The Crimson Diamond is a wonderful EGA-like graphic adventure game for 2024

In my mind, this image is slowly drawing into place, with the text arriving last. (credit: Julia Minamata)

A text parser? Typing in “Open drawer,” then “Look in drawer,” then “Take brochures,” in the year 2024, on a computer that can generate a 4K 3D model of the Acropolis if I ask it to? Is that really what The Crimson Diamond asks of us?

Yes, it is, and solo developer/writer/producer Julia Minamata is right to ask it. If you have text-prompt adventures from the likes of Sierra in your mental library (like, say, The Colonel’s Bequest), or if you’re willing to meet the parser halfway, it will work. The Crimson Diamond’s parser is fairly agile, accepting a range of nouns and verbs in most circumstances. You can still use arrow keys and a mouse to move and click a few useful shortcuts. And the parser has shortcuts, like typing “n” to look at your quest-tracking notebook or “o d” or “o c” for the very common actions of opening a door or cabinet.

There are a lot of cabinets and drawers in this game because it’s set in northern Ontario, Canada, in 1914. You are Nancy Maple, a junior geologist eager for some field work, sent by your museum to the mining town of Crimson to investigate a diamond that fell out of a river fish’s guts. Everything goes wrong with your trip, and you’re on your own to investigate this town, its odd inhabitants and visitors, and, eventually, a crime that may or may not have to do with potential diamonds.