Game 21: The Crimson Diamond

Now there's a graphics format I've not seen in a long, long time.

Nancy Maple, our heroine, is straight-up red.

The Enhanced Graphics Adapter, or EGA, allowed an application to select 16 colors from a palette of 64 options. The technology came out in 1984 and for around 5 years it was the best we had available.

Just because it was the best at the time doesn't make it good, and even though this game looks like it's a relic from the late 80's, The Crimson Diamond actually released last year in 2024. So this look was entirely by choice. I'm not opposed to older games or games that choose to emulate older styles for their artistic merit, but EGA, man... I'm not sitting back here pining for those days.

The story thus far is that Nancy Maple works for a newsroom in Canada and some fisherman up north in Ontario caught a fish that had a huge diamond in it. Sensing a story, Nancy convinced her editor to send her up here on a train to investigate further.

She immediately loses her luggage on the train after falling asleep during the ride.

Unfortunately when we arrive we meet a man named Jack who tells us that the Crimson lodge where we were planning on staying has closed, but since the train left we have nowhere else to go. He gives Kimi, myself and Albert (who was the only person he intended to pick up) a ride to the lodge but says that Kimi and I are headed back to the train station in the morning.

I suspect events will not play out that way.

The Crimson Diamond is a text parser game in the vein of some of the old Sierra Kings Quest or Police Quest games - you can use the mouse to walk around but to interact with things you have to type in commands like 'Talk to Jack' and 'Look in closet' (also not something I'm pining for!).

The game is not being subtle about what I should do next.

So we're off the train and in the town of Crimson (thus the 'Crimson' part of diamond may refer to the location it was discovered rather than its color as I assumed) and I'm staying at a lodge. Let's go around and meet folks and re-kindle those decades-old memories of how to navigate a game by typing through it.

The text parser is pretty standard, I'll admit I was hoping for something a little more free-form but this game is seeking to emulate the entire era pretty closely - basic commands like 'look', 'search' and 'take' work but most commands you think up simply don't work. There are a couple canned 'Can't do this' responses to things like 'Yell' - ladies, apparently, 'do not raise their voices'.

I found an mostly-legible map of the lodge.

In a nod to more modern games however, this one has a notebook which effectively tracks your next tasks and keeps tabs of what you've done so far, which probably means I won't need to keep my own notes to the side for this game.

A welcome change from the days of yore where you were in trouble if you couldn't remember what you were supposed to do next.

I walk around the lodge and meet some of the people staying here. I could be rifling through a bunch of empty rooms and trying to take anything not nailed down, but for now I'm choosing to be a courteous houseguest and not steal everything yet - there will be time enough for that later, I'm sure.

Nathan Cardinal seems to be the indigenous sort.

A couple locations prompted me about 'heading voices in the next room' and I've figured out that I can either 'listen at door' or 'eavesdrop', leading to a couple scenes like this:

Nancy is ecstatic to be listening in on someone else's conversation.

There's definitely more going on here than meets the eye, these two are discussing someone's recent death and how they might profit from it, but I'm not sure who died.

Way to introduce yourself to another human being Nessa, what a bitch!

To my delight I found a bathroom and discovered that I could remove my clothing in order to take a shower.

Seems like a reasonable course of action after a long train ride.

To my horror I discovered that that showering immediately gets you murdered by a psycho.

Yes this scene does have the music from the Hitchcock movie.

I'm simultaneously happy that you can die in this game and I won't be trying to avoid it because it's a fun scene, so Nancy may be in for a bad time in this playthrough. Also I'm happy to report that there are autosaves. It IS pretty strange that someone would just murder me, I've basically just said 'Hi' to a few people and right now the guy that brought us here from the train station, Jack, says he plans to take myself and Kimi (a woman I met on the train) back to the train station tomorrow as the lodge has been shut down and currently isn't officially servicing customers and there's nowhere else to stay. Wouldn't it make more sense to just let me leave? In any case, I've gone around the lodge and met folks, here's our cast so far:

Evan Richards is the owner of the Crimson lodge. He's not happy about the diamond discovery because he likes things quiet and now everyone is showing up here. He had just recently shut down the lodge as a business. Nathan Cardinal appears to be was polite enough but I'm not sure what his deal is except that he's Evan's friend.

