Indiepocalypse Radio - Episode 0143: Keenardo and Julia Minamata

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991)

High Seas Homicide (Sherwood Forest Software, 1993)

Denarius Avaricius Sextus (Thorsoft of Letchworth,1992)

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

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

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me at the Natural History museum image

Here's me in front of a spectacular hunk of rock with tons of giant garnets embedded in it. This was at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Nancy Maple's not the only rockhound! This was a must-visit for me.

Natural History museum exterior image

Here's the musem's exterior. Kinda sci-fi, I love it.

Natural History Museum interior

The interior is also kinda sci-fi. Gorgeous.

Butterflies at Natural History Museum

The butterfly vivarium was recommended to me, so I visited that first. It's on the third floor and is an enclosed space that is full of hundreds of butterflies of immense variety. They fly all about the space land on you, and it's enchanting.

Butterfly coccoons

There is a pupae incubation area too, and I was amazed at the variety of cocoons on display. Butterflies were in the process of hatching, which is always magical to see.

Museum crystals

The gems and minerals area started off with this display of frankly startlingly large quartz crystals. It's the Yurman Family Crystallline Pass, and it became an exhibit here just last year. If the name Yurman is familiar to you, it's because jeweller David Yurman is using quartz from the area this display was extracted from (in Arkansas) to create jewellry for his collections.

Museum's octohedral diamond

This display of an octohedral diamond crystal pleased me very much. If you've played The Crimson Diamond, it may look familiar.

The Crimson Diamond Diamond diamond

Museum elbaite

Massive Elbaite.

Museum Fluorite

Different colours of fluorite.

Musuem garnet mine info

Crimson, Ontario has a very similar history to this garnet mine in upstate New York. Jeweller Henry Hudson Barton learned about a garnet source in the Adirondacks in the 1850s. The garnets were used as abrasives, and the mining continued until 1982.

This exhibit was in the gems and minerals area, what a pleasant surprise for me! It's called "Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry".It opened in May and will be up until January.

New York building

More beautiful buildings.

New York Church

New York Food truck

On Dan's recommendation, I ate at one of the many NYC food trucks that look like this. I got lamb on rice and it was very delicious and a good portion for a good price. I will also recommend these trucks.

Francisco and Jess

No NYC trip is complete without paying a visit to Francisco González (right), developer of Lamplight City and currently working on Rosewater, a wild west adventure game, with his partner Jess (middle). Wishlist Rosewater!

I met up with them at Wonderville, an indie game bar and arcade in Brooklyn. It was a lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed facing off against Jess in Nidhogg 2, and Black Emperor was also a blast with the dial controller. See their full selection of games here. All the machines are set as free to play. :D

New York library interior

I also visited the New York Public Library. I don't really have the words to describe it, beyond stunning.

New York library interior

New York Public Library

Charles Dickens' cat's paw

The library was hosting a special exhibit called Treasures. Pictured above was my second favourite item: It's a paper knife of ivory and metal, fashioned from one of the paws of Charles Dickens' favourite cat after he (the cat) died. RIP, Bob.

cat paw text

Alphose Mucha poster

This Alphonse Mucha poster was the first item I saw in the exhibit, and it's my favourite thing I saw there. It's the best example of Mucha art on exhibit that I've ever seen. It was very big, about 7-8 feet long. Being a lifelong lover of Art Nouveau, I found it moving to be in its presence.

I also visited the Museum of Modern Art, another must-see. But I think this issue of the gazette has more than enough photos already :P.

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Before and after Iron Out

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Iron Out is a household cleaner that works surprisingly well on iron-stained rocks! Here's a before and after of one of my specimens (this one is spiky natrolite and analcime crystals).

I also cleaned this bit of what's possibly thomonsite (I might try to soak it more and see if it brightens up more):

thomsonite

These specimens are from my Wasson Bluff trip. If you're interested in learning more about that trip, you can read all about it here.

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crafted necklace

CRAFT CORNER

Craft corner returns! I treated myself to some jewellry supplies after launching The Crimson Diamond. The bottom necklace was one I made before, using materials I had on hand. Simulated turqoise and lapis lazuli beads, and a carnelian bead. The colours are meant to represent Nancy Maple's sprite in The Crimson Diamond.

I've wanted to make a similar necklace with real turquoise and real lapis lazuli, and a garnet bead instead of carnelian (because Crimson was a garnet mining town) for a while now. These small beads are 4mm in diameter (the larger beads below are 10mm).It's actually a bit tough to find real turquoise in this round bead form at sizes much bigger than 4mm. At least in the kind of turquoise I wanted, which was from the famous Sleeping Beauty mine in Arizona. The mine closed in 2012, which means the supply is limited. The rich, deep "robin's egg" blue is much sought after.

The chain is quite interesting, it's 14k gold and so fine that the 4mm beads could actually be strung though it. The little 2mm 14k gold beads were also stringable on this chain, but sometimes they get a bit stuck along it, too. I'm amazed that a chain can be made this finely and still hold together. When I wear this necklace it looks like the beads are floating.

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Union Station animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

Check the sidebar for links to my Patreon and PayPal. Or visit The Crimson Diamond's Steam page to purchase or follow it. It's also available on itchio and FireFlower Games.

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Thanks for reading. Happy October!

-- JM

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September 2024

TCD1-month anniversary

Hello, dear readers -- It's been one month since The Crimson Diamond launched. I'm very proud of it and so happy that people have been enjoying it so much.

Buy The Crimson Diamond on Steam (For PC and Mac).

It's also on itchio 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.

Developer update: I'm continuing with bug fixes and working to getting The Crimson Diamond on GOG. Hopefully I'll have some good news about that soon.

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Wasson's Bluff

I went on a little vacation to Halifax to visit Dan (more on that later) and my friends the Level 0 NPCs. We've let's played The Colonel's Bequest, The Dagger of Amon Ra, and now The Crimson Diamond on their Youtube channel.

Another reason for me to visit Nova Scotia was the magnificent Bay of Fundy, to collect my very own zeolites. Get ready for an extensive Rock Facts section this issue...

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Carolyn Petit wrote a glowing review of The Crimson Diamond for Kotaku. Thanks so much, Carolyn. It feels so good to know that there are still writers at the big games media sites who have a love for old-fashioned adventure games.

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Nicole Carpenter (author profile here) wrote very positively about the game for Polygon. Hooray!

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Edge magazine review

I was over the moon to learn that EDGE magazine reviewed The Crimson Diamond in the September issue and gave it an 8/10. :-)

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Jess Clayton-Berry at Game Luster wrote a review and gave a 7/10, which I very much appreciate. Read the full review here.

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Another incredibly pleasant surprise: Danny O'Dwyer (founder of Noclip), had a lot of very nice things to say about The Crimson Diamond on episode #190 of the Noclip Crewcast. Timestamped link here.

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Patreon graphic

Patreon patrons' names are in The Crimson Diamond credits. These credits can be accessed via the main menu (the button is on the bottom right), or typing "credits" into the text parser at almost any point in the game. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Patreon patrons. There will be a holiday card this year for the $5 USD tier folks.

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David Flynn of GamingTrend wrote a lovely article about The Crimson Diamond and gave it a 95, which completely blew me away. Thanks so much, David. Read it here.

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Jaesa Evermoore covered The Crimson Diamond for Temple of Geek. Thanks so much.

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This one JUST missed last month's gazette, I'm happy to share it now. PC Gamer included The Crimson Diamond in this round-up by Shaun Prescott.

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Speaking of round-ups, DigitallyDownloaded.net included the game in their round-up article. Thanks, Lindsay :-)

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Gamers with Jobs - Conference Call mentioned The Crimson Diamond in episode 934, give a listen here.

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Get Played is another lovely podcast that mentioned The Crimson Diamond. Check out their September 16 episode here. It feels really cool to be mentioned in the same space as Papers, Please by indie game dev legend Lucas Pope.

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Joel Couture of Indie Games+ did a nice write-up for the Crimson Diamond, thanks so much, Joel!

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Thanks also to Indie Retro News for boosting the game on their site.

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fourthwall store

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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Sam (Wizard), aka @MarshmallowSack, wrote a wonderful review of The Crimson Diamond on Cohost. Read it here.

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I had an amazing chat with fellow Canadian Twitch streamer, Nalvara. She was kind enough to stream The Crimson Diamond on her channel and then we did our talk. Here's the VOD on her Youtube page.

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I was on the Retro Game Club podcast, S6E18. It was a great conversation. Give a listen here.

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I returned to Matt Barton's Youtube channel, this time to chat with him and Mat Bradly-Tschirgi while they played some of The Crimson Diamond.

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Speaking of lovely chats, GetSelious and I talked The Crimson Diamond for The Outerhaven on Youtube, on their Spectator Mode podcast.

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Jared Brock reviewed the game on Youtube, check it out here.

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And here's a Youtube round-up of new adventure games. Thanks for including The Crimson Diamond, YakWaxLips.

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I really enjoyed this conversation with Matthew Bianchini. I'm always interested in talking to players who don't have old-school nostalgia for adventure games, to see what they make of The Crimson Diamond. I'm happy to report that Matthew enjoyed it!

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I didn't make The Crimson Diamond by myself. I have a lot of testers and Patreon patrons to thank for their time and support. Above all, Dan Policar composed an incredible soundtrack that's more than forty minutes long, and he did it on a real Roland MT-32. Dan's released the soundtrack on Bandcamp, so please support him if you can by buying the album!

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A big thanks to all the amazing Twitch streamers who have played The Crimson Diamond on their channels. It's been thrilling to watch some of my favourite people playing and enjoying my game, and sharing it with their audiences. Sadly Twitch doesn't archive VODs forever, so I don't really have a reliable way to share those videos.

Fortunately a fan of Limmy's does archive his VODs on Youtube, so I'm happy to share his VOD of my game here. If you're a Twitch streamer who has posted their The Crimson Diamond VOD on Youtube, please let me know. I'd love to share it in a gazette.

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GDoC Steam Event

The Crimson Diamond is in the Game Devs of Color Expo Steam event! I'm so grateful to be included in this. There's a huge schedule of events to check out, with panels, AMAs, and in-person events in multiple locations. Here's the schedule. It all kicks off on Wednesday, September 14 at 4pm Eastern.

I'll be doing a bonus stream from my Steam store page on Friday, September 20 at 8pm Eastern. I'll be streaming Chapter 2 of The Crimson Diamond for the first time ever.

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Dan remastered some of The Crimson Diamond tracks for his Bandcamp release live on stream. Check that out here.

Dan's current gig is Lori & Corey Cole's (of Sierra's Quest for Glory fame) latest game, a follow-up to Tilly's Tale. He previously made music for Romero Games' Empire of Sin, and the trailer music for Roberta Williams' Colossal Cave Adventure remake.

Livestream VOD round-up. All the streams since last gazette are here:

August 13th The Crimson Diamond pre-launch party, August 20th art/music stream, August 27th art stream , September 3rd art stream , September 10th art & music stream

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

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Let's Play thumbnail

I capitulated and pulled out a walkthrough for Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess (ERE Informatique, 1989). It's a pretty short game (though the walkthrough seems to skip a lot), but I still think it's incredibly cool and looks gorgeous.

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991)

High Seas Homicide (Sherwood Forest Software, 1993)

Denarius Avaricius Sextus (Thorsoft of Letchworth,1992)

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

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

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I mentioned that I went to Nova Scotia, and the Bay of Fundy specifically, to hunt zeolites. This sign was on display at the Fundy Geological Museum (another one of my vacation stops):

rockhoundingsign

The rock formations at Wasson Bluff are fascinating. They're a blend of basalt (porous volcanic rock) which is the dark brown / black rock on the right side of this formation, and sandstone (the orange bit, the colour being due to the richness of iron in the area).

Sandstone and Basalt

The Bay of Fundy is known for its low and high tides. Judging from the seasweed and relative dampness here, it's pretty clear that this is the bay at low tide. Speaking of which: I booked a highly knowledgeable guide (Brian of FundyTreasures.ca) and brought a friend. If you don't know the schedule for the tides, it's easy to get caught with very wet feet or be trapped on an elevated outcropping of sand for hours until the water recedes again.

Bay of Fundy low tide

Here is a close-up of the basalt in the area. The basalt was once liquid lava that then cooled. Bubbles formed as this was happening and those voids created spaces for crystals to form later. This is the reason why this area has been famous for two hundred years as a destination for rockhounds.

Bubbles in basalt

Another reason I vacationed in Halifax was to see Dan again, who was in town touring with Sean Paul!

Dan n' Me reunion

Dan on Stage

Speaking of my Halifax friends, here they are! Matt (on the left) and Alex (on the right) of the Level 0 NPCs, and of course Sean Paul.

Sean Paul and friends

Here's a view of Scotiabank centre, where Sean Paul was performing, from Citadel Hill (a historic fort, which I also visited during my trip).

ScotiabankCentre

I love the houses in Halifax.

Halifax houses

This is probably the best thing I ate the whole trip. It's a savoury taiyaki (Gochujang Pork) from a shop called Cafe Taiyaki 52.

savoury taiyaki amazing

No trip to Halifax is complete without eating a donair. This was the place local and Level 0 NPC Matt Goodmanson recommended: Tony's.

Tony's donair

We did a roadtrip to Peggy's Cove and stopped off for buttered lobster roll and seafood chowder on the way at Shaw's Landing. Delicious.

lobster roll and chowder

Another Nova Scotia delicacy: Gingerbread cake. Also delicious.

gingerbread cake

Here's a food discovery that I'm shocked hasn't made its way to Toronto: Apple fries. These ones were ordered from Potikki's. The incredibly crispy-crunch of french fries with nice soft insides, but dusted with cinnamon sugar and drizzled with caramel sauce.

apple fries

This looks like a painting, but it's a photo taken by Alex. Can you see the Great Blue Heron?

Great Blue Heron

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CRAFT CORNER

This time it's Craft Corner's turn to take a break -- I have something in the works that I'll hopefully be able to share next month. Watch this space...

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Nova Scotia zeolites sign

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: The zeolites of Wasson Bluff, Nova Scotia are world famous and sought by collectors (see above photo for more). As tour guide Brian taught us, zeolites are crystals that formed within the porous basalt rock of the bluff. They come in an array of shapes and colours, with different names.

Wikipedia says that zeolites are "a family of several microporous, crystalline aluminosilicate materials commonly used as commercial adsorbents and catalysts. They mainly consist of silicon, aluminium, [and] oxygen". I mostly think of them as gorgeous but fragile crystal treasures.

Here is part of my haul:

acquired zeolites

These crystals are stilbite. They're characterized by these striated growth patterns and a fan-like shape.Colours range from colourless to yellow, grey, and brownish-red.

Stilbite

Stilbite2

This specimen is potentially thomsonite, which is considered a rare-ish find at Wasson Bluff. They're ball-shaped and usually whitish. These ones have been stained brown by iron. Brian says that soaking specimens like this in Iron-Out and distilled water will work wonders to reveal their true colours.

thomsonite

Analcime is a gorgeous crystal that can easily be seen formed in clusters, clinging to the basalt. The largest crystals I saw during the tour was analcime crystals.

analcime

analcime 2

Natrolite is fairly easy to identify with its stick-like protrusions. This specimen would probably also benefit from an Iron-Out bath. Ideally it would be whitish.

natrolite

Heulandite are tiny little crystals and are so pretty. I'm looking forward to cleaning this one up to make it sparkle even brighter.

heulandite

Nova Scotia used to be home to copper mines. Sometimes you can see the presence of copper in the rocks. It's very easy to identify this brilliant, saturated blue-green colour.

copper

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Union Station animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

Check the sidebar for links to my Patreon and PayPal. Or visit The Crimson Diamond's Steam page to purchase or follow it. It's also available on itchio and FireFlower Games.

