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!
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Evaluation
The Crimson Diamond launched on August 15, 2024 as a complete mystery adventure game. Following launch, Julia Minamata shipped several patches addressing bugs and adding quality-of-life improvements, culminating in a substantial update on May 1, 2025 that added cloud saves — a post that noted this update would hopefully be "the last for a good, long while." The only DLC is a standalone soundtrack released August 15, 2025, which has shipped.
On the two-year anniversary post dated August 16, 2026, Julia mentioned she is working on a small prequel game called "The Deadly Bluff: A Mini-Maple Mystery" — a separate new project, not additional content for The Crimson Diamond. The one-year anniversary post (August 15, 2025) also confirmed a sequel is planned as a separate game. Neither of these represents unshipped content for The Crimson Diamond itself.
The game has no unreleased DLC, no announced future content for the base game, and the developer's own posts consistently signal that the game is content-complete. The August 2026 post focuses on anniversary celebrations, physical merchandise (a commemorative game manual and big box edition), and the developer's next separate project. The Crimson Diamond itself is a finished product.
Evidence
Two-year anniversary post celebrates the game, offers a minor bug-fix patch, and announces a separate prequel mini-game ('The Deadly Bluff') in development. No new content announced for The Crimson Diamond itself.
The Crimson Diamond is an EGA text parser mystery adventure game where you play as amateur geologist and reluctant detective Nancy Maple. Nancy is born and raised in Toronto, Canada, where she works as a clerk for the Royal Canadian Museum. She dreams of attending university to study geology and mineralogy, and she's prepared to venture into the unknown to achieve her goals!
Follow Nancy as she travels north to the ghost town of Crimson, Ontario to investigate the discovery of a massive diamond in the area. Eavesdrop on conversations to learn more about the eccentric cast of characters who find themselves gathered at Crimson Lodge. Explore the lodge and its environs to evaluate the diamond claim, and maybe solve a mystery or two along the way! The Crimson Diamond is a cozy mystery that encourages reading and engaging in the story over devious arcade challenges.
-------------------------------------------- If you love the old murder mystery games like the Laura Bow Mystery Series, you will enjoy this game by Julia Minamata – The Crimson Diamond. The art style will give you that sentimental feel of the first Laura Bow Mystery, The Colonel’s Bequest. If you relish the nostalgia of the ‘old games’ -- perhaps taking you back to your childhood – this game will do it for you! It has the requisite feel of an Agatha Christie novel, set in the early 20th century. It even has a parser interface, so that you can question the other characters that you meet, develop your hunches, and write your notes along the way . It’s an observational, detective-type of game, and for those who love mysteries and suspense, you should really give this game a chance. To coin an old phrase: It’s the ‘bee’s knees!’
Roberta Williams – Director & writer of The Colonel’s Bequest, co-founder of Sierra On-Line --------------------------------------------
- Explore Crimson Lodge and the surrounding wilderness - Listen and talk to a cast of characters with different personalities and motivations. - Uncover secrets, discover hidden areas, solve mysteries!
