The Crimson Diamond News

CORRECTED BROADCAST for Curious Odyssey Steam Event!

[p]Ahh, I'm very sorry! I scheduled the announcement for the broadcast incorrectly, the streaming from The Crimson Diamond Steam store page starts on Friday March 13 at 8pm Eastern! Please join me as I show a bit of the game, do some Q&A, and give a sneak peek on my next game![/p][p][/p][p]It's the Curious Odyssey Steam Event! To celebrate, The Crimson Diamond is 25% off! [/p][p][/p][p]The Crimson Diamond is a graphical text parser cozy mystery adventure game with retro style. It's rated Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam with almost 600 reviews, and has a Metacritic score of 88! Maybe you'll like it, too! [/p][p][/p][p]Developer Julia Minamata will be streaming on The Crimson Diamond's Steam store page on Friday, March 13 at 8pm Eastern! She'll show a bit of The Crimson Diamond, as well as a sneak peek of her next (mini) game![/p]

CORRECTED BROADCAST for Curious Odyssey Steam Event!

The Crimson Diamond is 25% off in Steam Typing Fest 2026!

[p][/p][p]If you've never played a graphical text parser adventure game, this is the perfect time to try one! The Crimson Diamond is 25% off for Steam Typing Fest 2026! [/p][p][/p][p]Learn the joys of engaging with a game in a new way , or return to an old-school input method that doesn't get much love nowadays! Delve into a cozy mystery where YOU ask the questions and uncover clues... By typing![/p][p][/p][p]The Crimson Diamond features a tutorial room to teach players how to use the text parser, PLUS there's an in-game hintbook (that opens in browser) with a universal-hints-system style design so you only reveal the solutions that you need![/p][p][/p][p]Developer Julia Minamata loves typing and text parsers, and hope to introduce more players to this wonderfully creative way of gaming. [/p][p][/p][p]Happy Typing![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

One year of The Crimson Diamond!

[p][/p][p]Time flies! It's been one year since The Crimson Diamond launched. Thank you so much to everyone who's played the game, reviewed it, and shared it with friends. [/p][p][/p][p]The game is currently rated Overwhelmingly Positive with 500+ reviews on Steam. It was favourably written about by Rock Paper Shotgun, Kotaku, Polygon, and Ars Technica, among many others. It means a lot to me that something I worked so hard on, and for so long, has been so well-received and appreciated. [/p][p][/p][p]I've planned a bunch of stuff to celebrate the game and to thank players! [/p][p][/p][p]The biggest news is that The Crimson Diamond is a DAILY DEAL for the anniversary day (August 15th)! The game is currently 25% off, the deepest discount EVER. This sale will last for two weeks. For those who haven't bought it, there's no better time! For those who've played it and enjoyed it, no better time to gift it to a friend![/p][p][/p][p]The second biggest news: Not only that, but The Crimson Diamond soundtrack is finally available on Steam! It's available both on its own and bundled with the game! I'm so lucky that Dan Policar composed this music for this project.[/p][p][/p][p]The third biggest news: I designed a thumbprint cookie charm and they're ON SALE NOW. There are two options: 10k gold (not plated!), and sterling silver. They'll only be available to order until September 15, 2025. One production run will happen this year, if it does well I may offer this again in the future. [/p][p][/p][p]Click here to visit the charm shop![/p][p][/p][p]The fourth biggest news: I will be streaming on Twitch at 8pm Eastern on Friday, August 15 for the anniversary. I ordered a special rock candy cake. I'll be giving away The Crimson Diamond Steam keys and Fourthwall merch. I'll stream some of the game and answer questions about its development![/p][p][/p][p]The fifth biggest news: Yes, I will be making a sequel to The Crimson Diamond. I have a bunch of notes and am super excited to jump into development next year. What was I doing this year? Subscribe to the Crimson Gazette to keep up to date on all of my game dev news -- And rock facts![/p][p][/p][p]Thanks again for your support. Releasing The Crimson Diamond was a dream come true![/p]

LudoNarraCon Official Selection / The Crimson Diamond SALE & update!

The Crimson Diamond is an Official Selection of LudoNarraCon, a narrative event hosted by Fellow Traveller! I'm super happy and excited that my game was included. LudoNarraCon is running from May 1-5 and includes demos, discounts, panels, and livestreams from amazing developers!

To celebrate, The Crimson Diamond is 20% off, AND there's a bug-fixing update AND cloud saves! ***The sale runs from May 1-8!***

***NOTE ABOUT CLOUD SAVES***
Your cloud saves will now automatically sync between PCs! However, if you've been playing TCD on multiple PCs in the past, please back up the saves you'd like to keep to make sure you don't lose your progress. Saves are located in C:\Users\YourName\Saved Games\The Crimson Diamond - Full Game v1.0
**********

Visit the site for more details: https://www.ludonarracon.com/
(I'm on a panel!)

Subscribe to the Fellow Traveller newsletter for updates!

Subscribe to the Crimson Gazette for The Crimson Diamond updates!

Me and the TCD testers have been hard at work fixing bugs, thanks to player feedback (see below for patch notes). This update also includes cloud saves! Hopefully this update will be the last for a good, long while. Thank you everyone who has played the game, is playing it now, will play it in the future, and for your lovely reviews if/when you write them.

Long live adventure games!