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Mr. Darcy happy

Thanks for reading. Happy September. Bonus photo of Mr. Darcy, the cat I was catsitting!

-- JM

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August 2024

Hello, dear readers -- The Crimson Diamond has launched! I'm so happy and excited to finally be sharing it with you. Thank you for your patience, support, and kindness.

Buy The Crimson Diamond on Steam, 10% launch discount. For PC and Mac.

If you enjoy the game, please leave a review on Steam! It helps so much to increase its visibility on the Steam store.

Buy The Crimson Diamond on itch.io. For PC and Mac.

I'm sorry I don't have a launch discount on itch.io. When I was setting up the game for sale on itch.io, it wasn't an option. Apparently you have to apply a discount immediately after releasing it, which I didn't, not knowing -- and by the time this was pointed out to me, several people had already purchased it. I felt like to be fair to those people, I should keep it at that price (which is $14.99 USD).

Developer update: There are plenty of bugs to fix (thanks to everyone who's been reporting them, and thanks also to my testers for finding them) -- That's what I'll be working on next week.

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Roberta Williams n' me

I met Roberta Williams at the Adventure Game Hotspot Fan Fair last month. Dream come true. Not only did she sign my The Colonel's Bequest big box (along with Sierra On-Line co-founder Ken Williams, SCI0 engine co-developer Robert Heitman, composer Ken Allen, and artist Doug Herring), but she also played a bit of The Crimson Diamond demo and wrote a lovely blurb for my Steam store page. You can read that here.

TCBbox

I also got to meet up with The Crimson Diamond musician, Dan Policar! Dan's currently working on Lori & Corey Cole's (of Sierra's Quest for Glory fame) latest game, a follow-up to Tilly's Tale. He previously made music for Romero Games' Empire of Sin, and the trailer music for Roberta Williams' Colossal Cave Adventure remake.

Pictured behind Dan: Developer of Lucy Dreaming and currently working on Heir of the Dog, Tom Hardwidge.

DantheBand

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Alice Bell of Rock Paper Shotgun reviewed The Crimson Diamond, which was incredible. This RPS review was the first one the game received and I couldn't be happier about it. Thanks so much, Alice.

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Speaking of Adventure Game Hotspot, they reviewed The Crimson Diamond. I'm very grateful there are games media outlets who are dedicated to supporting and boosting indie adventure game developers. Check out the review here.

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Kotaku included The Crimson Diamond in their Weekend Guide: 5 New and Old Games We Can't Wait to Play.

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Kevin Purdy covered The Crimson Diamond for Ars Technica. Thanks so much!

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Patreon graphic

Patreon patrons' names have been added to The Crimson Diamond credits. These credits can be accessed via the main menu (the button is on the bottom right), or typing "credits" into the text parser at almost any point in the game. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Patreon patrons. There will be a holiday card this year for the $5 USD tier folks.

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GameSpew reviewed The Crimson Diamond, too (I'm still limiting my exclamation marks on these gazettes, to combat being tagged as spam). Thanks so much.

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I was once again interviewed by Olivia Levesque of CBC Thunder Bay. I first spoke to Olivia about The Crimson Diamond four years ago, so it was a really nice full-circle moment to reunite with her to talk about launching it. You can listen to the clip here.

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Adventure Gamers reviewed The Crimson Diamond. They were one of the first places to take an interest in my game, many many years ago. Thanks for your patience.

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German gaming site "Das klappt so nicht." reviewed The Crimson Diamond. Thanks to the magic of Google Translate, there's also an English version available. Read it here.

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NAG Magazine included The Crimson in their round-up of "18 New Games We Can't Wait to Play This August". Check it out here.

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I was a guest on the Dev Heads podcast, hosted by Second Wind. I'm a huge fan of independent games media and was already a fan of the show, so I was thrilled to be on. The show comprises of three regular hosts and a guest host from different "tiers" of game dev: Tina is a AAA dev, Mikee is AA, and JM8 is a small team dev. Our topic was "Did Our Childhood Games Infect Us?", in which we discussed how the games we encountered as kids have shaped our paths and inspired us. Watch here.

Dev Heads VOD

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fourthwall store

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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OneShortEye and I had a chat a little while back, while he was making his "Exposing Decades-Old Secrets in The Colonel's Bequest" video. Our conversation ended up being much longer, and he was kind enough to edit that chat together as its own video,which he then released on The Crimson Diamond's launch day.

Watch the interview here.

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Jonathan and Tanya have hosted ONE HUNDRED episodes of "Talking To Women about Videogames". I was on the show previously, so it was nice to catch up with Jonathan just days before launch. Give a listen to the full podcast episode here. Congrats on reaching this amazing milestone.

Jonathan and I did our chat with video, and here's the video.

Our first episode, back in 2022, came in two parts. Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.

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The Cozy Gaming Club included The Crimson Diamond in their August round-up. It's always so lovely to be in Youtube videos.

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Speaking of Youtubers, TurianShepard made a video about "4 New Adventure Games You Need to Play in August 2024" and The Crimson Diamond's in there. Watch the video here.

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Upstairs Game Talk included The Crimson Diamond in their video "Wishlist Missed This Thrift This". Thank you so much.

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Dan was on stream recently, and brought some amazing Roland MT-32 sound effects that made it into the final release of the game. Here's the VOD.

Livestream VOD round-up. All the streams since last gazette are here:

July 16th art stream, July 23rd art stream, July 30th AGH Fan Fair trip stream , July 31st Bonus PixElated Steam festival stream, August 6th art & music stream

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

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I finished playing the delightful Lord Avalot d'Argent. Once The Crimson Diamond launch settles down, I'm looking forward to having Marnanel Thurman (one of the developers) back on stream to talk about the game's development and show us parts of the game we missed. Here's the link to the Lord Avalot d'Argent playlist.

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

In the meantime, I started a Let's Play of Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess (ERE Informatique / Infogrames 1989). It's a gorgeous game!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991)

High Seas Homicide (Sherwood Forest Software, 1993)

Denarius Avaricius Sextus (Thorsoft of Letchworth,1992)

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

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Me and the other Level 0 NPCs have started playing The Crimson Diamond, at long last. Look at this amazing artwork that NPC Matt created for our playthrough. Here's the start of the Let's Play.

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Kateland's cross-stitch of Nancy Maple

CRAFT CORNER

Look at this gorgeous Nancy Maple cross-stitch that Kateland gave me at the Adventure Game Hotspot event. I am so touched and grateful. Thanks, Kateland. Nancy now has pride of place on my desk.

Here are two more crafts I received at the Fan Fair. CanvasQuest Tom gifted me these two gorgeous "The Colonel's Bequest" pins. He makes amazing game-related pins of all kinds. Visit his Etsy store here.

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MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

No mineral trivia this month, very sorry. Game launch went well but I have bugs to fix. Take care!

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Union Station animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

Check the sidebar for links to my Patreon and PayPal. Or visit The Crimson Diamond's Steam page follow the game, and add it to your wishlist. There's a FREE playable demo too, for Windows PC and Mac. <3

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Thanks for reading. Happy August. This is the month of The Crimson Diamond!

-- JM

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July 2024

Summer in the park

Hello, dear readers -- Happy July. We're in the midst of summer here in Ontario, which means periods of intense heat and stuffy humidity alternating with sudden thunderstorms and blissfully cooler temperatures.

Summer mushrooms

I've recently gotten interested in mushrooms. I'm pretty sure these ones are poisonous, but they're pretty spectacular.

Painted turtle

I met this fine painted turtle, too.

Amazingly, it seems that eschewing exclamation points has reduced the number of times this e-newsletter gets caught by spam filters. You are now reading the Crimson Gazette: Very Few Exclamation Points Edition.

Developer update: This is it. The last Crimson Gazette before LAUNCH! August 15. It's happening. There's still so much to do: The complete hintbook is still unwritten, not all the Steam achievements are implemented, not even the key art is finished yet. All in good time.

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It's always a thrill to see TCD included in other people's videos. Grim Beard made this awesome Next Fest video and said such lovely positive things about my game :). Here's a time-stamped link.

(Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out.)

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Time Extension's Jack Yarwood wrote this article about modern day EGA game devs. I'm so fortunate to be among such talented, hardworking devs who share my love of this odd, bright, nostalgic palette.

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Bulbachu on Twitch streamed The Crimson Diaond demo, just in time for me to include it in the gazette this month. I'm always grateful when streamers will take the time and effort to play.

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Instagram reel

I've been making Instagram Reels about my The Crimson Diamond inspirations. It's really been jogging my memory of how this all began, from the art that I love and all the way back to early childhood. More on that later in the gazette.

Check out The Crimson Diamond on Instagram here. I also post the videos on Youtube as shorts, but they don't have the captions or overlays.

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Patreon graphic

I have a Patreon, both tiers will put your name in The Crimson Diamond credits if you're an active patron by JULY 15th, and until AUGUST 15. The $5 USD tier members will also get a holiday card this winter.

Current patrons: If you'd like to be credited by a name other than your Patreon user name, please message me via their messaging feature.

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The Adventure Game Hotspot Fan Fair is almost here. July 26-28 in Tacoma, Washington.

Sunday, July 28th at 12:30pm: I'll be on the Pixel Art Panel, along with Meredith Gran (Perfect Tides) and Tom Hardwidge (Lucy Dreaming). The panel will be hosted by Paul Korman, co-host of the Classic Gamers Guild Podcast.

Sunday, July 28th at 4:15pm: I'll be MC-ing OneShortEye's Live Speedrun event. He'll be demonstrating some incredible speedrunning techniques and feats in two amazing adventure games.

Here is the full panel, party, and presentation schedule.

June 18th Streamer-versary, June 19th art stream, June 25th art strea m, July 2nd art stream, July 9th art stream

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I had a lovely chat with Andrew Dickinson (editor of Debug magazine) and Laura Cress, on her Youtube channel for the second episode of her podcast "Indies In Depth". Have a listen here.

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I'm so lucky to have ultra-talented musician Dan Policar as the composer for the music of The Crimson Diamond. Dan's day job is touring the world in Sean Paul's band The BaddaBanz. Recently they were on NPR's Tiny Desk, delivering this amazing little concert. Check it out here. Here's Dan talking about the performance and showing clips of it on my VOD here.

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TCD key art WIP

I'm STILL working on the key art for The Crimson Diamond. STILL playing with the colours. Getting closer and closer.

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fourthwall store

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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Dan made a recent appearance to help me celebrate my Twitch Streamer-versary. He talked NPR's Tiny Desk and showed some cool stuff from his gaming collection. Here's that VOD.

Livestream VOD round-up. All the streams since last gazette are here:

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

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July 2 Let's Play thumbnail

I've started playing Lord Avalot d'Argent (Thorsoft of Letchworth, 1995), which is the sequel to Denarius Avaricius Sextus. I enjoyed DAS very much and I can say the same for Avalot so far. Magnificent Marnanel Thurman, one of the devs of Thorsoft, joined me for DAS commentary and will be joining me again once I've played through Avalot. I'm very much looking forward to that. Here's the link to the Lord Avalot d'Argent playlist so far.

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

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991)

High Seas Homicide (Sherwood Forest Software, 1993)

Denarius Avaricius Sextus (Thorsoft of Letchworth,1992)

Here's one from A Gaming Network.

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Speaking of Let's Plays, me and the other Level 0 NPCs have completed our meandering playthrough of Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra. Here's the full playlist.

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Rise of the Dragon cross-stich

CRAFT CORNER

Here's my completed Rise of the Dragon cross-stitch again, but this time it's got a lovely quilted border courtesy of my mom. <3 No new crafts right now, as I'm in the throes of launching The Crimson Diamond.

Rise of the Dragon EGA

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Instagram Reel Ghibli

My levistone pendants

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: The Levistone pendant in Studio Ghibli's The Castle in the Sky was the first time I remember being entranced and inspired by rocks, minerals, crystals, and magical necklaces. I saw the film when I was five and a half and it made a big impression on me. I've tried recreating it with polymer clay a few times but I'm still not satisfied.

There isn't really a viable real-world stone to use to recreate the pendant. Lapis lazuli is the right colour but it isn't translucent. Quartz doesn't come in this colour, and aquamarine is too pale. Paraiba tourmaline can be a saturated blue but it's more of a cyan colour and quite rare and expensive. Sapphire would be very very expensive for stone of this size and shape.

Ghibli levistone

Baccarat produced an official licensed pendant but it doesn't have the gold inlaid symbol and the bit at the top doesn't look quite right to me. And it's also $400 USD.

Baccarat levistone

The search continues. I'll probably try to make another one myself after TCD launches :).

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Union Station animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading. Happy July. Next month is the month of The Crimson Diamond!

-- JM

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June 2024

Park photo

Hello, dear readers -- Happy June. It's almost summer in Toronto, and it certainly feels that way. We've had some very warm spells already but also some nice cool breezes.

Amazingly, it seems that eschewing exclamation points has reduced the number of times this e-newsletter gets caught by spam filters. You are now reading the Crimson Gazette: No Exclamation Point Edition.

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Developer update: The Crimson Diamond is launching on August 15! (That will be the only exclamation point in this issue) The launch date trailer debuted during the first day of IGN Live. Check it out here.

There is still plenty to do, such as finishing the key art, fixing bugs, updating the game manual, adding Steam achievements, and writing an online hintbook (you can see the online hintbook for the demo here). But it really does feel like things are coming to a close. I have all sorts of different feelings about that. The Crimson Diamond has been part of my life for a long time. It will feel weird for it to finally launch.

But I'm also very excited to share it with all of you.

IGN Live schedule

It was pretty surreal to see my game in the schedule amongst such huge games as Borderlands, Lord of the Rings, and Alien.

(Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out.)

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Steam June Next Fest 2024

Steam Women-Led Games

I'm gearing up for the August 15 launch and pushing hard to get The Crimson Diamond in front of as many eyeballs as possible. First came the IGN Live announcement, followed quickly by the June Next Fest and Women-Led Games Steam events. I did a bonus stream from my Steam store page for those events, showing the new demo and an old build of the intro sequence. You can see that VOD here.

I've gotten some new coverage about the game, too. Here's an article at Adventure Gamers.

And here's a great article from Vulgar Knight. The left sidebar has more links to articles, podcast interviews, etc.

I'm always so grateful when people take the time and trouble to cover The Crimson Diamond. Let's make this launch as awesome as possible.

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I've been fortunate that a lot of Twitch streamers have played the demo over the past month. Thank you so much for streaming the demo and sharing it with your communities.

Here are links to their channels:

cheffmd on Twitch

Cressup on Twitch

DontTouchtheDoor on Twitch

littlebones309 on Twitch

TremorStudio on Twitch

WhatisAlt236 on Twitch

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I've started making Instagram reels about the inspirations for The Crimson Diamond. So far I've shared some vintage Agatha Christie novels, my giant Ontario garnet, and the first Canadian edition of Anne of Green Gables. Check out The Crimson Diamond on Instagram here. I also post the videos on Youtube as shorts, but they don't have the captions or overlays.

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Patreon graphic

I have a Patreon, both tiers will put your name in The Crimson Diamond credits if you're an active patron by JULY 15th (these end up being about $3 USD and $5 USD). The $5 USD tier members will also get a holiday card this winter.

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I love seeing Nancy Maple art. Thank you so much to Twitter person MrPr1993T for this. You can check it out on Twitter (as well as the other characters shown) here.

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The Adventure Game Hotspot Fan Fair is almost here. July 26-28 in Tacoma, Washington. I'll be on the Pixel Art Panel, along with Meredith Gran (Perfect Tides) and Tom Hardwidge (Lucy Dreaming). The panel will be hosted by Paul Korman, co-host of the Classic Gamers Guild Podcast.

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

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TCD Sega Master System box

Fellow game dev Adrian Bauer (Owlboy) made these amazing Sega Master System mock-ups for The Crimson Diamond. I unironically love the graphic design of these boxes.

