The Crimson Diamond on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Follow amateur geologist and reluctant detective Nancy Maple to the ghost town of Crimson, Ontario to investigate the discovery of a massive diamond in this retro-inspired, EGA text parser mystery adventure!
The Crimson Diamond is a adventure, mystery and indie game
developed and published by Julia Minamata.
Released on August 15th 2024 is available in English on Windows and MacOS.
It has received 541 reviews of which 530 were positive and 11 were negative resulting in an impressive rating of 9.1 out of 10. 😍
The game is currently priced at 12.49€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified The Crimson Diamond into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at The Crimson Diamond through various videos and screenshots.
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows Vista or later
- Processor: Pentium or higher 1.2 GHz
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Storage: 250 MB available space
MacOS
- OS: macOS 10.14 and newer
- Processor: Intel and Apple Silicon
- Storage: 237 MB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Not just a love letter to classic adventure games, but a really clever and charming game in its own right. I grew up on text parser games and I still have a massive soft spot for them, so any game that actually goes to the trouble of including one in today's modern gaming landscape is pretty much guaranteed to get my attention. But the text parser in the game goes above and beyond what you might expect. It's designed in such a way that it pays attention to context like where exactly you're standing in a room, or what you have or have not accomplished so far in the game, and responds accordingly. It understands a huge variety of words and is very smart about figuring out what you're trying to do (a little TOO smart, in some cases, as it can sometimes overcompensate for user error and accidentally reveal things you might not have been looking for). The one thing it very intentionally does NOT understand is the verb "use", which I think is a stroke of genius. No, you don't get to fall back on a generic command--you have to be specific! This game is so smart, in fact, that it's easy to overlook things--which is part of the fun, because it's a mystery game. There's a ton of stuff to investigate and figure out, and there's no shame in not finding all of it. I'm a pretty detail-oriented person, but my first time through I somehow managed to completely miss an entire line of investigation revolving around the fate of one of the characters, which caused me such distress (because I liked that character so much) that I immediately had to restore to an earlier save point and redo a large chunk of the game to correct my mistake. And let me tell you, it paid off in the end. Add to that the absolutely stunning EGA art, lots of really interesting and well-researched information about a large number of subjects, and a cast of characters you'll either love or love to hate, and you've got yourself an intriguing, satisfying, and very replayable gem of a game. Yes, pun intended.
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I'll start off by saying I love the artstyle, the story is pretty great, and I love the characters. I mostly had a good time playing this game, and in general, if you like the sort of retro point-and-click investigation games you'll probably like it too. But I do have some qualms with the text system. While it was a novelty at first, and it's probably one of the main draws of the game, I honestly thought it got old pretty fast. You can only type "open door" or "open drawer" or "open cabinet" so many times before it gets tiring. I think there is value in emulating a pure text-based adventure game, but at the same time, I wouldn't have minded some QoL options to open doors or drawers, pick up items, or do simple tasks by clicking with your mouse rather than typing everything out every time. I understand there are shorter versions of commands such as 'od' for opening doors, but it still felt redundant and repetitive at times. Because the game is a middle of the road between a text-based adventure game and a point-and-click game, it's in this weird space where there are visuals for every room, but many times the visuals aren't very clear or explicit because you're supposed to type "look room" every time you enter a room. In short, it can get very obtuse and frustrating to find new clues visually when they're only like 3 pixels tall - it's basically the same problem as pixel hunting from old point-and-click games, and there's a good reason a lot of newer point-and-click games have more clear indicators of what is interactible and what isn't. And while the problem is 'solved' by typing "look room", it's annoying to do that every single time you enter a room you've already been in to check if a pixel changed since last time or not. Also, and this applies mainly to the last few acts of the game, at certain points the game gets really particular about *how* you're supposed to type certain things, and it got pretty frustrating to try and figure out the exact wording to do certain things. So I guess my main critique is that the middle-of-the-road approach didn't really click for me, and I would probably have enjoyed the game a lot more if it had commited more to one direction. The visuals are gorgeous and I love the art style, so it would be a waste if it was purely text-based. Which makes me think it would have been better as a more traditional point-and-click game with less or no text-based stuff. That all being said, I still enjoyed it, and I'd recommend it if you're a fan of the genre and visual style.