--Julia

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Patch notes (warning: spoilers)

**Steam Cloud Saves should now be enabled!***
**Chapter 5’s “review” prompts should be clearer and more consistent***

These listed issues should now be fixed:
Feeding Albert almonds when trying to get him thirsty succeeds, but then shows an error along the lines of "you have no almonds".
Outside the cellar door (Northeast exterior corner of lodge) the description given for "LOOK LODGE" is not correct for this location. It mentions that the single door leads to the study and the double-doors lead to the games room. But those rooms are on the NorthWEST corner of the lodge, not the NorthEAST.
If player already knows that Corvus sits at the bench, if the player then examines the shoeprints by the bench, the game DOESN'T recognize that the player has found Corvus' shoeprint
Chapter 5: When fragments are on the table and the player goes outside and behind the smokehouse, the fragments can still be seen on the table
the first door on the left of the ground floor hallway, that leads into the room with the almonds. If you open it hallway side, go in the room, close the door then leave through the other door, go back through the lodge entrance you will find the door is still open hallway side. But it's closed from inside the room, if you walk through the open door you immediately get stuck inside the closed door when in the room. It's not game breaking as you can just simply open the door to make yourself unstuck again.
"I even seen bits of jam!" I've even seen - should be I'm (or I've been) "I've really being run off my feet these days" in part 18-specific
Nathan: as his gaze "as he gaze settles on Nessa" sulk by wheelbarrow - (endings' possibilities) beside "besides her brother" - (He'd say whom, not "who" - him/her "will the courts believe"-like form)
Grammatical error: so were "but so was the lands of Nathan Cardinal's family."
If I enter the room containing the boat house in chapter 5 (like the screen, not the house itself): Albert is there, he says he is meeting someone. Then Nancy walks towards the door. This can't be cancelled. Upon reaching the door, the game crashes with something like: Failed to move character: character not in room. It doesn't seem to matter from which direction I enter the room.
in the innkeeper's bathroom I did TURN ON SINK to turn the sink on, but then TURN OFF SINK it says the bath is already off
Chapter 4: when I tried to put the almonds in the whiskey while Jack was drinking it (don't ask why) and I got a message saying "that wouldn't benefit from dusting.
I first noticed this in the study when I was attempting to search the ransacked desk in chapter 4 - when I did, Nancy walked up to the desk but I didn't get any text prompt or result at all. I've noticed this same behavior when searching other desks, i.e. Nancy walks to them but then no text response occurs. This actually almost made me miss something in chapter 5, where I wasn't able to discover the cigar butt in Albert's room without trying some different inputs.
depending on where you eavesdrop from nessa and corvus are drinking whisky or brandy after dinner. brandy from the dining room, whisky if you're in the hallway.
It all started after climbing the stairs of the barn. I got stuck and couldn't get down because none of the sentences worked (sentences with 'down" were not accepted). But suddenly I was out of the barn and able to play again. At that moment I realized that the character was crossing certain parts of the scenery and also overlapping the scenery when I entered the gardening cabin. As I was able to play, I let it go. The problem got worse when I needed to deliver Margot's food to the boudoir and I couldn't get into the room. I'm trapped in the master suite, and my character can't even access the bathroom in the bedroom.I tried leaving the room and entering again, I also tried an old save, and the bug continues.
I am early in the game in Chapter 1, talking to the guests before dinner. I grabbed the Jordan Almonds from the Parlour and tried giving them to Albert in his room (Servant's Quarters). Nancy goes to give him a drink after he requests it, but the game crashes after he hands the glass back to her.

Similarly, you can turn on the bathroom faucet on the ground floor in Chapter 1 and leave it on. After the next day in Chapter 2, the faucet is still "on", and the sound plays when you enter the room, but graphically, you cannot see the water flow, even after turning it on/off. Personally, I hope you also keep it so that you can leave the water flowing forever, I just find it really amusing to think of Nancy being a jerk and wasting water throughout the entire game.
In Albert's room, when you open the bottom drawer of his wardrobe on the left and leave the room, it is closed again, regardless of if he's there or not. It feels inconsistent since all other drawers in the game tend to stay open.
In the final confrontation, if Nancy moves all the way east past the rock and goes to the table and Nessa's dialogue is triggered, her character is moved to the top layer.
I've noticed in this version that sometimes when an animated sequence gets skipped (by pressing ESC), the game crashes, and the error message points to the "points" sound effect having a null pointer reference. I noticed this with blowing the duck call.
Toggling between Inventory and the other options on the Status Bar duplicates the inventory items in Text-based Inventory mode.
Candles in the dining room no longer provide heat when unlit and will be appropriately described based on lit vs unlit.
Added an Autosave before the player answers yes or no to Professor Plummer's question: "Are there diamonds in Crimson?"
If the player has investigated the jetty thoroughly but forgot to compare fingerprints, they will receive a prompt to do so. If they missed the decanter fingerprint, they will get a prompt to take a closer look at the broken glass on the jetty.
Narrative inconsistency with Nessa's fate if the player gets caught by Corvus in the cave and then answers YES to the professor. In Nathan's epilogue it said she was caught, in Nessa's epilogue it said she was never seen again.
Fixed it so player can't put wax and salt into mug at the same time.
"examine dough" "take dough" and "eat dough" were indicating the thumbprint cookies before Chapter 3
During Ranger quiz, during the second question, Nancy would say she didn't detect Nessa's shoeprints even though the player is required to examine the shoeprints outside the smokehouse to progress.