Albert Respa is a minerologist (Nancy is one too) who claims to be sent here from Antwerp to investigate the diamond discovery. He arrived on the train with myself and Kimi and feels like a posh aristocrat.

Kimi Kishiro is a woman who sat next to me on the train and wanted to come here to watch birds, so far she's been pining to see cormorants.

Nessa Crabbe is Evan's older sister and a greedy bitch. Ok, I don't know if she's really greedy, but definitely a bitch.

Corvus Shaw is a lawyer working with Nessa who believes there are diamonds on the property and wants to ensure she 'gets her share'. Jack is possibly a former / current employee of the lodge? He arrived at the train station to pick up Albert and ended up giving both Kimi and me a ride when he realized that we were basically stranded there for the night. And finally there's Margot, a glamorous woman who's at least 10-20 years younger than Evan but still his girlfriend. I ain't sayin' she's a diamond digger...

The guests gather for dinner and Nathan relates a story about how the land here used to belong to various tribes but the government annexed it 50 years ago for promises that weren't honored. The only item I've acquired so far are a couple Jordan almonds I stole from Nessa's candy bowl. The game does not have a high opinion of this treat and keeps referring to them derisively.

I try to give some to Jack and he reveals an interesting fact about Evan being allergic to nuts....

I listen in on a conversation with Nessa and she reveals an unfortunate habit of hers.

Note to self: Get her drunk ASAP.

My efforts to start raiding the house for objects are frustrated by some in-game restrictions - I can get a saucepan from the kitchen for instance, but Nancy declares that she will only use it in the kitchen and returns it when I leave the room. This makes me less inclined to try and raid every room for stuff (and I'm honestly grateful that it seems I'm less likely to end up in object hell from carrying too many things around).

After dinner I knew from an earlier eavesdropped conversation that Evan and Nathan were going to talk about something in the Study. I tried to listen in on them but I couldn't hear them through the door, and when I opened it they stopped talking. Later on they left the study so I realize that I can miss a conversation if I'm not careful, so I've reloaded an earlier save and have scoured the house to find more items, I got a hint from 'ask Evan about listening' that a drinking glass could help me here. Searching the house definitely made me dislike using the text interface, it's a process of walking next to an object, typing 'O cupboard' to open it, then 'S cupboard' to actually look inside it, and then repeating that for every searchable thing in a room. My efforts yielded some adhesive tape, a mug, and the drinking glass that I needed. My efforts let me learn that Evan has agreed to give this land back to Nathan's people upon his death, that's nice of him. They're concerned that the discovery of diamonds could complicate that.

There's plenty of intrigue already, I've successfully eavesdropped on several conversations now.

Corvus says that he and Nessa may do something drastic if they can't find the will.

And Jack and Margot are doing... something private together, but it doesn't quite sound like an affair.

In the morning, when I'm about to be driven by Jack back to the train station, I overhear Evan offering to pay off Albert to abandon his search and not look for diamonds on the property. Albert doesn't go for it.

Jack drives Kimi and me back to the train station to find that the rail bridge into town has been blown up - looks like we're stuck here after all! Nancy returns to the lodge and declares that she needs to find tools that were lost with her luggage so she can start working on what she came here to do - conduct her own survey of the area to look for diamonds. While searching for those, I find a telegraph fragment that Jack and Evan were discussing - someone wired them about the demolition of the bridge. They're not happy about it.

Death number 2! Fell down a waterfall.

Death number 3 - even without the waterfall present turns out I can't swim. At all. It took me awhile to find a pick, which turns out to be an ice pick that was stuck in a block of ice. Nice going guys, real catch-22 there.

Collecting samples wasn't too bad, though every rock in the area I wanted to collect from was populated by people who didn't want me collecting any. (Well, I AM a minerologist - guess it's my job to stare at rocks!) Albert I get, he was working on a rock and didn't want me also working on it, but Kimi was protecting an entire cliff of cormorants from being disturbed.

I got rid of Kimi by tricking her into chasing a non-existent duck.