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Emulates the old games perfectly, and in doing so is complicit in their crimes. I respect it! But I'm not any good at it.
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I'm giving this a yes but it is a very, very tepid yes. I would say for people who were not immediately attracted by the color palette (EGA), this is going to be a no. This is a classic adventure game - in the positive and negative way. The graphics are primitive but that means real creativity needed to be put into them to make the visuals tell a story. It's exceptionally well done. The music, what little there is, is serviceable. The characters are straight out of a classic whodunnit movie ... or Scooby-Doo episode. Stylistically there is nothing wrong with this game, I love that part of the game being an 80's child and having grown up with all of the games. It's Sierra-inspired, so there are deaths. Only a few of them. Some obvious, some kind of dumb. That might be strike one for a lot of people, adventure games with deaths are not everyone's cup of tea. But they're more of an in-joke than a game mechanic really. The game even challenges you to collect all of them. What grinds my gears is the fact that you can actually miss large chunks of this game. You are invited to explore off the beaten path (as in if the game tells you to go somewhere or do something, you are free to ignore that and go everywhere else first) - but the game doesn't actually have all that many screens in it, "off the beaten path" can often mean going back to a screen you just left. Other characters in the game kind of teleport around to where the script tells them they need to be. A shame that this design choice was made. I do not like to drink tea with a large chance to miss the biscuit, I need them both for full enjoyment. The game itself isn't all too long - and that can mean only one thing, it has artificial padding like many old games that needed to fit on a single floppy disk (an excuse the Crimson Diamond does not have). Lucasarts games tended to include maze sections for example where you would get royally stuck because every room looked the same. It's not fun... it's just runtime padding, wasting your time in the hopes that you do not realize the game actually effectively only has an hour or two worth of content. Similarly, puzzles in the Crimson Diamond can be quite obtuse to make it so you're going to be stuck not knowing what to do - and no way to really find out besides a hint book and just randomly trying things. As an example in chapter 3 you need to obtain fingerprints and you need to get one from a cookie (that's no spoiler, the game telegraphs at you that it is a thumbprint cookie)... good luck. It's not moon logic but it is equally insane what you have to do. Perhaps if I was more in touch with my inner child, I might have figured it out myself. But on that particular puzzle... I really needed a walkthrough. What a downer. I love that this was made, I hope to see more. It hits my nostalgia bone quite hard. But this isn't quite it just yet. I hope to see a second game with the same protagonist, this time with more than 2 hours of content so the puzzles can be slightly more refined.
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A really excellent mystery adventure. I almost avoided it because i didn't grow up playing any of the text-interaction adventure games growing up, they were slightly before my time. However it was actually just a really fun and dynamic way to interact, i learned alot playing it. I assumed I wouldn't enjoy such a finicky system and I'll admit it wasn't 100% perfect but overall being able to directly input written commands felt really free and dynamic. It was very immersive and the mystery itself is surprisingly complex, 10/10
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Frequently Asked Questions
The Crimson Diamond is currently priced at 12.49€ on Steam.
The Crimson Diamond is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 12.49€ on Steam.
The Crimson Diamond received 530 positive votes out of a total of 541 achieving an impressive rating of 9.08.
😍
The Crimson Diamond was developed and published by Julia Minamata.
The Crimson Diamond is playable and fully supported on Windows.
The Crimson Diamond is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
The Crimson Diamond is not playable on Linux.
The Crimson Diamond is a single-player game.
There is a DLC available for The Crimson Diamond. Explore additional content available for The Crimson Diamond on Steam.
The Crimson Diamond does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
The Crimson Diamond does not support Steam Remote Play.
The Crimson Diamond is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for The Crimson Diamond.
Data sources
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 03 September 2025 16:21 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 04 September 2025 17:09 |
| Steam price | 14 September 2025 04:48 |
| Steam reviews | 13 September 2025 03:47 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about The Crimson Diamond, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about The Crimson Diamond
- SteamCharts - Analysis of The Crimson Diamond concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck The Crimson Diamond compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
3
Developer
Julia Minamata
Publisher
Julia Minamata
Release
15 Aug 2024
Platforms