TCD Sega Master System 2

He even printed it out and stuck it in a case. Impeccable.

TCD Sega Master System bcak

Adrian is a fantastic game dev in his own right. He is part of the small team who made the gorgeous Owlboy (check it out on Steam). Here is their studio's webite: D-Pad Studio.

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The Crimson Diamond key art WIP

I've been working on the key art for The Crimson Diamond. It's coming along pretty well but I still haven't added colour to it. Of course the bucket has a starring role. More to come in the next art livestream.

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fourthwall store

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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May 21 VOD thumbnail

Livestreams continue. Now that all the art in The Crimson Diamond is complete, I'm working on the key art. Still plenty of work to go. In the above VOD I finished Bio Menace episode 2. On to episode 3.

Livestream VOD round-up. All the streams since last gazette are here:

May 21st art stream, May 28th art stream, June 4th art strea m, June 11th art stream, plus BONUS June 10th new demo stream on Steam

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June 11 Let's Play VOD

I finished Earthrise (Interstel, 1990). This game is a hidden gem and more people should know about it. It's too bad it's not commercially available, but you can tell GOG you would like to see it on their storefront by voting here. I ended with 787/800 points. It was a very fair game -- With lots of exploration, comical deaths, and a great sense of humour.

Eric on Sega Master System

(Sega Master System design for Earthrise by Adrian Bauer)

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991)

High Seas Homicide (Sherwood Forest Software, 1993)

Denarius Avaricius Sextus (Thorsoft of Letchworth,1992)

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Legend of the Sword cross-stitch

CRAFT CORNER

My wonderful mom stitched a border for my Legend of the Sword death image cross-stitch. I completed it in October 2023, here it is below with how it appears in actual EGA:

Legend of the Sword cross-stitch

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My first carnelian

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: This carnelian pendant was my first gemstone acquisition, and it sparked an interest in rocks and minerals that inspired The Crimson Diamond. My parents took the family to the Michigan Space Center and me and my sister were allowed to pick something from the gift shop. This beautiful small carnelian cabochon caught my eye, set in (not) gold. I loved how it looked like a magical gem glowing red from the inside. I loved that I could wear it around my neck and I loved that it was a little locket.

I still love red and gold together, and carnelian is still one of my favourite gemstones.

Carnelian pendant to scale

Carnelian locket open

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Union Station animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading. Happy June. 2024 is the year of The Crimson Diamond.

-- JM

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May 2024

May garden flower

Hello, dear readers -- Happy May. Spring is underway, with a gorgeously blooming azalea in my mom's garden. The weather is warming up, the leafs are sprouting on the trees. It's a lovely time of year in Ontario.

Apparently the copious use of exclamation marks can sometimes flag my e-newsletters as spam, so this edition will sound much less enthusiastic. We'll see if it helps. You are now reading the Crimson Gazette: No Exclamation Point Edition.

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Developer update: All of the art is complete and in the game. The bonus track that Dan composed (in this stream) is in the game, as well as some new sound effects I made. A new trailer with the launch date announcement is also complete. I'm currently working on fixing the bugs my amazing testers have found -- And then it's another round of testing with the beta. And THEN it'll be launch, before the holiday season. Exciting and a bit scary.

(Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out.)

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Patreon graphic

I have a Patreon, both tiers will put your name in The Crimson Diamond credits if you're an active patron at time of launch (these end up being about $3 USD and $5 USD). The $5 USD tier members also get a holiday card this winter.

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April 16th Marnanel Thurman / art stream, Apr 23rd Marnanel Thurman / art stream, Apr 30th art strea m, May 7th art stream, May 14 art stream.

See some gorgeous art by Meredith and Tom below:

Perfect Tides screenshot

Perfect Tides screenshot 2

Perfect Tides screenshot 3

Lucy Dreaming screenshot 2

LucyDscreenshot

Lucy Dreaming screenshot 3

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I was a guest on the Pixel Pizza Podcast. Host Jared and I had a lovely conversation about The Crimson Diamond, minerals, pixel art, and more. Check it out here.

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Mother's Day card 2024 painted

Happy Belated Mother's Day. Here's the card I painted for my mom. I included some of the birds, mushrooms, and other things we saw during our recent trip to Point Pelee National Park here in Ontario. Point Pelee is a sharp triangle of land sticking out into Lake Erie, and the southernmost area of mainland Canada. Because of this unique geography, it is a prime resting point for migrating birds during spring and autumn.

Warblers are the main draw in May, and we saw our fair share (from left to right in the painting: Chestnut-sided warbler, Blackburnian warbler, Prothonotary warbler). The Prothonotary warbler was a life bird for my mom, meaning this was the first time in her life she'd seen one.

Just below the Prothonotary Warbler is an American Woodcock, a timid bird that she hadn't seen in about eleven years. The bird at the bottom left is an American Pipit, another life bird for my mom. The Five-lined skink at the bottom right was basking on a boardwalk as depicted. We saw three of them relaxing like that. Above is a Green Heron, a spectacular bird with vibrant orange legs during mating season.

Above the Green Heron is a shorebird called a Dunlin, with its characteristic dark patch on its belly. The black bear isn't real, it was a very cute carved wooden sculpture (see the photos below). And beside the bear is Dido-cat, who lives forever in these paintings.

Card process:

mother's day card 2024 inked

Mother's Day card 2024 pencilled

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Point Pelee point

Here are some of my photos of our Point Pelee trip. This is the actual point, which is actually a place where waves converge from the east and west. It's an extraordinary sight.

Point Pelee marsh

Another reason Point Pelee is such a haven for birds is that it features a number of distinct habitats in a small area. There is savannah, marsh, swamp forest, dry forest, and beach.

Point pelee swamp

Point Pelee mushrooms

Here are some splendid pheasant back mushrooms.

Point Pelee butterfly

A question mark butterfly.

Point Pelee bear

This wonderful wooden bear sculpture. We liked his smile very much.

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fourthwall store

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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Speaking of Dido-cat, here's the new patchwork quilt my mom made. I designed it. 1092 little squares, the smallest of the pixel art patchworks. Even still, it's so much work. My mom is amazing <3.

Marnanel Thurman helped me play through her lovely game, Denarius Avaricius Sextus, and we were able to get to the ending together. She was a wonderful guest. We're planning to reunite for Lord Avalot d'Argent, the sequel! You can follow Marnanel on Mastodon and Blue Sky. Here's Marnanel's website.

Livestream VOD round-up! All the streams since last gazette are here!

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

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Earthrise let's play

I am loving Earthrise (Interstel, 1990). More exploration, more inventory items, and more amazing death animations. I'm about 350/800 points in. I'll be sad when it's over.

This game isn't commercially available, but you can request that GOG add it to their catalog.

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991)

High Seas Homicide (Sherwood Forest Software, 1993)

Denarius Avaricius Sextus (Thorsoft of Letchworth,1992)

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Nancy as beads

CRAFT CORNER

No ambitious projects are on the go right now, but I did quickly put together this necklace with some materials I had on hand. I think it creates the idea of Nancy Maple pretty effectively. The top bead is carnelian, the middle bead is simulated (fake) lapis lazui, and the bottom bead is simulated turquoise. I'd love to recreate this necklace with real lapis and turquoise some day.

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Point Pelee rocks front

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Lake Erie is full of treasures, and new ones wash up every day. These are some fossils I picked up during the Point Pelee trip. They're all intriguing and amazing, especially the large one that looks like a giant insect with hairy legs. The rocks are wet in these photos, to increase the contrast and show the fossils better. Here's an informative article on fossils in the Great Lakes.

Point Pelee rocks back

Here's the back view of them.

Point Pelee rocks in hand

Here's me holding the giant bug(?) one, for scale. Astounding.

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Union Station animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading. Happy May. 2024 is the year of The Crimson Diamond.

-- JM

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April 2024

April crocuses

Hello, dear readers! Happy April! More sun, more warm weather, and more crocuses! A good start to Spring!

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Developer update: THREE more art backgrounds to complete! The game will be 100% finished after that (besides adding a few little graphics inside some of some closets and cupboards, or at least a written explanation of contents / lack of contents!). Of course I need to do a lot more testing, but it does feel like a major milestone is imminent. I recently achieved another major milestone, and got myself a little treat. But I'm saving that for the mineral trivia section of the gazette!

(Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out!)

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GDC was an amazing experience. It was my first time attending the event, and my first time in San Francisco! I had a few meetings, including one with journalist Andrea Maderna -- He wrote this article for Final Round, an Italian lanugage games site. I was able to use Google Translate to get the gist of the article, check it out here!

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GDC was also a great opportunity to introduce new people to The Crimson Diamond! I met Stan Rezaee of 8Bit/Digi at one of the GDC-adjacent events I was showing at, and he was kind enough to include me in his round-up of games he played during GDC! You can read that here.

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I'm on episode 0143 of Indiepocalypse Radio! I got to chat about game development, retro games, The Crimson Diamond, and my favourite Tohou character (I chose one on the spot!). Andrew is an amazing host, and fellow guest Keenardo was really cool to get to know! Andrew produces a zine of indie games every month, both physical and digital editions, and cassette tapes! Check out all of his many awesome projects here.

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The Adventure Game Hotspot Fan Fair is happening soon! July 26-29 in Tacoma, Washington. I'll be there, as well as Francisco González, Dave Gilbert, and many other adventure game devs!

Roman Comedies stock characters

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uncrankd cover

Speaking of zines, Xania Lasagna has has been putting out the gorgeous Uncrank'd Playdate zine, and I was interviewed for issue #02! There's both a physical and digital edition. It's full of great long-form interviews with lots of game devs. Xania has an itch.io page for the zine here.

uncranked spread

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I'll be sharing some photos of my GDC/San Francisco trip below, but if you want to see more photos and hear me talk about the trip in greater detail, check out this VOD!

SF airport

Frank Cifaldi

I met Frank Cifaldi, of the Video Game History Foundation, on the GDC floor! He curated and hosted a showcase of some amazing retro games, including...

Alter Ego (1986), by psychologist Peter J. Favaro!

Carmen Sandiego Box

And the ultra-rare Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego?!

If you can, please support the Video Game History Foundation. They do amazing work preserving, archving, researching, and educating.

Frank gave The Crimson Diamond the "80s/90s computer gaming magazine screenshot" treatment, courtesy of some medical imaging equipment he's acquired! It's amazing to see my modern pixel art adventure game through an analog lens. I find the soft fuzziness to be very cozy!

parlour

parlour processed by Frank Cifaldi

Xalavier Nelson Jr.

I was so happy to run into Xalavier Nelson Jr. after his GDC talk! I've worked with Xalavier on Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, Witch Strandings, and Recommendation Dog!! He gave me some of the infamous Life Eater "suspicious tape"! Life Eater launched TODAY (April 16, 2024) !

Indie BYOG event

Here's a selfie showing The Crimson Diamond on a projector, at the Indie BYOG event I tabled at! In the background is Damien Crawford, who was showing "Damien Crawford's Golf Experience 2024". I'd previously met Damien online, for this panel I co-hosted with Chris DeLeon!

show game at SF

And here's the other event I showed at! My set-up was the game on my Microsoft Surface Pro 2, a looping video of the trailer on my iPad, a QR code the links to the Steam page, postcards, and stickers!

SF City Hall

I managed to squeeze in a bit of sightseeing, including a brief visit to City Hall, on my way to the Asian Art Museum for an event: "How (not) to get hit by a self-driving car".

SF steepness

San Francisco's famously steep inclines!

Pier 39

An overcast day at Pier 39. Saw sea lions and this majestic seagull, and Alcatraz!

Alcatraz

Sourdough bread bowl

Sourdough crab chowder bowl! Very touristy and delicious.

The Musée Mécanique was recommended to me by lots of people. I'm so glad I went, it was by far the best touristy thing I did in San Francisco! It's been family-owned and operated since 1933. It is chock full of vintage, antique, retro gaming machines, pinball machines, fortune tellers, animatronics, and more. And they are playable!

Pinball

Pike's Peak

Musee games

Fool's Gold machine

Fool's Gold selection

Fool's Gold necklace

I love shiny things. I was thrilled with this necklace I got from the above machine. I think I got the best one! :)

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Marnanel Thurman interview

I was thrilled to interview Marnanel Thurman, developer of Denarius Avaricius Sextus, live on Twitch! Here is some supplemental material that Marnanel mentions over the course of the wonderful conversation:

The History of Letchworth

Brian Blessed Palm Pilot feelings

Marnanel will be joining me again in the future, to further discuss DAS and also the sequel, Lord Avalot d'Argent!

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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!

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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We had a Dan on-stream, and he composed a brand new track for The Crimson Diamond! What a treat! Check it out here. See the other cool stuff Dan does here!

Livestream VOD round-up! All the streams since last gazette are here!

Mar 26th GDC/art stream, Apr 2nd art/music stream, Apr 9th Marnanel Thurman / art strea m

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

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Earthrise LP continues!

Earthrise (Interstel, 1990) continues to entertain and delight! More grisly, pixelly deaths! More exploration! More mystery!

This game isn't commercially available, but you can request that GOG add it to their catalog.

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991)

High Seas Homicide (Sherwood Forest Software, 1993)

Denarius Avaricius Sextus (Thorsoft of Letchworth,1992)

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CRAFT CORNER

Craft corner is on hiatus! I have some ideas for my next cross-stitching project...

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Garnet zoomed in

Garnet round cut

Garnet held

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Garnets are vibrant, durable, and well-priced gems! I recently bought this A-grade, round-cut, 7mm almandine garnet as a treat for myself... Because I finally hit 10,000 Steam wishlists last month! Woo hoo! I also bought a Snaptite(tm) 14k gold setting and made myself a little necklace. The garnet itself cost just $16.57 USD! I took these photos with my 30x21mm loupe held up to my iPhone camera. Just as Nancy Maple does in The Crimson Diamond, using a loupe to examine objects can show some amazing details!

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Holiday card 2022 animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

Check the sidebar for links to my Patreon and PayPal! Or visit The Crimson Diamond's Steam page follow the game, and add it to your wishlist! There's a FREE playable demo too, for Windows PC and Mac! <3

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Thanks for reading! Happy April! 2024 is the year of The Crimson Diamond!

-- JM

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March 2024

Spring crocuses

Hello, dear readers! Happy March! The crocuses are blooming, a sure sign that Spring is on its way! I'm always glad get past the cold and grey winter months.

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Developer update: Alpha version 2.0 is in the hands of my wonderful testers! I'm working my way through those last assets and I implemented a newly completed scene that I've been streaming! I haven't gotten as much work done this week,because I'm prepping for GDC. See below...

(Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out!)

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GDC logo

I'm attending GDC for the first time! I'm very excited. It's my first visit to San Francisco, too!

I'll be showing my game at two GDC-adjacent events:

- Indie BYOG by Onerat Games & Subzero Sound: Tuesday, March 19 at 6pm at The Royale (800 Post Street)

- Gameplay Summit (Networking & Game Demos) by Level Up Events: Wednesday, March 20 at 1pm at Elan Event Venue (839 Howard Street)

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The Adventure Game Hotspot Fan Fair Kickstarter made its goal! Thanks so much to everyone who supported the campaign and/or spread the word! The Fan Fair is being held in Tacoma, Washington, from July 26-29, and I'll be there, thanks to the incredible generosity of their community! Find out more about the event here. There is also a Sierra reunion, including Ken & Roberta Williams, Lori & Corey Cole, Jane Jensen, Robert Holmes, Al Lowe, and Ken Allen!

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I'm on episode #3 of PushingUpRoses' and Matt Aukamp's new adventure game podcast! We had an amazing conversation about The Crimson Diamond, pirate dads, and our experiences with Personal Nightmare! Listen here!

