Hello, dear readers -- Happy March. The first crocuses of spring have bloomed. We made it through another winter! This is always a very welcome sight.

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Steam Spring Sale

Steam's Spring sale is on now, until March 20th. The Crimson Diamond is 20% off.

It's also on itchio and GOG and FireFlower Games.

If you enjoy the game, please leave a review on Steam! It helps so much to increase its visibility on the Steam store. There are approximately 430 reviews so far. Inching ever closer to the very retro-appropriate number of 486.

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The Crimson Diamond was nominated for a DIGY Award, for their "Best Retro" category. It didn't end up winning (UFO 50 did, congrats to them!) but it's always really nice to be nominated.

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Speaking of awards, The Crimson Diamond is also nominated for some AGS Awards. For more details, click here. The Crimson Diamond was nominated for Best Game of the Year, Best Visuals, Best Writing, Best Programming, and Best Gameplay. I love Adventure Game Studio. If you'd like to learn the basics of the engine, I made a tutorial video!

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I'll be in San Francisco soon for GDC. I'll be giving a micro talk (15 minutes). This will be my second time at GDC and my first time giving a talk there. I'm pretty excited about it! More details here.

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RPGFan reviewed The Crimson Diamond and give it an incredible score of 90! Thanks so much, Jonathan Logan. To read the full review, click here. The soundtrack was also reviewed, by Patrick Gann. Read that here.

The Crimson Diamond also got a really nice mention (along with some other Canadian games) in episode #316 of RPGFan's Random Encounter podcast. Give a listen!

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fourthwall store

If you'd like some awesome The Crimson Diamond stickers, hats, t-shirts and more, I have some fun stuff on my Fourthwall store. I particularly like the embroidered items, and they all ship and arrive quite quickly, no matter where you are in the world.

And if you're interested in setting up a Fourthwall store of your own, here's my referral link (I'd get $15 credit :D).
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Livestream VOD round-up. All the streams since last gazette are here:

February 18th stream with developer Marnanel Thurman, February 25th stream with Marnanel , March 4th stream with Marnanel , March 11 art stream.

Crimson C'Tuesday happens every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern on Twitch. Come and hang out.

Marnanel and I finished playing through her game Lord Avalot d'Argent. What a treat, to be joined by her. She was a wonderful guest and I learned so much about the game and about all manner of other things. She may even start streaming herself! Follow her Twitch channel here.

You can follow her on Mastodon and Blue Sky. Here's Marnanel's website.

My completed Let's Plays:

Personal Nightmare (Horrorsoft 1989)

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Rise of the Dragon Let's Play (Dynamix, 1990)

The Sorceror's Appraisal (Yahtzee Croshaw, 2002)

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991)

Mortville Manor (Lankhor, 1987)

Legend of the Sword (Silicon Software, 1988)

Loom (Lucasfilm Games, 1990)

Altered Destiny (Accolade, 1990)

The Dark Convergence (Jeffrey Kintz, 1993)

The Dark Convergence 2 (Jeffrey Kintz, 1994)

High Seas Homicide (Sherwood Forest Software, 1993)

Denarius Avaricius Sextus (Thorsoft of Letchworth,1992)

Earthrise (Interstel, 1990)

Lord Avalot d'Argent (Thorsoft of Letchworth, 1995)

Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess (ERE Informatique, 1989)

Omnicron Conspiracy Let's Play image

The internet can be wonderful sometimes. Steaksy is a hobbyist game dev who has been remaking Omnicron Conspiracy, and he discovered my Let's Play on Youtube. He's been sending me work in progress builds of his remake, including this AWESOME easter egg! I'm now playing his remake version because he's done such a fantastic job improving the design. Here's the playlist for Omnicron Conspiracy .

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Pam of Cannot Be Tamed included The Crimson Diamond in her monthly update! Thanks so much, Pam. :D

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There's a new Pantsmo's Pantaloon Adventure update on evil tentacle's itch.io page! Now with more enpantsified sprites and text-edited for increased pantsfulness. It's free and a true labour of love by evil tentacle, me, and Emmfoolery.

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Thumbprint cookie charm 1

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Garnets are gorgeous! I'm sorry that this month's Mineral Trivia section is less educational, but I'm so excited to show the beautiful custom thumbprint cookie charm me and indie Toronto jeweller Edi (of Cuchara jewelry) designed. I sculpted it in polyer clay, her AutoCAD artist created a 3D model based on it, and then 10k gold was poured into a mould. I love it.

Thumbprint cookies are an important item in The Crimson Diamond, and my mom bakes them every year for the holidays. Having this charm to celebrate both the real cookies and the in-game cookies is very meaningful to me.

Thumbprint cookie 2

The chain gets strung through holes made in the actual charm.

Thumbprint cookie charm 3

I love how chunky it is.

Thumbprint cookie charm 4

There's a hole in the back to help light pass through the stone.

Edi and I are working together to create a silver version of the charm and offering both versions for sale some time in the future. Fingers crossed!

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Jack cross-stitch complete

CRAFT CORNER

Jack is complete! I still have to make Corvus, Professor Plummer, and Ranger Murdoch. All in good time.

Here are the DMC embroidery floss colours I use for the EGA palette:

EGA DMC embroidery floss colours

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holiday card process animated gif

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

I have Patreon and PayPal. Or visit The Crimson Diamond's Steam page to purchase or follow the game. (Steam reviews are super helpful and appreciated!) It's also available on GOG, itchio and FireFlower Games.

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Thanks for reading. Happy March. Spring is here. :)

-- JM