And the Jordan almonds made short work of Albert as the little snack had him running for the kitchen for some more food. While he was gone someone stole his field kit - guess I'm the only minerologist in town until he gets another one from Belgium! I got the samples and was able to scratch some minerals and conclude that I might have found diamonds but I need better materials to test them to be sure. Still, not bad for a day's work! Back at the lodge, there's a whole box of flypaper missing and it uses Arsenic. Margot has not been feeling well today, so I wonder....

Ah well, dinnertime! Margot doesn't make it down so after dinner Jack has me bring a bowl up to her. I eavesdrop as Nessa brings her a pitcher of water and find out that Nessa remembers Margot from a place called Skagway, and apparently she was a wanted criminal at the time. Nessa threatens to expose her.

Margot is having none of it and threatens Nessa right back.

After that there's a commotion as someone smashes a curio cabinet and Nessa notices that her ruby brooch is missing. Nancy is very excited to solve these crimes even though it entails helping Nessa.

But do I have to help Nessa here? Bitch can find her own brooch!

Moments later I've stolen Margot's powder makeup tin, combined with the adhesive tape I stole earlier I'm ready to find and catch the thief who's going around stealing things. The ways to obtain people's fingerprints are varied and interesting, some people will just let you take them voluntarily just by asking. Others (Kimi) are reluctant so you have to resort to ulterior means, such as putting ice in their hot tea to cool it down and then offering to refill their tea and then pouring soot on it so you can see and extract their prints from the cup and then refilling the tea and giving them back the mug but forgetting to clean the soot off so you make their hands dirty anyways sorry Kimi. Jack is baking thumbprint cookies and doesn't want his hands soiled, so I have to take a raw cookie and do something with it to get his. For Evan I just have to play Billiards very badly so I can pilfer the cue ball that he touched. I'm currently still stuck on how to get a fingerprint off a raw cookie. For basically everything else I had to get someone to touch something but even though there's a print on this I can't just apply soot and pull the print from tape to get it, the game is implying that I need to find some way to make an impression of it. Jack's done making cookies so I wish he'd just volunteer his damn prints!

You are NOT busy, you're just sitting there drinking out of a cup!

I want to mention that the text parser in this game leaves something to be desired - inexplicably to me it disallows the use of the word 'use', which is really a nice catch-all for deciding you want to try to use an item on something or someone. And when it comes to checking out objects there's three separate verbs that all do different things - 'look', 'search', and 'examine', and often one of the three does nothing so I'm not sure why you wouldn't want to just consolidate them into one or two options. You can't repeat commands so each attempt needs to be typed out (albeit thankfully with shortcuts, but even so, 'l cupboard', 's cupboard' gets pretty tedious.) While trying to figure it out though I stumbled on something - I ended up dissolving some salt and water in a saucepan (Yes I'm trying lots of things on this damn cookie) and I found that not all the salt dissolved, it left behind some minerals that aren't salt.

I don't think this is related to the fingerprint stuff but I'll be curious to follow up on this.

Aha! Finally solved the cookie thing. I was tempted to look it up or try the game's hint book (Asking people about the raw cookie got me nowhere - the game has a nice feature where if you ask people about items sometimes they'll tell you where it is or how to use it), but I'm glad I didn't because I stumbled on the mineral discovery.

This did not work but I was on the right track.

I ended up with a frozen wax-filled cookie and just needed to safely extract the wax, and I really didn't expect 'Eat cookie' to work here but it did.... surely there are other ways to solve this bit of the puzzle?

No solution is more delicious than mine! Mmm, frozen wax cookie.....

Having obtained all the fingerprints, I compare them to the ones taken from the crime scenes and find that Margot is the culprit. I confront her and she admits to taking the brooch to get at Nessa and the silver steins to protect them from her. And then... Margot dies! Right in front of me!

She's not handling this well.

Murder! Murder most foul! I suspect the flypaper and arsenic are at work here...

Jack and Evan take her body down to the root cellar while Evan mourns. I decide to conduct an autopsy - I'm not just a minerologist, I'm also a police detective.

Now wishing I knew what the symptoms of arsenic poisoning were. For uh... for the game, of course.

Overhearing Nessa, it sounds like she's not surprised that Margot died and the timing is apparently 'inconvenient'. She's the only one I know of that brought Margot water. Ah yep, she definitely poisoned Margot.

Like... we're done here right guys? We got her?

Nancy's a little slow on the uptake.