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WINGS Interactive hosted a Women's Day Steam Event! I was happy to participate. I did a special stream on The Crimson Diamond store page in which I played the latest version of chapter 1 of The Crimson Diamond (plus a bonus peek at chapter 2!) and talked about three amazing Canadian women who inspired characters in the game. Watch the video here!

Image source: The Canadian Encyclopedia

The first Canadian woman is Alice Evelyn Wilson, Canada's first woman geologist. She overcame a lot of sexism (including not being allowed to travel to remote areas with male colleagues for field work) and achieved many amazing things -- including being named a Member of the Order of the British Empire, and the first female Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Read about her here!

Image Source: Ron Bull for the Toronto Star

The second Canadian woman is Eira Thomas, a modern day Queen of Diamonds! Eira is the daughter of a Welsh coal miner. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Geology from the University of Toronto. She prospected and founded Diavik Mine, which was once one of the most prolific diamond mines in Canada. Read an excellent article about Eira and her work here!

Baachan

The third amazing Canadian woman had much more of a direct impact on my life. The above photo, from 1944, is my grandmother. She was born in Vancouver, BC in 1917. Her mother (my great-grandmother) emigrated to Vancouver from Japan and married my great-grandfather in a church in Vancounver in 1916. My great-grandmother's name was Kimi, the namesake of my Crimson Diamond character Kimi Kishiro. They endured incredible hardship (the above photo was taken in an internment camp, my grandmother is holding my father in her arms) and persisted. I'm eternally grateful.

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Pantsmo titles screen

Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure is cool, but Pantsmo's Pantaloon Adventure is cooler! Panstmo is a mod made just for me, by eviltentacle (via Twitch) and Emmxyzzy (one of my favourite DOS game streamers on Twitch)!

I love Pantsmo. I've started to create enpantsed sprites for the mod! Though I'm currently up to my ears in Crimson Diamond and GDC prep, I hope to return to enpantsing soon.

barrel

Spitter

SpitterPanted

WickerBOx

PantsCrate

Ptoeey

PtoeeyPants

DragonflyPlain

Dragonflypants

The Pantsmo mod is created via Camoto, a collection of utilities to do just that! It can even run in web browser, with no installation!

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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!

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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March5VODThumb

Art streams! I finished the museum close-up scene, including some speech animations! On to the next introductory sequence scene!

Livestream VOD round-up! All the streams since last gazette are here!

Feb 20th art stream, Feb 27th art stream, Mar 5th art strea m, Mar 12th art stream.

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

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I completed Denarius Avaricius Sextus! Marnanel Thurman, one of the game devs, dropped by in chat and answered questions about the game's development! It was such a special treat and privilege to have her on. We're planning to have her on again to further discuss Denarius Avaricius Sextus and the sequel, Lord Avalot d'Argent! Watch the finale of Denarius Avaricius Sextus here!

New Let's Play! Earthrise by Interstel (1990). Long live EGA text parser adventure games! This game isn't commercially available, but you can request that GOG add it to their catalog.

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991)

High Seas Homicide (Sherwood Forest Software, 1993)

Denarius Avaricius Sextus (Thorsoft of Letchworth,1992)

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CRAFT CORNER

Rise of the Dragon cross-stitch complete!

Rise of the Dragon dragon cross-stitch is complete! I'm pleased with it, and have an idea of what I'll tackle next!

Rise of the Dragon cross stitch work in progress

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

EGA DMC thread colour numbers

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Fordite photo

Fordite photo 2

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Detroit Agate isn't an agate at all! And it's rarer than diamonds! It's also called Motor City Agate and Fordite. It's not a rock, it's polished pieces of layers and layers of paint chipped from overspray in old automobile factories! While it sounds like this material would be easy to come by, the truth is, cars are now painted with an electrostatic process that reduces or eliminates paint overspray. So Fordite is a relic from a bygone (and short) era and is in limited supply! It's popular enough that a material has been created to emulate this look, called "rainbow calsilica". The photos above are the front and back of a piece I've acquired. My sister's friend's uncle passed away a long time ago and had a lot of polished rocks and other curiousities -- This is one of the items I picked out, not knowing anything about it! I think there's a good chance that it's genuine...

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Holiday card 2022 animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy March! 2024 is the year of The Crimson Diamond!

-- JM

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February 2024

February scenery

Hello, dear readers! Happy February! We've had an unseasonally mild February here in Ontario, so I managed to get out to a park last weekend. The ducks had the same idea!

Robarts Library

We finally got some sunshine in Toronto! It was glorious! Here's a beautifully brutalist building in our downtown, The John P. Robarts Research Library!

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Developer update: Alpha version 2.0 is nearly complete! I'm doing my last checks (with a lot of bug-fixing along the way) and I've made some improvements! I'm excited to get to work on the last set of assets. The end is in sight!

Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out!

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Adventure Game Hotspot featured The Crimson Diamond in their list "33 Adventure Games to Get Excited About in 2024"! Hooray! Read the full article here. AGH is organizing an adventure games focused event in Tacoma, Washington this summer. They're currently running a Kickstarter! I won't be able to make it, but I hope it goes well!

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I love discovering Crimson Diamond posts, and am always glad when people share them with me! Michael Klamerus of Virtual Moose wrote a post titled "Games I’m Looking Forward to in 2024" and included TCD! Thanks so much, Michael!

Check out the blog post here!

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Here's a discussion about The Crimson Diamond on resetera from May 2023 that I only discovered recently! I'm always grateful when people take the time to share my game.

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Speaking of discoveries, I was over the moon to find some of my EGA portraits in the Noclip documentary about Return to Monkey Island! What a pleasant surprise! I was commissioned to produce more than a dozen portraits of LucasArts game developers for Limited Run Games' Monkey Island 30th Anniversary Anthology edition. It's sold out now, and tough to obtain. So I was happy to see the portraits in the documentary, where more people can see them!

Noclip doc Ron

Noclip doc Dave

Noclip doc Tim

To see the process of me working on this style of portrait, check out this video! And here's a video of me showing some of the LucasArts portraits!

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Pantsmo Start screen

Here's an incredible Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure mod made just for me, by eviltentacle (via Twitch) and Emmxyzzy (one of my favourite DOS game streamers on Twitch)! My heart is so full. I am now playing Pantsmo's Pantaloon Adventure as my warm-up game before my Let's Plays! I am going to thoroughly enjoy all that Pantsmo has to offer.

I LOVE EGA and I love Apogee 2D scrolling platforming games... But I don't love Pantsmo in his original state (aka Cosmo) where he is non-panted. Thanks to these lovely folks, I can now enjoy this game! Hooray! <3

Pantsmo title screen

Here's the title screen. Check out the pantsed UFO and also a familiar face in the bushes!

Pantsmo closeup Nancy

Pantsmo game

The wonderfully pantsful gameplay

Pantsmo figure

Look at how happy Pantsmo is! If you're interested in spreading joy by modding DOS games, check out Camoto, a collection of utilities to do just that! It can even run in web browser, with no installation!

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Dan's back from touring in Australia with Sean Paul! We had a busy stream on February 6. Dantheband was on --and special guest CosmicVoid, the indie game dev who recently released Twilight Oracle! If you enjoy the game, please leave him a review on Steam. Check out his other games here! Pantsmo also debuted on this stream, as seen above!

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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!

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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Art Stream VOD thumbnail

Art streams continue! I'm nearly finished this museum close-up shot, looking forward to tackling the next background. There's still plenty of art to complete before game launch!

Livestream VOD round-up! All the streams since last gazette are here!

Jan 30th art stream, Feb 6th CosmicVoid/art/music stream, Feb 13th art stream

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

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After a bit of difficulty (see above screenshot of my inventory corrupting into ASCII), I managed to finish High Seas Homicide! I live for little EGA adventure games like this. Thanks to my stream chat for the recommendation! Here's the finale, and here's the full playlist!

I've started a new Let's Play! Denarius Avaricius Sextus, by Thorsoft of Letchworth (1992). Another EGA text parser adventure game! It's a really neat game with a unique interface. I'm having a lot of fun with it!

Even this odd gladiatorial lion-fight minigame was kinda fun! It's in part two of this Let's Play.

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991)

High Seas Homicide (Sherwood Forest Software, 1993)

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CRAFT CORNER

Rise of the Dragon Cross-stitch WIP

Nearly complete! I'm very pleased with this little cross-stitch project. Though the EGA brown I have listed below... I might swap that out for a different brown. But because I have plenty of DMC 301, I'll use that one up before ordering the new brown.

Rise of the Dragon cross stitch work in progress

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

EGA DMC thread colour numbers

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Little garnets in rocks I found

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: There are indeed garnets in Ontario! The park visit I mentioned at the top of the gazette yielded some more stones to add to my vast collection. I love finding actual garnets on the shores of Lake Ontario, embedded in schist. They're not rare but it's still a real treat to find lovely specimens!

Above image from https://malindaprudhomme.com/minerals.html

Here's a fantastic photo of an overview of different types of garnets from Malinda Prud'homme's mineralogy site! Malinda has a Youtube channel called Malinda's Minerals, the above image is from the garnet video. Check it out here!

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Holiday card 2022 animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy February! 2024 is the year of The Crimson Diamond!

-- JM

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January 2024

Watercolour Dido card

Hello, dear readers! Happy January! Happy New Year! It's the Year of the Dragon, AND the Year of The Crimson Diamond! At long last, I'll be launching my game in 2024. Exciting!

I finally mailed out my holiday cards to my $5+ tier Patreon patrons! I'll be sure to share the 2023 holiday card art in the next issue of the Crimson Gazette.

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Developer update: ALL of the music tracks that Dan's composed are now implemented in the game! And now that the holiday cards have been sent off, after this issue of the gazette is complete I will be back working on the alpha build. I feel like I haven't touched the game in weeks and I'm getting a bit antsy!

Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out!

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As has become an annual tradition, Youtuber vicek83 asked me to contribute to his video "Plans of adventure games developers for 2024"! This is the third (fourth?) time I've promised The Crimson Diamond in the following year... But I really mean it this time!!

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The year is off to a great start! A few adventure game Youtubers have made 2024 game launch announcement videos and were excited enough about The Crimson Diamond to include it in their lists!

Adventure Game Hotspot gives TCD a mention in their video "PIXEL ART Adventure Games you MUST PLAY in 2024"! Hooray!

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Adventure Game Geek made a very funny video called "Upcoming Adventure Games 2024...And Beyond!" in which he slaps some creative adventure game launch dates onto a colourful 2024 calendar! Check it out to see where TCD lands! xD

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Yak Wax Lips video

YakWaxLips posted his video "Most Anticipated Adventure Games of 2024! Top 15 Upcoming Point & Click Games for PC", and it's got a fantastic selection (TCD included)! So much to look forward to!

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Over on Twitch, streamer IamFastWolf streamed The Crimson Diamond demo recently! I wasn't able to watch live, but I will definitely be checking out the VOD. I love when streamers take the time to stream the TCD demo, please let me know when you do and I'll do my best to be there!

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The Level 0 NPCs are back, and we've started playing Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra (fantastic thumbnail art by NPC Matthew Goodmanson, as usual!). Laura has a lot more to say in this one, so expect more half-baked Southern accent from me! We're sorta planning to play The Crimson Diamond after we finish Dagger, so expect me to delay this Let's Play at every turn! :P

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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!

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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January 9 stream video

I'm back, streaming more pixel art! This museum close-up shot is nearly complete, though I still have to make a close-up version of Professor Plummer (whose name is a combination of Professor Plum from Clue and late, distinguished Canadian actor Christopher Plummer).

Livestream VOD round-up! All the streams since last gazette are here!

Dec 19th art stream, Jan 9th art stream (I took two weeks off for the holidays).

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

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New year, new Let's Play! I've started High Seas Homicide (1993) by Sherwood Forest Software. It hits all five of my favourite things:

1. EGA

2. Text parser

3. Mystery

4. Adventure game

5. Set primarily in a house or some other circumscribed location

I'm really enjoying it so far!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Crimson C'Tuesday happens every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern on Twitch!

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CRAFT CORNER

Rise of the Dragon cross-stitch progress

I've made some really good progress on my EGA Rise of the Dragon cross-stitch! I wonder what I'll be tackling next..

Rise of the Dragon cross stitch work in progress

Here's what he'll look like when he's finished!

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

EGA DMC thread colour numbers

Parlour cross stitch framed by fabric

It's a double Crafts Corner this month! My amazing mom sewed a lovely double border for my The Crimson Diamond parlour cross-stitch. I love the "dithered" white and green!

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Ekati diamond mine (photo: Dominion Diamond Mines)

Aerial view of the Ekati diamond mine. Photo: Dominion Diamond Mines

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: There really ARE diamond mines in northern Canada, and they're currently active! This recent article, by Ollie Williams at Cabin Radio, reports that the Ekati Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories may remain active until well into the 2030s, thanks to new technology and extraction methods. The impact on the enviroment is evident from the above photo. Will Crimson, Ontario look like this in the future?

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Holiday card 2022 animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy January! 2024 is the year of The Crimson Diamond!

-- JM

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December 2023

Nature photo taken by me

Hello, dear readers! Happy December! There hasn't been any snow accumulation yet in Canada, but I'm sure that it's just around the corner. Another year has flown by!

I'm doing my last stream of the year on December 19th at 8pm Eastern, it'll be my special holiday stream! I'll be giving away Patreon holiday card packs and a piece of merch from my Fourthwall store! Come celebrate with me! Find me on Twitch!

Speaking of the year passing by, here's my Twitch recap! The image is a bit hard to read, so here are the stats: 6.11k hours watched, 59 streams, 450 new followers, 55 new subscribers, and 33k chats sent! "59 streams" requires a bit of explaining: I usually stream once a week, with two weeks off for the winter holidays and the occasional day or two here or there. But when my livestream crashes and I start it back up again, that counts as a new stream!

Thanks so much to everyone who comes to Crimson C'Tuesdays (8pm Eastern!). It's the social highlight of my week. Follow Twitch my channel here!

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Developer update: The alpha version of The Crimson Diamond is now in the hands of my amazing testers. They've already found plenty of bugs, though fortunately nothing too bad yet! My next order of business is to work on finishing up all the art assets. After that, amazingly... The game will be finished. 2024!

Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out!

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It's that time again! My Patreon NEW Patron Bonus Pack! If you become a new $5 tier patron over the holiday season (defined as now until when I send out my holiday cards, which probably won't be until early next year), you will receive all that you see in the above photo! That's the last three years' holiday cards, a Crimson Diamond postcard, 2023's holiday card, and a little Nancy Maple sticker! Here's a link to my Patreon page.

A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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I recorded this Adventure Game Studio Workshop video for the Hand Eye Society's SuperFESTival 2023! The Hand Eye Society is a Toronto-based not-for-profit organization that showcases and suppports indie game developement. And SuperFESTival is an online-only event hosted on the Hand Eye Society's Twitch channel that featured a game showcase, speakers, and workshops!

This workshop is 1.5 hours and covers all the basic features of Adventure Game Studio 3.6 and will walk you step-by-step through how to use those features!

Two years ago I recorded a 1 hour video of an older version of AGS, but I'd definitely recommend the above updated version!

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The Crimson Diamond didn't win Indie Cup Canada's Rising Star award, but I'm very proud and appreciative that it got nominated. The field was very strong! It was a very well-organized event, and the jury left some helpful feedback. They're also keeping a very professional page on their site for The Crimson Diamond! Check it out here .

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The Crimson Diamond was featured in Alice O'Connor's Rock Paper Shotgun Screenshot Saturday Monday, this time with the ol' fish and bucket image! It feels great to get some games media coverage for TCD.

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The Level 0 NPCs have COMPLETED The Colonel's Bequest! My very first game as an NPC, and definitely not my last! We did surprisingly well on the Sleuth-o-meter, all things considered! We will be starting up Dagger of Amon Ra in the new year. I'm very excited!

