The Crimson Maid News

Leon is the heir of the Rosenthal noble family and a much esteemed pillar of the community. He is married to Catrina and they have two sons, Marius and Remus. Coming from a long line of military figures, Leon himself is a decorated war hero, having fought during the Independence War, along with his brother and father - a general in the Romanian Army. When asked, though, his views on war are not what you'd expect - he abhors the notion completely and has raised his two sons as pacifists, breaking the tradition of his lineage.


Leon was the sole inheritor of the family fortunes, as his brother was disowned after he allegedly committed war crimes during the Independence War. Yet, long before receiving his inheritance, Leon had started a family business with his wife, Catrina - a small stained glass workshop that he grew into a large factory of renowned craftsmanship. After his father's passing and against his will, he split the inheritance with his renegade brother and invested a large part of his half in social projects, such as an orphanage, a school for young girls and a canteen for the poor. He became famous not only for his craft, but also for his generosity and his dedication to the wellbeing of his community.


When Leon retired, his decision was decried by all of his clients and associates. Rumours are that it was not simply age that led to his retirement, but rather a strange illness that overtook his mind. While sympathetic to his condition, it was the general consensus that his successor, his son Remus, couldn't possibly live up to Leon's reputation, both as an artisan and as a fair and skilled businessman. Nor did Remus seem interested in continuing his father's charitable work.

[p][/p][p]We're back from Dev.Play 2025, which was a blast! Good talks, great people, lovely times. During the Indie Festival hosted by the conference and streamed online, The Crimson Maid was voted Most Popular Game, for which we are truly grateful![/p][p][/p][p]We'll post some deep dives into the game's characters soon. We know you're curious about the release date, but we just don't know it yet. We still have three more chapters to implement and we want to take our time to do a final polish and QA pass, so the game will be in good shape when it reaches your screens.[/p][p][/p][p]We hope to have more exciting news soon, so stay tuned and don't forget to wishlist The Crimson Maid![/p]

The Crimson Maid tells a mature story with complex character arcs and motivations. When we set out to write it, we haven't imposed ourselves any artificial boundaries, but rather we defined our characters, their history, their desires, and we let them speak for themselves in shaping the story.

We inevitably reached the question of how hidden we wanted to keep the sexual part of the human experience, especially since our story revolves around romance. We decided it would be a disservice to the narrative to shy away from nudity and sexuality. This is a game in which lust and temptation play a central role. So, yes, in the end, we are going to have a few instances of nudity in the game, particularly breasts and bottocks.


But what do we do about our players who simply don't want to expose themselves to such imagery? We give them the option to blur out any kind of nudity. Simply go to the Options menu and toggle Censor nudity on. Now you can play The Crimson Maid in front of your boss, your mom or your kids. But maybe you shouldn't, this is still a mature game after all, censored nudity or not.


Just so there aren't any funny ideas about what our game is: this is NOT a porn game. There are plenty of those on Steam, quite a few of them make it in the New & Trending list each week, so there is more than enough on offer for those looking for such a game. This is a narrative adventure that tells a story for mature people - also known as grown-ups, but are we really? If you giggle or... other things... when you see a breast, well, I don't know... I guess you can play our game too, no harm done.

Please don't forget to wishlist The Crimson Maid!

We see The Crimson Maid, if we're allowed to be a tad pretentious, as an evolved point-and-click adventure game. You have dialogue trees, exploring, inspecting, finding items, and, of course, puzzles. But our goal is to make a game that is easily played by everyone.

[h2]Playing with the environment[/h2]
To kick off, probably the simplest puzzles in our game are those that rely on basic interaction with the environment, coupled with finding and using items in the right places. Such an interaction can be, for example, finding a coffee pot, filling it with water by interacting with a sink, then placing the pot of water to boil on the stove. These actions help with embodying Marius and to immerse yourself in his surroundings.


[h2]Tactile contraptions[/h2]
We always loved the idea of looking at a box, unable to open it, only to find there is a hidden compartment or a knob on its bottom that unlocks it. And we made a few such boxes in our game too. These are a joy to interact with, spin around and try to figure out how to pull and push their various bits to be able to unlock them.



[h2]A bit of a challenge[/h2]
There are a handful of more difficult puzzles in the game, that require logic and careful observation of more complex systems. We tried our best to make them as intuitive as possible, so that it's easy to understand how they work, but it takes a bit of thinking to figure out the solution. Now rest assured that we aren't talking about puzzles so complex you need a piece of paper at your side and hours of head scratching to solve them. Our goal is, as ever, to immerse you in the world and to get you to feel what Marius would. A bit of a disclaimer though: there is an above average difficulty puzzle, though for that one, Marius, through your choice, can decide to give up and get some help from someone else.


[h2]Optional ceramic puzzles[/h2]
As shown before, you can also find these puzzles made of interchangeable ceramic tiles in the game. These are completely optional, and act more like a distraction. Or do they? Could they have another purpose? In any case, one thing we want to make clear: these are not puzzles with sliding tiles. I think there are only three people in the world who like those and neither of us in the team is one of them. No sliding was involved in the making of this game, only swapping.


That's what the puzzle solving side consists of in The Crimson Maid. I suppose one could say that figuring out and collecting everything is sort of a puzzle in its own way, but let's not count that. We want to reassure you that this is meant to be an accessible game, easily approachable by visual novel or walking sim fans - it has significantly more game mechanics than those genres, yet is not a traditional point-and-click game. It is, first and foremost, a narrative driven game and everything is there to support the story.

So don't be afraid to click around to learn how everything works and reacts. It's not like you have a needle in your arm and you're pulling blood from your vein. It's just pixels on a screen. :)

Please don't forget to wishlist the game!

Reboot Develop 2025 is over, leaving behind good memories of fun times, friendly people and insightful talks. Showcasing your game to the public is always a good idea, as it leads to valuable feedback and potential collaborations.

Everyone was excited to hear we're nearing the release of The Crimson Maid - but not as much as we are, of course! And they had the chance to try out our new demo featuring acts 3 and 4 from the game. We will include these in the Steam demo as well, sometime in the future.

Since we love adventure games so much, we wanted to highlight a few cool games that caught our eye during the conference. Check them out and give them a wishlist!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2879840/Escape_Simulator_2/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1519180/President_Rocket_Game/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2475620/Misgiven/