That's one way to look at a murder discussion I suppose.

Meanwhile, I caught Jack and Nathan grabbing stones off the bank of the river and hiding them in the smokehouse - I think these are the minerals that I accidentally discovered earlier. So the river is depositing... something... and they don't want people to know about it. You definitely want to save frequently, at one point in this chapter I wandered into the dining room which instantly ended it. Reloaded game, I know there's more to do here! I feel like you can potentially go through this game and discover very little and I'm sure I've missed a couple conversations by now.

Also, finally found that the 'spacebar' key DOES repeat your last command. Wish I'd known that much earlier!

Turns out Margot had a special little 'medicine' kit that dispensed arsenic.

Jack and Margot's fingerprints are on this, this is what I heard them using earlier. While there's no 'safe' dose of arsenic I suspect Margot was using this 'safely' and then Nessa's dose put her into lethal territory. Also, I ended up losing my rope because I tied it around this tree and apparently 'used too many knots' and I can't possibly get it back.

There it shall stay, forever.

Jack returns to the lodge after reporting Margot's death with a new guy in tow, Ranger Murdoch - Jack says he should investigate Margot's death as a 'cover' to why he's really here. I talk to Jack about Margot's kit and the conversation I overheard with Nessa, plus the jam jar of arsenic I found that Nessa tossed in the river. Jack admits to using the kit but didn't intentionally overdose Margot, and we've got a strong case against Nessa. So strong that I confront Nessa with the evidence.

Admit it, murderer!

That... was a mistake. Corvus overheard the conversation and he's not opposed to an additional murder to cover their tracks.

At least kill me in an original way, I've done this before!

At dinner, before I get a chance to tell the ranger about a murder, I get concerned about where Evan is. I go to where I saw him by the river and it looks like he was dragged away. Nathan also didn't make it to dinner. Hmm....

This time there's a shoeprint besides signs of an altercation, so now I need to find everyone's shoe size. Also maybe I can tell the ranger about the murder? How was that not a more pressing issue than wandering around outside trying to find a guy that didn't show up for dinner?

I've now encountered the Ranger twice and he's off to somewhere else in the house right away before I can type 'Tell Ranger About Murder'.

On the plus sign this seems like a very plausible reason for Evan to be missing.

I finally catch up with the ranger and tell him everything about Margot and Murdoch promises he'll 'Look into it'. Thanks Ranger, you've been a big help.

Our Ranger is not feeling the urgency that the moment requires.

He's uninterested in theories about Evan being dragged off and shrugs, saying the guy's drunk and probably just wandered off. On the plus side Nathan has been looking for Evan and he and Jack are more receptive to my investigation of his disappearance. After carefully considering the evidence from a raspberry jam cookie and some Jordon almonds I conclude that Evan has clearly been taken to the old Garnet mines. Yes, that's a sentence that now exists, thanks Crimson Diamond.

Definitely the first game I've played where Jordon almonds are heavily featured.

Nathan and Jack grab the Ranger and get ready to head to the mines. Before I attempt to convince them to let me tag along, first I have the opportunity to explore the house... and boy do I discover some things! For one, I found Nessa's stolen brooch! Margot mentioned it was in this closet just before she died but I couldn't find it then.

This very much annoyed me because I specifically searched all these hats right after Margot's death and didn't find it at the time.

Albert was storing things that a 'minerologist' doesn't normally need, like bullets and dynamite, plus he had a telegram for 'Karl L.' in his trash saying 'Good job in Crimson'. I think Albert blew up the bridge. Also Albert warned me to stay away from Kimi before he left. If Albert is some sort of agent or spy then I suspect that Kimi might be a rival spy, and this spy stuff might be the real reason Ranger Murdoch is here too - I caught him rifling through Albert's belongings. Seems like everyone's got some ulterior motive going on, with the possible exception of Evan. It occurs to me that it might have been Albert that blew up the bridge, though I'm not sure why. And he probably stole my luggage on the train so that I wouldn't catch on to his BS minerology cover!

Nancy is appalled at the notion of blowing up her beloved rocks.

In keeping with it's EGA predecessors, Crimson Diamond has no music for most of its scenes, so you're walking around in silence. And you know what? I really miss having music when I'm playing a game. The silence gives it an eerie quality. Unfortunately Albert / Karl stole the nicer car so we have to ride in Nathan's car and it's... something.