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Speedy Adventures community member and Twitch streamer BerniePlaysGames was speedrunning The Crimson Diamond demo this month!

I haven't had a chance to watch the VOD yet, but I'm looking forward to it! I try to watch every stream of the demo. It's extremely valuable feedback. I also try to be in chat when the stream is happening, so if you are planning on streaming The Crimson Diamond demo, please let me know and I'll do my best to pop into chat! I will give free hints!

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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!

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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Charity calendar

A reminder that I contributed a Recommendation Dog!! piece for this 2024 calender project by Xania Lasagna. A portion of the proceeds will be going to adopt an animal through the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature).

Recommendation Dog!! is a FREE on Playdate Catalog! I did art and art directed the game, which was produced by Strange Scaffold and Sweet Baby Inc.! The other artist on the project was Rafael Batista de Lima, an amazing pixel artist and fellow indie game dev!

charity calendar image 2

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The Crimson Diamond musician Dan Policar has treated us to more music streams since last gazette! As of the publication of this issue, Dan has made two appearances. We've been refining the tracks he's composed live on stream. It's been lovely to revisit the pieces and get them ready to put in the game!

Livestream VOD round-up! All the streams since last gazette are here!

Nov 21st art/music stream, Nov 28th art/music stream, Adventure Game Studio Workshop, and Dec 5 art stream!

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I've started playing Dark Convergence II: The Hideous Trigoli, by Jeffrey Kintz! I feel very fortunate that Jeffrey himself has supplied me with this copy. Thanks, Jeffrey! Hugo's House of Horrors is a well-known EGA text parser adventure game made by a solo game dev (David P. Gray) of the same era, but I believe Jeffrey Kintz deserves to be appreciated just as much. I have so much respect for game devs in the early 1990s. It was much harder to make games back then, especially if you were doing it on your own. Here's to the trail-blazers!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Oct 17th art/music stream, Oct 24th Pre-Hallowe'en Special art stream, Crimson C'WEDNESDAY Steam event stream ,and Nov 24th art stream!

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CRAFT CORNER

Cross stitch work in progress

The Rise of the Dragon Dragon cross-stitch hasn't progressed very far because I've been working on this year's holiday card. I'll be back to it once those get mailed out.

Rise of the Dragon cross stitch work in progress

Here's what he'll look like when he's finished!

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

EGA DMC thread colour numbers

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My Lake Ontario rock collection

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Rocks come in an infinite variety of colours, mineral compositions, and shapes, and each is completely unique! And they're everywhere. The above photo is my collection of rocks from the shores of Lake Ontario. My loupe helps me see little embedded crystals, specks of colours, and other secrets hidden from the naked eye.

The Crimson Diamond has enhanced my appreciation for rocks, minerals, and crystals of all kinds. Making this game continues to be one of the most enriching experiences of my life. If you've ever had the urge to do something creative, I encourage you to go for it! The process is its own reward.

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Holiday card 2022 animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy December! And stayed tuned for a 2024 launch!

-- JM

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November 2023

Cutty Sark photo

The Cutty Sark in Greenwich. Photo taken by me, 2023.

Ahoy, dear readers! Happy November! This month has been full of adventure, so let's set sail with this month's gazette!

I was in London attending AdventureX and seeing the sights! Here's what I was wearing on day 1. This is a particularly photo-heavy edition of the gazette, so hold onto your hats! (My Sideways Nancy hat is available on Fourthwall)

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Developer update: The alpha version of The Crimson Diamond is now complete! This milestone was actually reached before I flew to London, I just didn't realize it. I'm currently writing the complete walkthrough (which is also an opportunity to go over the entire game) before sending it off to my beta testers. I've also quietly updated the demo (on Steam, itchio, and Fireflower Games) because there was a bug that erased the player's notebook and didn't allow new notes to be added. Yikes!

Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out!

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TCD is an Indie Cup Canada nominee

I'm very excited to announce that The Crimson Diamond has been nominated for Indie Cup Canada's Rising Star award! Here's a link to The Crimson Diamond on the Indie Cup Canada's website. Indie Cup Canada was one of the reasons I wanted to update the demo before I left for London. The other reason was Application Systems Heidelberg was hosting an AdventureX Steam event! I did a special Crimson C'Wednesday stream on my Steam store page for that, during which I played the updated demo. I also showed my trip photos, though I did that again the following Crimson C'Tuesday (I link to that stream below).

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My Twitch chat is full of amazingly talented artists, programmers, and developers! Sakanakao has written a program to automate "draw steps" for artwork and has created these gifs of The Crimson Diamond! Follow Sakanakao on Mastodon, Twitter, Patreon, Youtube, and Twitch, as well as their personal site!

animated draw gif of shed

Artists who use SCI Companion to draw their art (Karl Dupéré-Richer, currently working on Betrayed Alliance, is one of them!) can have their backgrounds show the actual steps they took in the process of drawing them. I am using Photoshop, which means I don't get to genuinely show this cool effect! Thanks to Sakanakao, I can get the next best thing.

Animaged draw gif of Nancy eavesdropping

Animated draw Gif of bar

animated draw gif of boathoue

Animated draw gif of xmas card

Thanks so much, Sakankao!

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The Level 0 NPCs have returned to playing The Colonel's Bequest! This series was on hiatus to celebrate Horror Month by playing (and finishing!) Phantasmagoria, as well as for Krulltember. But we're back now, chattering at length while Laura stands stock-still, staring out at the screen at us. Occasionally and accidentally we do make progress in the game!

Level 0 tshirt

Luke sent me this GORGEOUS Level 0 NPCs shirt just in time for my trip! I proudly sported it on day 2 (see those photos below). I've been a fan of the Level 0 NPCs for years, I'm so happy and proud to be a member now. Check out their channel here!

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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!

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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Charity calendar

This just in! I contributed a Recommendation Dog!! piece for this 2024 calender project by Xania Lasagna that celebrates the Playdate! A portion of the proceeds will be going to adopt an animal through the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature).

charity calendar image 2

Xania sent me a sample of the calendar -- It's gorgeous! The calendar cards are printed on glossy cardstock and are presented on a handy little wooden stand. The package comes with this little booklet that has profiles of all the contributors! Check it out!

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A reminder that my Patreon tiers have changed! Now, all current patrons will have their names in the credits of The Crimson Diamond when it launches. The default is to have names included, and the name used will be the Patreon profile name. If you'd like to opt-out or use a different name, please message me on Patreon! Here's a link to my Patreon page.

I've also retired my $1 tier, but patrons on that tier will still get their name in the credits, and nothing changes for them! Retiring a tier just means no new patrons can join it.

A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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I did a pre-Hallowe'en stream (because I was in London for actual Hallowe'en), but I did want to dress up and have some fun! I did a Fourthwall giveaway, showed my past costumes and spooky art, and started a new Let's Play: The Dark Convergence. It was spooktacular! I've since finished it, it's a very tough text parser game but I love the art and greatly admire Jeffrey Kintz, the solo developer who made it. In fact, Jeffrey found the video of my Let's Play on Youtube and offered to supply me with a copy of the sequel, The Dark Convergence II! I'm very pleased to announce that I will be Let's Playing the sequel next!

If you'd like to see more photos of my AdventureX/London trip with commentary, check out this VOD! I show more food, more bits of art, and tell my story of the Three Harrod's treasures that I encountered!

We had a Dan on stream! We revisted some Crimson Diamond tracks and Dan polished them up. It's always good times with Dan!

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Livestream VOD round-up! All the streams since last gazette are here!

Crimson C'Tuesday happens every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern on Twitch!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

September 19th art stream, September 26th art stream, October 3rd art stream,and October 10th art stream!

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CRAFT CORNER

Dragon cross stitch

The Rise of the Dragon Dragon cross-stitch continues! Roddy (that's his name to me) is slowly taking shape. Slowly but surely!

Rise of the Dragon cross stitch work in progress

Here's what he'll look like when he's finished!

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

EGA DMC thread colour numbers

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Thames rocks

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Rocks come in incredible varieties, all over the world! I've become very familiar with the rocks on the Lake Ontario shore. When I went down to the bank of the Thames by Greenwich, it was immediately apparent how different those rocks were. They had glossy surfaces, which I initially thought was due to them being wet. I then thought I was looking at fragments of glazed ceramics. But when I saw the large-ish rock on on the upper left in the above picture, it was clear that this is actually a feature of the rocks! Upon doing a bit of research, I've concluded it's a type of chert, specifically chert nodules.

There is a English pasttime called mudlarking, which consists of searching those rocky shores not only for interesting rocks, but bits of pottery, coins, pipes, any number of things. There's a long history of humans using the Thames as a trade route. This has filled the shore with all sorts of objects, with new objects washing up every day. Here's an article on mudlarking. Cloak & Dagger Games has even made an adventure game about mudlarks!

Thames shore

I spent about twenty minutes on the shore, I could've easily whiled away an entire day. What wonderful mysteries lie just at our feet?

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Here are the AdventureX/London photos! I had an amazing time.

AdventureX Day 2 selfie

My AdventureX day 2 outfit. Featuring that gorgeous Level 0 NPCs tshirt and an AGS Blue Cup sticker on my id badge, given to me by ioannis John KarAvas!

AdventureX swag

AdventureX swag! Nice to see an ad for Rosewater! Cover art by Hannes Pasqualini.

AdventureX Venue

The event was hosted by Greenwich University, and the talks were given in this theatre. It was a good venue, except pretty warm and airless. I'm glad I wore my Flo mask (the most comfortable mask I've tried so far).

Adventure Game Geek photo

So happy to run into Adventure Game Geek, wearing his EGA bucket bucket hat! Hat buddies! Adventure Game Geek is a fantastic Youtuber who reviews adventure games, both new and old. Check out his channel here!

Greenwich clock

This is Meridian House, Greenwich's former town hall. It was built in 1939. I love the massive brickiness of this industrial Art Deco building.

Me and illustrator Graham Round

Here's me and Graham Round! His Usborne Solve It Yourself books made a HUGE impression on me when I was growing up. I never thought I'd actually get to sit down to lunch with him. I feel incredibly lucky.

Usborne Solve it Yourself

"Escape from Blood Castle" was the first Solve It Yourself book. The art style, the bright colours, the puzzle/mystery/adventure aspects... It's contains everything I love and want to create.

Book signed by Graham Round

Graham signed my copy and drew this lovely sketch!

The card I painted for Graham Round

I made this card to give to Graham, to thank him for meeting up with me. And to thank him for inspiring me for all these years. It combines the characters, settings, and some items in all four of his Usborne Solve It Yourself / Puzzle Adventure books!

Graham Round original art

I also got to visit his studio and see some stunning original art.

Hangdog, written and illutrated by Graham Round

AND he gave me a copy of "Hangdog" the one published book that he wrote and illustrated!

Graham's cat tiger

Here's his cat Tiger, who is a sweetheart.

watercolour tubes

Fellow EGA adventure game developer and AdventureX attendee Stephen Schroeder tipped me off to the Greenwich art store that was attached to the AdventureX venue. I found these tubes of Winsor Newton (English brand!) watercolours, some the pricier professional grade, on clearance sale for £1 each!

watercolour colours

Here are the colours. I can't wait to try them in an art piece.

Beni, a Japanese pigment

There was a small exhibit on Beni (a red pigment derived from safflowers, which has a Japanese origin) at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The coolest thing about Beni is that if it's applied thickly it appears irridescent green, otherwise it's flat red. Magic!

Jamie Benning of Filmumentaries podcast

Another online friend I got to meet for the first time in real life was Jamie Benning, host of the Filmumentaries podcast! He's interviewed many film and tv industry legends, including Walter Murch (Return to Oz), Garrett Brown (inventor of the Steadicam), and Ryan Condal (House of the Dragon showrunner)! He's also co-written the book Return of the Jedi Unauthorized Timeline!

English breakfast

I made sure to get my fill of English cuisine. Such as the full English breakfast!

Fish and chips

Fish and chips (with the best thick-cut chips and tartar sauce I've ever had).

Sunday Roast

And Sunday roast!

Harrod's

I suppose this amounts to the Harrod's food court! I LOVE Harrod's. It's basically the best, most opulent department store on the planet. Here's a timestamped link of me talking about my 2023 Harrod's experience, including the 3 Harrod's Treasures that I encountered during my visit.

Saatchi's gift shop

I also visited the very excellent Saatchi Gallery and nearly bought one of these ultra vibrant tea light holders from the gift shop. So many tempting goodies!

Hokusai's wave

The Young V&A had an exhibit called Japan: Myths to Manga. It had this famous Hokusai print in it. As many times as I've seen this piece online, it's still mindblowing to see an original.

Painted Hall's illusory stairs

The Painted Hall in Greenwich was also stunning. One of my favourite parts was these trompe l'oeil (trick the eye / visual illusion) stairs. This is a flat wall!

Departing flight, British Airways

The glorious sunset at Heathrow, marking the end of my adventure. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

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INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy November!

-- JM

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October 2023

autumn photo 2

Hello, dear readers! Happy October! The colours are changing in our Ontario parks. It's crisp and cool out, but not yet frigid. A lovely time of year, though the long dark winter is just around the corner.

autumn photo

I took the EGA bucket bucket hat out for some fresh air! I couldn't be happier with how the embroidery turned out. Get your own EGA bucket bucket hat here!

autumn photo 4

Those five shapes on the right are swans. Reminds me of Loom!

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Developer update: The first draft of all the writing in chapter 7 is complete! Whew! This is the chapter where player choices and what the player learned during the rest of the game really affects what's seen and said. Lots of tricky combinations! After I test this bit, it'll be on to making the assets. A fair amount of art is being reused, but there still is a LOT to do. Onwards!

Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out!

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Goemonsama art

I love when people make The Crimson Diamond-inspired art! This gorgeous piece is by Goemonsama, a comics artist and illustrator! Check out his site here. He made this during my Let's Play of Altered Destiny, placing Nancy Maple in the crystal caverns in that game (see below)! Goemonsama is also on Mastodon, and has a ko-fi account too!

Altered Destiny crystal cave reference

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I was super excited to see this mention of The Crimson Diamond in Rock Paper Shotgun! Alice O'Connor writes a feature called Screenshot Saturday Mondays, where she picks some interesting games out of the #screenshotSaturday hashtag every week and showcases them on the following Monday. Thank you Alice, for supporting indie devs!

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Krulltember is over, long live Horror Month! I'm a longtime fan of the Level 0 NPCs, and Horror Month was always my favourite time of year to watch their channel. Now that I'm a Level 0 NPC myself, I feel like it's all come full circle. Check out the spook-tacular character art Matt made -- I couldn't be more pleased with my rendition as a witchy-witch!

Phantasmagoria video thumbnail

This year's Horror Month is a continuation of their Phantasmagoria Let's Play! Here's the full playlist. I come in at episode 11, "BabyLife(tm)"!

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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!

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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I've also retired my $1 tier, but patrons on that tier will still get their name in the credits, and nothing changes for them! Retiring a tier just means no new patrons can join it.

A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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Livestream VOD round-up! Work continues on the museum close-up shot and I re-start and complete Altered Destiny with the help of a walkthough!

Crimson C'Tuesday happens every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern on Twitch!

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My Altered Destiny is now complete! I finally broke out a walkthrough. It's a fairly short game if you've got the walkthrough, but it's next to impossible to complete on your own. I'm happy I got to experience it, and to see the beautiful EGA art. Here's the full Altered Destiny playlist! I have an idea of what I'll be playing next -- Stay tuned!

Altered Destiny is available on GOG and Steam!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

August 15th art stream, August 22nd art stream, August 29th music stream, September 5th art stream, and September 12th art stream!

