just in time for me to include it in the gazette this month. I'm always grateful when streamers will take the time and effort to play.
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I've been making Instagram Reels about my The Crimson Diamond inspirations. It's really been jogging my memory of how this all began, from the art that I love and all the way back to early childhood. More on that later in the gazette.
Check out The Crimson Diamond on Instagram here. I also post the videos on Youtube as shorts, but they don't have the captions or overlays.
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I have a Patreon, both tiers will put your name in The Crimson Diamond credits if you're an active patron by JULY 15th, and until AUGUST 15. The $5 USD tier members will also get a holiday card this winter.
Current patrons: If you'd like to be credited by a name other than your Patreon user name, please message me via their messaging feature.
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The Adventure Game Hotspot Fan Fair is almost here. July 26-28 in Tacoma, Washington.
Sunday, July 28th at 12:30pm: I'll be on the Pixel Art Panel, along with Meredith Gran (Perfect Tides) and Tom Hardwidge (Lucy Dreaming). The panel will be hosted by Paul Korman, co-host of the Classic Gamers Guild Podcast.
Sunday, July 28th at 4:15pm: I'll be MC-ing OneShortEye's Live Speedrun event. He'll be demonstrating some incredible speedrunning techniques and feats in two amazing adventure games.
Here is the full panel, party, and presentation schedule.
Find out more about the event here.
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I had a lovely chat with Andrew Dickinson (editor of Debug magazine) and Laura Cress, on her Youtube channel for the second episode of her podcast "Indies In Depth". Have a listen here.
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I'm so lucky to have ultra-talented musician Dan Policar as the composer for the music of The Crimson Diamond. Dan's day job is touring the world in Sean Paul's band The BaddaBanz. Recently they were on NPR's Tiny Desk, delivering this amazing little concert. Check it out here. Here's Dan talking about the performance and showing clips of it on my VOD here.
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I'm STILL working on the key art for The Crimson Diamond. STILL playing with the colours. Getting closer and closer.
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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. 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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Dan made a recent appearance to help me celebrate my Twitch Streamer-versary. He talked NPR's Tiny Desk and showed some cool stuff from his gaming collection. Here's that VOD.
Livestream VOD round-up. All the streams since last gazette are here:
June 18th Streamer-versary, June 19th art stream, June 25th art stream, July 2nd art stream, July 9th art stream
Crimson C'Tuesday happens every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern on Twitch. Come and hang out.
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I've started playing Lord Avalot d'Argent (Thorsoft of Letchworth, 1995), which is the sequel to Denarius Avaricius Sextus. I enjoyed DAS very much and I can say the same for Avalot so far. Magnificent Marnanel Thurman, one of the devs of Thorsoft, joined me for DAS commentary and will be joining me again once I've played through Avalot. I'm very much looking forward to that. Here's the link to the Lord Avalot d'Argent playlist so far.
You can follow Marnanel on Mastodon and Blue Sky. Here's Marnanel's website.
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)
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)
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Speaking of Let's Plays, me and the other Level 0 NPCs have completed our meandering playthrough of Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra. Here's the full playlist.
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CRAFT CORNER
Here's my completed Rise of the Dragon cross-stitch again, but this time it's got a lovely quilted border courtesy of my mom. <3 No new crafts right now, as I'm in the throes of launching The Crimson Diamond.
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MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION
DID YOU KNOW: The Levistone pendant in Studio Ghibli's The Castle in the Sky was the first time I remember being entranced and inspired by rocks, minerals, crystals, and magical necklaces. I saw the film when I was five and a half and it made a big impression on me. I've tried recreating it with polymer clay a few times but I'm still not satisfied.
There isn't really a viable real-world stone to use to recreate the pendant. Lapis lazuli is the right colour but it isn't translucent. Quartz doesn't come in this colour, and aquamarine is too pale. Paraiba tourmaline can be a saturated blue but it's more of a cyan colour and quite rare and expensive. Sapphire would be very very expensive for stone of this size and shape.
Baccarat produced an official licensed pendant but it doesn't have the gold inlaid symbol and the bit at the top doesn't look quite right to me. And it's also $400 USD.
The search continues. I'll probably try to make another one myself after TCD launches :).
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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 July. Next month is the month of The Crimson Diamond!
-- JM