Hello, dear readers -- Happy July. It's been a hot and stuffy summer so far. My mom's milkweed plants are flowering and some monarch butterflies are visiting her garden.

Monarch butterfly caterpillars

Speaking of which, she's been raising monarch butterflies again -- This is the third summer. This time, monarch butterfies are laying eggs on her milkweed. This fine pair of caterpillars hatched from tiny tiny eggs and have been growing rapidly. She's released four monarch butterflies into her garden so far this summer!

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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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Chance's Lucky Escape has finally come out, as part of Playdate's Season 2! Here's the Catalog store page for the game, for more details.

Engadget reviewed the game, as well as Hey Poor Player. Thanks so much.

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I was interviewed by Stay Forever, a legendary German retro gaming podcast. They even did a book club-style play-along with their viewers, which I very much appreciate. Thanks so much, Christian and Gunnar.

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The Crimson Diamond is available in English only, because of the cost of localizing it is pretty high and it's likely I wouldn't make that money back. Plus it's a lot of managing stuff -- As a solo dev I really have to pick my battles in terms of how I spend my time and energy.

However, I love when players write reviews in other languages, whether it's on Steam or else where, such as this lovely review written in Arabic. Thank you very much, Abdulla!

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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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Thumbprint cookie charm in silver

There now exists a sterling silver version of the thumbprint cookie charm! This one is a much more economical alternative to the 10k gold option. I hope to offer these for sale as part of the one year anniversary of The Crimson Diamond's launch, which is happening next month. I can't believe it's already been a year. Time flies.

silver thumbprint cookie in hand

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

June 17th art stream, June 24th art stream, July 1st art stream, July 8th art stream

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

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Let's Play Portopia thumbnail

I've started to play a non-DOS, non-EGA game: Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (Enix, 1985). I'm doing this because I'm fascinated by mystery adventure games, regardless of platform. And this one was designed by Yuji Horii, best known for Dragon Quest. Additionally, I'm playing it in Japanese to help me learn more Japanese. Lots of reasons to get into this one. Here's the start of the playlist (only one episode so far).

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

I've stopped let's-playing Neuromancer. The cyberspace segments were too difficult for me, even with the help of walkthroughs. Out of all the Let's Plays I've done (see below), this is the first game I didn't finish. I'm a bit sad about that, but it was bound to happen.

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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MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: The oldest rocks on Earth are in Canada! Specifically in Quebec, in a region called the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt. The rocks are 4.16 BILLION years old, forming within the first 500 million years of Earth's history. Amazing.

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Ranger Murdoch cross-stitch complete

CRAFT CORNER

Ranger Murdoch is now complete. My next project is The Crimson Diamond logo. It's much larger than these portraits. The first time I cut the black aida cloth I cut too small a piece :(. I'm sure I can use that piece for something else, though!

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

EGA DMC embroidery floss colours

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Royal Ontario Museum 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 July :D.

-- JM