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CRAFT CORNER

Legend of the Sword cross-stitch done

My Legend of the Sword cross-stitch is finished! I'm very pleased with how it turned out, though the greens have been difficult to duplicate. Below you'll see my attempts at recreating the EGA palette with DMC embroidery thread:

Cross-stitch EGA threads

The top palette is my current working version of the EGAcolours in embroidery floss, the middle palette is EGA as it's displayed on screen, and the bottom palette is an alternate version of my embroidery thread palette (though the greys, black, white, and yellow are the same for both). I think the light green is the furthest from the target, but the best I've found so far. Maybe I can find neon green, and a neon pink for the magenta? The search continues!

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

EGA DMC thread colour numbers

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my azurite

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Azurite can be found in Canada! I had no idea! The azurite is the tiny dark blue crystals, the green bits are malachite, and this whole specimens is from the Empress of India Mine in Yukon, Canada. I bought this piece from a vendor at the Bancraoft Gemboree. The Empress of India Mine is located within the Whitehorse Copper Belt. Both azurite and malachite are copper-based minerals. In fact, if azurite is exposed to air over a long period or time, it deteriorates into malachite! That's why these two minerals are often found together. Fascinating!

Azurite scale photo

This photo gives a better idea of the scale of the specimen. I've always loved the combination of azurite and malachite. It looks like an alien landscape.

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INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy October!

-- JM

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September 2023

monarch butterly outside

Hello, dear readers! Happy September! The weather has cooled down quickly, with cool breezes and cooler nights. It's a lovely time of year. I've got more treasures from the Bancroft Gemboree to share, raising monarch butterflies, dev update, and more!

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Developer update: The design document for chapter seven is complete, and I've finished blocking out the basics for the chapter! Everything is progressing well. This will be the infamous "test of knowledge / debrief" chapter, where the player will need to make some important decisions and then see how the story ends!

Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out!

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At long last, I've created The Crimson Diamond presskit! I had this info on the main page of thecrimsondiamond.com, but this makes it easier for people to read it and follows a familiar template. I used presskit() by Rami Ismail. I'm not all that tech-savvy and had a heck of a time getting it to work properly (my fault), but it's working well enough for me!

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Not only is it September, but it's KRULLtember! The first annual Krulltember, in fact! Luke and Matt of the Level 0 NPCs love this movie, me and Alex and Andrew had never seen it. We had a little watch party and did a commentary track! I had a lot of fun and enjoyed the movie. We will be rounding out Krulltember with other Krull media, including the arcade game, Atari game, and more! Stay tuned!

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carol pasternak's book about raising monarch butterflies

My mother discovered this wonderful book about raising monarch butterflies by Carol Pasternak, and wanted to give it a try! She's been growing milkweed in her garden for a few years now, so the time was ripe!

I ordered this faunarium off of Amazon for her, it's worked really well so far. The caterpillars can climb up the walls and secure themselves to the black lid to pupate.

monarch egg

The first step was going to a park with milkweed plants and look on the undersides of the leaves for eggs. They're tiny, smaller than a sesame seed.

caterpillars

Three eggs hatched into tiny little worm-looking things, which in turn developed into these fine caterpillars.

j-shaped caterpillar

When the caterpillar is ready to pupate it heads up to the lid, glues its rear end up there, and then assumes this j-shape. After a few hours it magically morphs into a green cocoon!

monarch cocoon

The caterpillar can still be seen in here.

monarch cocoons

The cocoons eventually becaome opaque and green, and will stay like that for 8-12 days. Notice the beautiful golden points!

monarch nearly ready to emergy from chrysalis

When the butterly is nearly ready to emerge, the cocoon becomes translucent.

monarch butterly freshly emerged

And here's a newly emerged monarch butterfly! When they're freshly out of their cocoon they will hang upside down and still for a few hours while they dry off and a liquid runs off their wings. When they start fluttering, they're ready to be set free!

It's a fascinating process. One monarch egg in one hundred makes it to adulthood, and monarch butterfly populations are in decline. So raising the eggs in a safe environment and releasing the butterflies into the wild helps them out!

My mom is enjoying her new hobby. Her garden is full of flowers that are full of sweet nectar for butterflies and birds alike (and two hearty milkweed plants). Hopefully we'll see more butterflies in her garden next spring and summer!

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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!

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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I've also retired my $1 tier, but patrons on that tier will still get their name in the credits, and nothing changes for them! Retiring a tier just means no new patrons can join it.

A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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Music stream with Dan! We revisited and polished up the "Pursuit Theme", one of the tracks for the game! It's always a good time with Dan. Check out that stream here!

Crimson C'Tuesday happens every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern on Twitch!

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Altered Destiny video thumbnail

Altered Destiny (1990) continues to be a stunning EGA game! Thanks to stream chat I was able to change the music settings from PC speaker to AdLib, then MIDI, and then back to AdLib (when I decided that the more realistic-sounding MIDI piano music didn't mesh so well with the otherwordly setting and visuals). Here's the Altered Destiny playlist so far.

Altered Destiny is available on GOG and Steam!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Want your own EGA bucket t-shirt? Click here for my Fourthwall store !

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CRAFT CORNER

Legend of the Sword cross-stitch progress

My Legend of the Sword cross-stitch is coming along nicely! The top frame is complete, the bottom frame is well on its way. I'm already thinking about what to do next!

Legend of the Sword cross-stitch pattern

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

EGA DMC thread colour numbers

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apatite I got

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: The Schicker Fluorite Occurrence is a rock deposit in Ontario where you can obtain amazing samples, direct from the earth! As the name would suggest, the area is abundant with lovely gemmy purple fluorite. But it's also known for other amazing rocks and one of those is apatite (see above photo for the specimens I gathered!). If you are planning on paying a visit to the site, don't forget to fill out the waiver!

These lovely pieces show the chararacteristic crystal habit of apatite (hexagonal columns). They weren't carved or polished in any way -- They came straight out of the dirt like this! It feels like magic.

apatite photo

Here's how big my pieces are. I'm so happy with them!

apatite photo 3

Here's a close-up of the one with the nicest colour, courtesy of my 30x21mm loupe. The top is mossy green and the bottom is rich red. Stunning!

Apatite photo 4

Apatite has a Mohs hardness of 5, which probably explains when it tends to have cracks and fractures throughout. But I think the fractures give it a nice textured look!

apatite photo 6

Here's a top view, which shows that wonderful hexagon!

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INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy September!

-- JM

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August 2023

Bancroft Gemboree mascot

Hello, dear readers! Happy August! July was hot and rainy here in Ontario, August has been surprisingly pleasant. Cool breezes, not too humid, and some exciting mineral acquisitions! Read on!

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Visual note cue toggle

Developer update: All of the assets and animations for chapter six are now complete! All that remains is to polish up the writing and programming, as well as testing. I'm well on my way to having chapter six 100% complete by the end of August! And then one more chapter to go! The above screenshot shows a minor addition -- The ability to toggle the "Visual cue for notes" that pops up when players complete a notebook objective or otherwise perform a game progression action. I wanted to include a visual cue to accompany the audio cue -- Now, either can be on or off (in the audio cue's case, by turning down the sound fx volume)!

Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond on Steam, it really helps me out!

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Bancroft Gemboree button and crest

I attended this year's Bancroft Gemboree! The button is from years ago, when my parents took me and my sister, and the embroidered patch is this year's merch. The show was amazing and featured tons of vendors, interesting talks, and delicious Kawartha Dairy Ice Cream (I heartily recommend the new S'mores flavour!).

Bancroft Gemboree show

So much to look at... and purchase! I'll be sharing my acquisitions in the next few gazettes. My favourite piece is featured in this month's gazette, scroll down to read all about it!

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I love The Colonel's Bequest, and I've been a fan of the Level 0 NPCs Youtube channel, for their fun, banter-filled playthroughs of mostly Sierra adventure games. I'm happy to report that I've joined the NPCs for their latest collab Let's Play, which happens to be The Colonel's Bequest!

We play the game... Not efficiently! It's a lot of fun chatter between friends with some minor game progression. In the latest episode (as of this gazette) Matt shares an anecdote about wearing cut-up onions on his feet to treat a persistent cough. We've also discussed favourite tv show theme songs, and if Laura Bow is made of cake. Here's the playlist so far!

Level 0 NPC cast

NPC Matt drew this amazing rogue version of me. I love it so much.

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Merch sighting! Awesome adventure game Twitch streamer and game developer Robotspacer wore an EGA bucket t-shirt on a recent stream! Robotspacer is one of my favourite streamers. Not only does he stream games that I'm interested in (he's started a playthrough of Murder Club in EGA!), he's also creating a Mac game in Worldbuilder, a very retro engine. He plans on porting that game to the Playdate, which excites me to no end. I can't wait to play it on mine!

Here's Robotspacer's Twitch channel! You can also follow him on Twitter and Mastodon!

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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Dido birthday card

Birthday card starring Dido! It's always nice to haul out the watercolours and paint. I can't resist all those bright colours!

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I've also retired my $1 tier, but patrons on that tier will still get their name in the credits, and nothing changes for them! Retiring a tier just means no new patrons can join it.

A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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Here's the latest batch of videos of my Twitch livestreams! Progress is being made on the new scene, Bio Menace episode 2 continues, plus the thrilling conclusion to Loom and the start of a new Let's Play!

July 25th art stream, August 1st art stream, and August 8th art stream!

Crimson C'Tuesday happens every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern on Twitch!

The Crimson Diamond office animation

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I've finished Loom (EGA)! What a magical experience. I feel like there is something special about this one, and it's not just because all of the other games I've Let's Played have been a lot more challenging, in terms of game design, UI, etc. Not to mention, Loom is an example of a game that is unequivocably more beautiful in EGA than in VGA (and the VGA version also cut out some of the writing!). Here's the playlist for my Loom Let's Play.

I've started playing Altered Destiny (Accolade, 1990) -- In EGA, of course! This game is available on GOG and Steam, but defaults to the non-EGA version. If you install the game from the GOG version, you can then find the setup.exe and run that in DOSBox or D-fend, which will let you choose what graphics mode you want. From then on, the game will launch via the GOG icon in EGA!

This is my first experience with an Accolade adventure game, and it's got a text parser! So far I'm loving it.

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

To check out my Fourthwall store, click here!

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CRAFT CORNER

Cross stitch progress

The border for my Legend of the Sword cross-stitch is now complete! I'm wondering if I'll even use black embroidery thread for the black lines, or if I'll leave that the black of the aida cloth. Not only would that mean fewer stitches, it might help recreated the impression of the colours being projected from a crt screen, in all their fuzzy glory!

Legend of the Sword cross-stitch pattern

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

EGA DMC thread colour numbers

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River Valley Ontario almandine garnet

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: The Crimson Diamond is set in Crimson, Ontario, a town that was established because of a nearby garnet mine! When I attended the Bancroft Gemboree, my main goal was to obtain a genuine northern Ontario garnet. I couldn't be more pleased with what I found!

This incredible, plum-sized, hefty, 12-sided almandine garnet hails from River Valley, Ontario. It's truly spectacular. Those lines in the faces are caused by the growth pattern of the crystal, which give the whole rock an uncanny, alien look.

River Valley Ontario almadine garnet

Depending on the lighting, flashes of bright red can be seen. It's gorgeous and I can't stop looking at it.

River Valley Ontario almandine garnet size

Here it is next to a Canadian quarter for scale!

GeologyIn Garnet chart

Garnets come in a variety of types and a colours. Almadine garnets are most common, and I love their shape the most!

Above image from https://www.geologyin.com/2018/03/garnet-group-colors-and-varieties-of.html

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INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy August!

-- JM

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July 2023

Dan and Sean

Hello, dear readers! Happy July! This month has been packed with many meetings and adventures. Dan (The Crimson Diamond musician) swung by Toronto with Sean Paul, I was happily able to see them! Read on for details!

Pause added to TCD

Developer update: The final gameplay room of the final gameplay chapter (chapter six) is well on its way to completion! I'm currently working on assets, those are more any half finished. I took a bit of time away from working on those assets to add a pause function to the game, and I think that was time well spent! Adventure Game Studio games are somewhat infamous for not being easy to pause. Fortunately, fellow AGS dev Francisco González of Grundislav Games dug into the AGS forums and found a solution! When The Crimson Diamond releases, the game will be pause-able at any point, even during blocking animations. Hooray! Support Francisco and his beautiful in-development game Rosewater by wishlisting it on Steam!

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Dan n Me

Dan was rocking out on his keyboards with Sean Paul here in Toronto, followed by a stint in Quebec. I had some Air Canada vouchers so I figured why not do a quick weekend over there to catch a couple more shows, plus meet up with some Montreal friends?

Sean Paul backstage

I got to be backstage at their Trois-Rivières show, so I had a great view! To hear/see more about the shows (and see some short clips) here's a timestamped link.

I was glad to meet Karl Dupéré-Richer, artist of slattstudio's Betrayed Alliance games and game dev in his own right (check out The Amazing Fix on Steam!). Karl is an amazing sculptor too! To see more of his work, check out his instagram and blog. Karl was a guest on my Twitch stream a while back. You can see/listen to that here!

Karl sculpture

Sweetbaby office

More Montreal friends! I was very excited to meet Kim Belair and David Bedard, founders of Sweet Baby Inc. at their beautiful office! I've worked with them on a few projects, including Recommendation Dog!! We are all gathered around this amazing, working, landlined Garfield phone. I wish I'd taken note of the phone number, ah!

Nancy Garfield by Robotspacer

Speaking of garfs, I am overjoyed to have this Nancy Maple Garfield drawing Robotspacer created for me, for his birthday celebration Twitch stream! Robotspacer is one of my favourite streamers, who just so happens to share a birthday with Garfield. What a perfect way to celebrate! If you love watching relaxing streams of new and old adventure games and live game development using retro tools (Worldbuilder!), I heartily recommend his channel! You can also follow him on Twitter.

And speaking of Nancy Maple art, here's a beautiful piece created by Tedbob84! I love the retro anime feel. Tedbob84 is a character and graphic designer -- Here are their links if you'd like to see more!

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I love collaborating with game devs by contributing art for their games! I've gotten to work with Goloso Games (Inspector Waffles), Grundislav Games (Rosewater) and now, Jim Makes Games (Fire All Weapons)! Fire All Weapons is a roguelike tactical deckbuilding combat game, currently in development. If that sounds like your jam, please give it a wishlist!

My EGA fish people

Here's a close-up of the animated gif I created for the game. I modelled the bridge to look like the Star Trek TOS bridge. The back screens show a few of my favourite DOS games, including Rampage, Loderunner, and Arkanoid. I also squeezed in a little animated Nancy head and The Crimson Diamond logo! The aliens of the Everlasting Galactic Alliance (EGA) dress a BIT like Nancy Maple, too!

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Drunkerella stream

Amazing retro adventure game Twitch streamer Drunkerella played The Crimson Diamond demo! She grew up on Sierra games, and it shows. She was a super pro! I had a blast watching her play. You can also find her on Twitter!

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Youtube Partner

I'm now a YouTube Partner! Yay! I really like how I can now integrate my Fourthwall store onto my Youtube page. I mostly post my videos on Youtube for people to watch if my streams don't work for their time zones or if they have to dip in and out, but knowing there is another potential revenue stream available to me now is nice. It's also satisfying to see all my videos archived on Youtube (though of course I have my own copies backed up elsewhere).

Speaking of Fourthwall, here is what the Nancy Maple notebook looks like, in real life! It's super helpful when folks sent me photos like this, makes it much easier to see what the quality of the products are. I'm told that the notebooks are quite good!

TCD notebooks

The Fourthwall EGA Bucket tshirt has made another appearance in a OneShortEye video! This time, OSE interviews Ron Gilbert about how he feels about players speedrunning his games. Check it out here, it's great!