It's almost as a big as a riding mower.

I relate everything I found out about Albert / Karl and his likely plan to blow up the Soo Locks and Ranger Murdoch decides to take Nathan to go head out to deal with that after dropping Jack and I off to find Evan at the mines. The mine entrance has collapsed, possibly on purpose. I start trying to futz around with dynamite to blow it open when I see in my inventory that the ruby brooch has been scratched by something else in my pocket

I love this as a clue, I just happened to look at the brooch.

I find that the sample I took from the river as well as some fragments from the salt that didn't dissolve can indeed scratch the Ruby and are thus likely diamonds. Ok, back to trying to blow stuff up. Oddly, the game pops up a disclaimer specifically for this part.

You should pretty much treat all media this way for everything.

Yeah I'm good, I assure you I'm not ending up in the Darwin awards for trying to repeat something I saw in an EGA text parser game.

Within the game, however...

Sorry Nancy the death scenes are just fun to watch.

My efforts yield a Nancy-sized hole in the rubble and I squeeze in, leaving Jack behind. Just inside the garnet mines, I make the discovery of a lifetime (yes I know Evan is in trouble but I'm sure he'll be patient and wait until I've tested the stuff I found in this cave). A red crystal that Nancy initially assumed is a garnet is actually much harder.

It is indeed a Crimson Diamond! It's slightly redder than a human being!

After making the discovery of a lifetime I immediately ended that life by accidentally wandering off a cliff for Death number 5 - it's dark down here!

This place is dangerous! Death 6.

I found Evan! He's still alive. Nessa and Corvus have him tied up and are trying to get him to sign the will they wrote for him. Nessa promises to kill him quickly if he signs and let him starve here if he doesn't... geez Nessa, that's some real dark shit.

The legal term for this is 'Under Duress'.

I am able to distract Corvus and he winds up outside of the room behind a rockslide. Now to deal with Nessa. Personally I'm very prepared to inflict violence upon her but that's not in Nancy's nature. She walks her own path.

The path is to seize a hostage, and the hostage is a lamp.

One thing leads to another and Nessa ends up hanging off the edge of a cliff.

These mines really are obscenely dangerous.

At this point I embrace the better angels of Nancy's nature and pull Nessa back up rather than stomp those old fingers. I want to tie Nessa up at that point but Nancy simply expresses regret that there may be an item back at the lodge that would be suitable (Hey Nancy how about the damn rope you couldn't untie from the tree?!?), and Nessa escapes.

I rescue Evan and we sit tight until Jack and the Ranger come rescue us. They dig Corvus out of the rubble and arrest him but Nessa is nowhere to be found. Back at the train station the Ranger reveals that he works for a different law enforcement agency. Great cover, man. Thanks to my detective work they caught Albert / Karl red handed trying to destroy Canadian infrastructure before he did any more damage.

They caught that German bastard!

So other than Nessa escaping at the end I think things went pretty well. There's a bedtime wrap-up questionnaire for you to decide what you think was going on with everyone, and then you get a nice chat with your remaining companions in the morning.

Nathan comes clean about their efforts to hide diamonds when confronted. Respect.

And then finally on the train ride home you get the option to reveal what you missed via Nancy's introspection as well as some hints as to how to find out if you were to replay the game.

The goddamn almonds are somehow MORE important than I already thought?

You get one last choice at the end - do you reveal that there are diamonds in Crimson? There certainly are, but Nathan, Jack and Evan all like the quiet life - they don't want Crimson to be put on the map, and they're the only people who live there right now.

On the other hand, someone's bound to figure this out eventually and get the credit. Damnit, Nancy wants to be a reporter, so let's get the truth out there!

Let the chips fall where they may!

The resulting government buyout of the land and strip mining of Crimson pretty much ruins the lives of all the remaining characters, so after all that it more or less ended up the way it would have if Nessa had won. Oops. At least I contributed to the war effort! My final thought on the game is that while I'm not a fan of the choice to make a game that resembles a more technologically limited era, it's still well made and well written and is thus still a good game. Overall I enjoyed it but I'll be happily moving onto something that doesn't require me to type everything I want to do.