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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I've also retired my $1 tier, but patrons on that tier will still get their name in the credits, and nothing changes for them! Retiring a tier just means no new patrons can join it.

A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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Streaming continues! I finished the museum basement (see below for animated gif of the process) and have started on a new scene! Slowly but surely, we are upgrading all of the graphics for the intro sequence of The Crimson Diamond! Thank you to everyone who comes to stream to lurk, work, chat, offer suggestions, and share your knowledge.

June 20th art stream, June 27th art stream , July 4th art stream, and July 11th art stream!

Crimson C'Tuesday happens every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern on Twitch!

The Crimson Diamond office animation

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I've started a new Let's Play series! It's Loom (EGA)! I've only played bits of it and never finished it back in the day, so I'm very excited to revisit this one. It's a bit of a comfort and a relief to play a game that is so well-loved; firstly because the game is fantastically enjoyable (especially compared to other games I've Let's Played) and secondly because when I get stuck there are plenty of people who can nudge me along (hardly anyone had heard of Legend of the Sword, let alone were prepared to offer any sort of guidance!). Thirdly, there is a lot of interesting trivia about Loom that I'm learning along the way, thanks to knowledgeable viewers. So far, so good!

Loom (VGA) is sold on GOG and Steam. Apparently if you buy this version and open it in SCUMMVM, the EGA option will be available to you! I haven't had that confirmed, though!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

Crimson C'Tuesday happens every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern on Twitch!

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CRAFT CORNER

Legend of the Sword cross stitch

My Legend of the Sword cross-stitch progress! I'm enjoying this one quite a bit so far.

Legend of the Sword cross-stitch pattern

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

EGA DMC thread colour numbers

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Deep-sea Mining image by G. Mannaerts

Image by G. Mannaerts, obtained from Wikipedia July15, 2023.

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Valuable minerals are not limited to dry land. Deep-sea mining is emerging as a possible option for our increasing demands for crucial battery-building minerals such as nickel, cobalt, and copper. But at what cost? Fortunately, the Canadian government supports an interim moratorium on deep-sea mining, so that environmental impacts can be researched and evaluated. Marine biologists are strongly opposed to this potentially highly disruptive activity on the ocean floor. Let's hope long-term thinking and environmental stewardship prevail.

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Holiday card 2022 animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy July!

-- JM

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June 2023

First poppy of 2023

Hello, dear readers! Happy June! The first Oriental poppy of the season bloomed this month! These are some of my favourite flowers. Possibly because of their association with Princess Ozma and her gorgeous Art Nouveau crown, but definitely because of their lush colour and improbable size. I also love that it's an annual plant. It blooms gloriously and briefly, but it will return. I love persistence.

Developer update: The second new room of chapter 6 is now complete! I'm now well into developing the LAST gameplay room of The Crimson Diamond. While there is still plenty of work to do, it does feel like a milestone. I'll be starting on the assets for this last room next week. I'm still aiming to launch this game this year, but I've certainly said that before!

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TCD at Narrascope

Narrascope happened! It's an event that celebrates and supports interactive narrative, adventure games, and interactive fiction! There was an in-person event and an online component. Workshops and talks could be attended via their Discord. It was my first time (online) attending Narrascope, and I think it's a wonderful event.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that The Crimson Diamond was mentioned during Edmundo Ruiz Ghanem's presentation on the history of Adventure Game Studio (Edmundo is also beta testing TCD!) Unfortunately I wasn't able to catch the talk live, but Narrascope promises to have the videos available on their site at a later date. I'll keep you posted!

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I was interviewed by FireFlower Games about the development of The Crimson Diamond! FireFlower Games is an online store that specializes in story-rich games, DRM-free, for Windows, Linux, and Mac. It's a fairly short written article, check it out here! You can also download The Crimson Diamond demo on FireFlower Games.

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Ryan Claytor graciously hosted me on his Hello Playdate Podcast! We had a lovely conversation about Recommendation Dog!! (the Playdate game I art directed and did art for, you can find it here) as well as The Crimson Diamond and our shared passion for cross-stitching! I go into more detail about the production process of Recommendation Dog!!, and my approach to the artwork. You can listen to the episode here.

I attended a couple Toronto Games Week events! There was a kick-off event at See-scape that featured a talk by Crypt of the Necrodancer's Ryan Clark. CotN is a game I've actually played AND finished, even though I'm pretty rhythm-deficient! I very much recommend it! (Toronto Games Week logo by Matt Hammill)

Game Boy sewing machine

I also attended a presentation at Fort York Library about video game preservation and conservation, hosted by Derek Quenneville and Chris Young. They even brought some really awesome toys, including this Game Boy sewing machine and a Nintendo Famicom with keyboard!

Nintendo famicom

Their message about video game conservation is this: The best way to contribute is to reach out to family and friends who have a history of working in the games industry, and to document their stories while they're still around. Cartridges and CDs will persist, but the human side to the industry won't be around forever.

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Fourthwall merch

My Fourthwall merch arrived! Hooray! I was super excited to receive it. It came faster than I was expecting, considering all of it is print on demand. The embroidery is gorgeous, the colour on the stickers is nice and saturated (though each individual sticker will need to be cut out by hand),and the bucket print on the t-shirt is big (relative to the shirt, which is small)! To check out my Fourthwall store, click here!

When I set up my Fourthwall store, I got $50 credit to order these samples! If you' re interested in setting up a Fourthwall store of your own, here's my referral link (I'd get $15 credit :D).

Embroidered bucket

Fourthwall bucket t-shirt

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I've also retired my $1 tier, but patrons on that tier will still get their name in the credits, and nothing changes for them! Retiring a tier just means no new patrons can join it.

A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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I celebrated my Twitch Affiliate Anniversary on June 13! I never thought I'd enjoy streaming so much. That's thanks in large part to everyone who comes to Crimson C'Tuesdays. You folks are lovely and friendly and make the evening a cozy comfort. Thanks for hanging out with me!

I did some giveways and designed a custom celebration emote, finished Bio Meneace, and made some progress on my Legend of the Sword Let's Play! Best of all, I finally added a cat to my game. He's a tribute to the famously deadly kitty in King's Quest 3.

May 16th art stream, May 23 art stream , June 6 art stream, and June 13 art stream!

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I'm continuing to work my way through Legend of the Sword (1988, Silicon Software). This game is making my brain tired. Part of the reason is that I leave this to the last part of the night, so I'm starting to run out of gas as it is. Another part of the reason is the way the walkthrough is written; step-by-step directions in all caps, separated by hyphens in long paragraphs. If you miss a step, it's very easy to lose your place in the game. There have been times when the walkthrough instructs me to move in a direction that isn't available to me, or a certain action isn't included. The further I get into the game, the more these inconsistencies are cropping up. Eek! I've been able to bumble my way to 70% of the puzzles achieved, though! Hopefully I can finish it soon! I have my eye on my next EGA adventure game to Let's Play: Loom (EGA!).

If you're interested in playing Legend of the Sword, it's sold on GOG and Steam.The text parser is surprisingly robust for the era!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989)

I also have a merch store on Society6!

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CRAFT CORNER

Finished parlour cross-stitch

At long last, the parlour scene cross-stitch is completed! I started it in mid-October. It's 24,610 cross-stitches (214x115 pixels). Success! This was my most ambitious cross-stitching project to date. Just as with game dev, the prospect of the immense amount of work required can be daunting... But if you just do a bit at a time, it will get done. Eventually.

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

EGA DMC thread colour numbers

The light magenta was the hardest colour to choose. I tried a lot of different pinks before I settled on this one. It was important to me that the tone of light pink would match the light grey, so that if you squint your eyes they blend together. The difference between the light and dark magenta is a little drastic though... Nothing is perfect!

And here's my next project: The death graphics in Legend of the Sword! This game uses dither combinations that I don't tend to use, and uses them to great effect; light red with dark green and light red with white. I love the contrast between the graceful "The End" with the roses versus the comical "Tough Luck!" tombstone!

Legend of the Sword cross-stitch pattern

Here's the beginning:

Legend of the Sword cross stitch start

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MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: If you love geology and mineralogy, Ontario is a wonderful place to be a rockhound! You can even book guided tours and borrow gear AND keep specimens that you find (upon completion of the appropriate permits)! I found this cool site that hosts tours . I'm considering making a trip this summer. I'll let you know if it pans out! Maybe there are similar tours in your area (or a road trip away) -- You might be surprised by what you find!

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Holiday card 2022 animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy June!

-- JM

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May 2023

Mother's Day 2023 card

Hello, dear readers! Happy May! The first half of the month was drizzly and cool, but the second half has turned around and delivered some gorgeous weather. Birdwatching has begun again in earnest, as May sees migrating songbirds and shorebirds travelling through Ontario. It's an exciting time, you never know what you'll see!

This year we saw pair of American Bitterns, which my mom has only seen one other time in her fourteen years as a birder (it's the large bird illustrated above). We also saw two Piping Plovers, which is an endangered species. Not to mention a cavalcade warblers: Yellow Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Chestnut-side Warblers, Black-and-white Warblers, Cape May Warblers, and more! Also stunning Scarlet Tanagers, which are also depicted in the above card. Happy Mother's Day!

Developer update: The second new room of chapter 6 is nearly complete! I'm finishing up the assets, then the usual testing and polish. For this room I had to take some time to figure out HOW I wanted to make and execute it, as it's a bit different from the usual. But that's part of the fun!

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The EGA Bucket has come to life! Here's the AdventureGameGeek showing off his EGA Bucket bucket hat! The embroidered bucket looks lovely, considering I had to modify its design to work with six specific thread colours and not the glorious fifteen colours of the original Bucket.

AdventureGameGeek on Youtube!

AdventureGameGeek is a Youtuber and champion of adventure games, both new and old. His videos are definitely worth a watch. Check out his channel here! Follow him on Twitter here. The EGA Bucket hat co-stars in his latest video, about Fable (1996)!

The EGA Bucket bucket hat comes in khaki, grey, and black! Speaking of which, I've finally gotten around to ordering some samples from my Fourthwall Store (including a khaki bucket hat)! They should arrive in time for the June issue of the Crimson Gazette. I'll be sure to share them here!

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Justajeffy's set-up

Shout-out to my lovely Twitch viewers. Justajeffy took this amazing shot of his set-up on a Crimson C'Tuesday, and tweeted it. Nice big box collection, Justajeffy! Crimson C'Tuesdays happen every Tuesday at 8pm Eastern. A lovely bunch of folks come and hang out, join us!

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Rosewater mystic cards

Last month I shared some of the illustrations I made for Francisco González's upcoming game, Rosewater! Here is the whole set. Rosewater is slated for a 2023 release; wishlist it here! It was such an incredible privilege to be invited to contribute art to one of Francisco's games. He's one of the reasons I get started making The Crimson Diamond, so this commission was a dream come true!

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I've also retired my $1 tier, but patrons on that tier will still get their name in the credits, and nothing changes for them! Retiring a tier just means no new patrons can join it.

A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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Twitch streamer SenorJeffe1 played The Crimson Diamond demo! I love when streamers play the demo with their viewers. I learn so much from watching, and it always motivates me to work hard on my game! Thanks so much for playing, SenorJeffe1! You can check out the VOD here!

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Art streams continue! The Royal Canadian Museum's storage basement is filling up nicely, thanks to suggestions from Crimson C'Tuesday Twitch viewers. I'm having a lot of fun with adding little Easter eggs into this scene. What can you spot?

Closeup of shelf

Here are the newest VODs, as of April's gazette!

April 18th art stream, April 25 art stream , May 2 art stream, and May 9 art stream!

Here's a close-up of the larger metal shelving! All done! Check out my weekly Twitch streams, which happen on Crimson C'Tuesdays at 8pm Eastern!

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Legend of the Sword (1988, Silicon Software) Let's Plays continue! This game is a real hidden gem, though I don't care for limited inventory or starving to death! I've started to consult a walkthrough to help me, so I'll be playing something new (old!) soon! If you want to try Legend of the Sword yourself, it's sold on GOG and Steam.

There doesn't seem to be any music accompanying Legend of the Sword, so I'm playing some epic, modern MIDIs during my sessions. I heard this most excellent playlist on FractalMindMike's channel, and he was kind enough to send me the files. It's meant to supplement the tracks for the game "Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders", composed in the style of the original music (by Kevin Schilder). The music was created by a collective called Doomworld. It was released in 2020! Modern retro is near and dear to my heart of course. If you're interested in the music and in Doomworld, check out these links: https://www.jamespaddockmusic.com and http://jimmy.the-powerhouse.net/WAD.

If you want to check out my chat with FractalMindMike on his channel, you can find it here!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989) playlist

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989) playlist

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

SWOTS can also be bought on Steam!

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CRAFT CORNER

Cross stitch, May progress

The end is in sight! I'm dithering the back wall on the right side currently. I'm still saving that painting in the middle for last! Maybe I'll have it all finished for June's gazette... We shall see!

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Ontario fossils

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: The shores of Lake Ontario are full of a wide variety of fossils! I didn't realize this until I shifted my focus from finding quartz or garnets, or shiny rocks of unusual colours. I started looking at what was IN the rocks, and I was very surprised by what I saw! When I take my mom birdwatching, we often end up on the lake shore. It's a wonderful opportunity for me to poke around and see what I can see. I'd been ignoring plain, grey rocks as not being interesting, but as it turns out -- Those are the ones that tend to contain fossils! Lesson learned!

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Holiday card 2022 animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy May!

-- JM

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April 2023

Spring crocuses

Hello, dear readers! Happy April! More crocuses! Toronto's been experiencing unseasonably warm weather. I'm enjoying it before the inevitable return of seasonal Spring chilliness.

Developer update: The first new room for chapter 6 of The Crimson Diamond is now complete! I'm testing and polishing it up now, and will move on to the next bit soon. Sooner or later I'll be returning to beta tester and player feedback... But for now, I'll have some more fun creating new content!

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FractalMindMikev video thumbnail

Awesome Twitch streamer FractalMindMike graciously hosted me on his channel, for a 3+ hour chat about The Crimson Diamond, games, hobbies, and more! It's one of my favourite video conversations, check it out here!

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Special SWOTS edition

This special edition of Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator was sold at PAX East this year! Fortunately musician Dan had a friend attending, so he picked one up and shipped it to me. Hooray! Thanks, friend of Dan!

The standard release version is available in stores and for online purchase at lots of retail locations, produced by Serenity Forge. Here's what's inside!

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Rosewater tarot

I'm super excited to announce that Francisco González (developer of A Golden Wake and Lamplight City) invited me to create some art for his upcoming game, Rosewater! These are some tarot cards for his alternative history world!

I had a lot of fun coming up with this style, taking into account the era (1850s) of the game's setting. At that time, engravings were a popular form of mass-produced art. A metal plate or block of wood would be etched with an image, which could then have ink applied and then printed onto paper. They could also be hand-tinted with watercolour paints, which is the effect I tried to mimic! Wishlist Rosewater here!

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I've also retired my $1 tier, but patrons on that tier will still get their name in the credits, and nothing changes for them! Retiring a tier just means no new patrons can join it.

A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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recommendation dog!!

The Playdate Podcast released an episode that features both Recommendation Dog!! and Reel Steal! The teams got to record sound bites about the games and those were masterfully edited together. Recommendation Dog!! was my first time as an art director. I'm very proud of the work and grateful for the opporunity provided by Sweet Baby Inc.

You can see both Recommendation Dog!! and Reel Steal on Playdate's Catalog website, as well as the Catalog store on Playdate units. They're FREE!

I show Recommendation Dog!! and talk a bit about it in this video (timestamped!).

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Return of the Dan! He refined some tracks for The Crimson Diamond, and created new ones! Here's the VOD of Dan refining a "gentle sad" track and creating a looping ambient variant, and here's Dan composing a "sleepy sad" track!

April 4 artstream

I continued working on the museum basement for the introductory sequence of The Crimson Diamond! Art streams always consist of me updating the art in the introductory sequence, no story spoilers for the rest of the game!

March 14 art/music combo stream, March 21 art stream , March 28 art/music combo stream, April 4 art stream, and April 11 art stream!

Here's a close-up of some of the adventure game-related items I've put in this scene! Some were suggestions provided during my weekly Twitch streams, which happen on Crimson C'Tuesdays at 8pm Eastern!

museum details

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Mortville ending

At long last! I've finished Mortville Manor! With a LOT of help from watching long plays, my own notes, and the awesome folks in my stream chat. Here's the full playlist for Mortville Manor. Brocanty Games is doing a remake, check it out here!

I'm glad I finally got to start something new...

... Legend of the Sword! It was made by Silicon Software and published in 1988. It's an EGA text parser / point and click adventure game with a really cool interface! It's availabe on GOG and Steam! Here's the first video of this new Let's Play series.

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989) playlist

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989) playlist

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

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I STILL haven't ordered any sample merch from my Fourthwall store. I either keep thinking of fun products to add, or other people suggest things! I might try to put the EGA fish in the intro on an embroidered hat. Hmmm...

I also have a merch store on Society6, with a broader range of stuff!

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CRAFT CORNER

Cross-stitch progress

Slowly but surely, the scene is filling in! It's a cozy and rewarding process.

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Scarborough Bluffs

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: It might not be the famous Sierra Half Dome, but it's magnificent in its own right! This is part of the Scarborough Bluffs, which is local to me. The bluffs form an escarpment and are an accumulation of sedimentary deposits, naturally formed by Lake Ontario over 12,000 years. It was really nice to pay it a visit recently. It's a stunning area!

Scarborough Bluffs

Lake Ontario stones

I'm back outside, searching for treasures on the shores of Lake Ontario! The variety, uniqueness, and beauty continues to fascinate me. I find it very calming to get down close and scrutinize the seemingly endless array of stones, picking out the ones that catch my eye. It's also very pleasant to arrange them in sets like this, for comparison and contrast.

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Holiday card 2022 animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy April!

-- JM

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March 2023

first crocuses of Spring

Hello, dear readers! Happy March! It's been unusually snowy here so far, but the crocuses have bloomed once again! Spring is just around the corner.

Developer update: The latest beta, which contains The Crimson Diamond chapters 1-5, has been sent out to testers! More excitingly, work on chapter 6 has well and truly begun! I finished the design document and am building the first room and placeholder assets. It feels like it's been ages since I got to make anything new -- It's a lot of fun!

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art panelthumbnail

The art panel that me and Chris DeLeon (of HomeTeam GameDev) collaborated on is now available as a VOD on Youtube! It's called "2D Game Art Tips for Solo or Small Teams" and it's meant for game devs (or people who want to get started in game development) who feel that lack of art training or experience is holding them back. The panelists cover a wide range of approaches and game genres, and provide lots of advice and tips on how to approach making art from a beginner's perspective!

Panelists:

Julia Minamata @JuliaMinamata / thecrimsondiamond.com

Freya C @spdrcstl / communistsister.itch.io

Francisco González @GrundislavGames / Grundislav Games on Steam

Damien Crawford @TheWorstRPGDev /cannibalinteractive.itch.io

Aureus @MoralAnxiety / moralanxietystudio.com

with panel host/moderator Chris DeLeon @ChrisDeLeon

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Recommendation Dog thumbnail

Recommendation Dog!! launched on Playdate Catalog this month! It's been almost two years since the Sweet Baby Inc. / Strange Scaffold team completed work on the game. I've been looking forward its debut for a long time! Recommendation Dog!! is the first game I art directed, as well as the first Playdate game I made art for. I hope it's not my last! Catalog is Playdate's new e-store that lives on the Playdate, making it even easier for players to buy and load games onto their units. You can check out Catalog on your web browser here! You can watch me play and talk about Recommendation Dog!! and Playdate here!I also show the self-portrait I snuck in :D.

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I was a guest on the Scene World podcast! Scene World bills itself as the most eclectic and the world's only Commodore 64 NTSC & PAL diskmag! It's been run by a passionate group of volunteers for more than twenty years. They not only cover a variety of Commondore related subjects, they interview people in the games industry including developers, streamers, historians, and more! Check out the episode here.

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I've also retired my $1 tier, but patrons on that tier will still get their name in the credits, and nothing changes for them! Retiring a tier just means no new patrons can join it.

A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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Twitch streamer pieceofhannah streamed the new and improved The Crimson Diamond demo! I watched her play some of it -- It's always a real pleasure to see a streamer enjoying the game! She finished the demo with no hints! Congrats, Poh! Check out her channel if you enjoy rpgs and adventure games, particularly retro ones! Here's a link to her The Crimson Diamond demo VOD.

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My streaming continues! I started another pixel art scene to upgrade: The Royal Canadiann Museum storage basement! Here is a list of all the streams since the last issue of the gazette: February 21 art stream, March 1 Stream Mystery Fest Stream, February 28 art stream, March 7 art stream.

Here's a work-in-progress animation for the museum basement:

museum animated gif

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I got to level 7 in Bio Menace! I faced down a Big Boss Dude too, it was very exciting. But I'm running of lives, I might not be able to get much further! Bio Menace is free on GOG! I highly recommend it!

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Mortville Manor Let's Plays continue! This game fascinates me. I made a video presenting my spreadsheet of characters' questions and responses, which I then went back to and updated with newly discovered questions and responses! While I was doing that I figured out how to use inventory items, and managed to find a new location! I can't wait to show all of this on my next Mortville Manor stream!

Here's the current playlist for Mortville Manor. Brocanty Games is currently remaking Mortville Manor with UI improvements and real voice-acting! Follow their project here.

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989) playlist

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989) playlist

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

January 17 art/music stream, January 24 art stream, January 31 art stream, February 7 art stream, February 14 art/music stream!

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I STILL haven't ordered any sample merch from my Fourthwall store. I either keep thinking of fun products to add, or other people suggest thing! I might try to put the EGA fish in the intro on an embroidered hat. Hmmm...

I also have a merch store on Society6, with a broader range of stuff!

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CRAFT CORNER

cross stitch progress

I'm more than halfway finished the parlour cross-stitch! I'll be leaving the painting in the very centre for last. It's a lot of cross stitches, but it's very relaxing and rewarding to watch the design appear before my eyes.

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Garnet closeup

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: There are indeed garnets in Ontario! I found this gorgeous specimen on the shores of Lake Ontario. I'm not 100% sure these are garnets, but judging from what I've seen on the internet, these appear to be garnets in a rhyolite matrix. I took all of these photos using my 30 x 21mm loupe, placed in front of my iPhone's camera!

Here are some other rocks I've collected from Lake Ontario, with bits that might be garnets (photos taken in sunlight, except for the group photo):

This first one is an alternate view of the above stone:

garnet

garnet 2

garnet3

garnet4

garnet5

garnet6

Here they all are, without magnification! Also with a Canadian quarter and a measuring tape to show scale.

all garnet stones

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Holiday card 2022 animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy March!

-- JM

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February 2023

Hello, dear readers! Happy February! Even though it's been an unseasonably warm winter in Ontario, I'll be happy to see the crocuses bloom again.

Developer update: I still haven't gotten started on Chapter 6! Instead, I added a new visual "points" cue to the game and have been testing that out. I also added more notes and notebook pages to the player's notebook and have been testing that out, too. I've also added more music. One track of which will be found in the latest version of the demo, coming out soon! Speaking of which...

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The Crimson Diamond is in the Steam Mystery Fest! The event runs from February 20 - 27! I'll be debuting the new version of the demo when the event opens, and I'll probably stream on my Steam store page some time during the event (TBA). Visit The Crimson Diamond's Steam store page and scroll down to "Recent Events & Announcements" to find out more!

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I'm helping organize a special panel about game art for game devs! I'm collaborating with Chris DeLeon of HomeTeam GameDev for this free, non-ticketed panel with some wonderful panelists! Here's the promo video!

I've heard from a lot of gamedevs (and potential gamedevs) who want to create their own games, but they get stuck on lack of art training or art experience. Chris and I have gathered panelists who have gotten past that obstruction and gone on to create wonderful things!

We'll be recording the panel in late February, editing it, and releasing it in March! In the mean time, if you have any questions about this topic, please let me know in the Youtube comments!

Here are the panelists. Please check out their work and maybe that might spark some questions to ask!

Planned panelists:

Julia Minamata @JuliaMinamata / thecrimsondiamond.com

Freya C @spdrcstl / communistsister.itch.io

Francisco González @GrundislavGames / Grundislav Games on Steam

Damien Crawford @TheWorstRPGDev /cannibalinteractive.itch.io

Aureus @MoralAnxiety / moralanxietystudio.com

with panel host/moderator Chris DeLeon @ChrisDeLeon

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Strange Dungeon screenshot

Computechnosoft was a finalist in this year's Ubisoft Toronto Indie Series, for their game Strange Dungeon! This is the game I learned a bit of Blender and Clip Studio Paint for, and it's turning out great! Unfortunately they didn't win any prizes at the Indie Series, but it was a great honour for them to be nominated. Check out their Steam page and wishlist the game here.

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I've also retired my $1 tier, but patrons on that tier will still get their name in the credits, and nothing changes for them! Retiring a tier just means no new patrons can join it.

A heartfelt thank you to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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Dan was back, polishing up the track for the new Crimson Diamond demo (which will be launching during Steam Mystery Fest!). We'd started this track back in August 2021. It was great to revisit it and finish it off! It's a super-cozy looping track for the tutorial room in the game. Hopefully that encourages more people to play the tutorial! Check it out here! Dan's Twitch channel is dantheband, we raid him on music stream nights!

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Feb 7 artstrem thumbnail

The close-up fisherman is nearly complete! I'm still not 100% satisfied with the hand, so I've taken some additional screenshots for photo reference. I'll use it (flipped of course) on the next art stream! The octahedral crystal in my hand is an awesome bit of fluorite and sadly not a diamond. :-)

photo reference for fisherman's hand

Here are links to all the videos of the livestreams since last gazette!

Old man animated updated

Here's an animated GIF of rough animation for the fisherman!

A return to Bio Menace! There's a channel point redemption of to play Bio Menace for ten minutes, and it got redeemed twice during the February 14 stream. I'm happy to report I got to Level 5! Woo-hoo! It's FREE on GOG and I highly recommend it!

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I'm having a lot of fun playing Mortville Manor! Well... Maybe I'm more having fun figuring it out than actually playing it how it was intended. The limited number of questions the player can ask the characters does bother me, which is why I decided to start and restart etc. the game, asking all the characters all the questions that are available. I now have all of that taken care of and can concentrate more on fun!

Here's a glimpse at the spreadsheet I've put together of all the characters' responses to the starting questions. The differently coloured boxes indicate responses that seemed unusual or opened up a new question (the bright green boxes). :

Mortville Manor spreadsheet

Here's the current playlist for Mortville Manor. And a remind that Brocanty Games is currently remaking Mortville Manor with UI improvements and real voice-acting! Follow their project here.

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989) playlist

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989) playlist

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

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I've been designing more merch for my Fourthwall store. It's a lot of run and a challege to try to create designs that translate well onto items! Like this embroidered hat, for example! There is a limit of six thread colours, so I changed the brown pixel in Nancy's yellow scarf to dark red and I still think the proper effect is created! And I used the colour of the hat for the black in Nancy's eyes and mouth.

I did the same thing for this embroidered Nancy patch!

I also have a merch store on Society6, with a broader range of stuff!

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CRAFT CORNER

cross stitch progress

Slowly but surely, the parlour reveals itself! I'm excited to work on the painting that's hanging over the sofa, but I might leave that for last.

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photo of diamond trigons courtesy of GemGuy onTwitter

(Image from The Gem Guy on Twitter).

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Trigons are natural marks that can occur during the development of a diamond? They're a result disruptions during the diamond's growth! Glorious geometry! Read more about them here.

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Holiday card 2022 animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy February!

-- JM

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January 2023

Happy New Year, Year of the Rabbit!

Hello, dear readers! Happy January! Happy New Year, and Happy Year of the Rabbit! Here's the card I painted to commemorate the occasion. May your 2023 be wonderful!

Developer update: I'm currently testing the end of chapter 4 of The Crimson Diamond, after the AGS engine upgrade. That should be done soon, and then I'll be testing chapter 5, and THEN starting the last gameplay chapter! How is January halfway finished already? Argh.

Here is the process of the watercolour Dido card!

Dido card pencilled

Dido card inked

Dido card work area

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holiday cards sent out

The holiday cards have been sent out! Hooray! I'll be sharing the design in next month's gazette! It's really cool to see these go out all over the world.

Thank you, Patreon supporters!

Speaking of Patreon, I've modified my tiers! I've retired the $1 tier (current patrons at the tier can continue at that tier, nothing changes -- It only means new patrons can't join at that tier) and introduced a $2.50 tier. ALL active patrons now qualify for a new benefit: Your name in the credits of The Crimson Diamond! This will default to opt-in, using your Patreon user name. If you'd like to opt-out of having your name in the credits or would like to use a different name, please message me on Patreon! Click here to go to my Patreon.

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Every December, adventure game Youtuber vicek83 asks indie adventure game developers about their plans for the following year! I was fortunate to be asked, and I gave the same response as I did the previous year... My plan for the new year is to launch The Crimson Diamond! I mean it, this time! I hope! Ahh... Here's the whole video, it's an awesome resource to catch up on indie devs you already know, and to learn about devs who haven't been on your radar! Also... Please wishlist The Crimson Diamond!

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I'm super excited to report that another Twitch streamer played The Crimson Diamond demo! SaraHyde did a stellar job, check out the VOD here! You can also follow her on Twitter!

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I took a couple weeks off from streaming for the holidays, but I was excited to get back to it in 2023 for this art stream! I continued working on the close-up of the fisherman, but this time focused on the background and the hand that has to be animated. I also showed a bad ending for Cruise for a Corpse, and started a new Let's Play! More on that below!

Speaking of holidays, I did a holiday stream on December 20! It featured the glorious holiday MIDI music from a Sierra electronic xmas card, some giveaways, and a special holiday backdrop with animated snow! Happy Belated Holidays!

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aniamted gif of fisherman closeup pixel art

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I also finished my Let's Play of Cruise for a Corpse on the holiday stream! The game has beautiful art, but the story (particularly at the end) takes some inexplicable turns. Still, it was a lovely experience and I'm glad I got to play it!

During the holiday stream Let's Play, I tried to accuse the wrong suspect at the end of the game and I got a memory error. I tried again off-stream and the memory error didn't reappear, fortunately. So in my first stream of the new year, I wanted to show what happens when you end up with a "bad" ending! I did try accusing all of the different suspects off stream, it's basically the same ending. But for the sake of completeness, here is one example! And here's the Cruise for a Corpse LP playlist, now concluded!

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New year, new game to Let's Play! I started "Mortville Manor" (Lankhor, 1987). It's an EGA mystery adventure game, set in a house! My favourite niche sub-genre! The game uses voice synthesis and an interesting drop-down menu UI. What's particularly exciting about this game is that BrocantyGames on itch.io is working on a freeware remake of Mortville Manor, and it's nearly finished! I'm excited to try the remake. BrocantyGames has also remade another game by Lankhour, the stunning Black Sect 2!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989) playlist

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989) playlist

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

Cruise for a Corpse (Delphine Software International, 1991) playlist

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Speaking of holiday giveaways, here's the embroidered Crimson Diamond beanie by Fourthwall I gaveaway on stream! I'm very impressed by how the embroidery turned out. The beanie (as well as other Crimson Diamond merch ) is available on my Fourthwall store and there's other merch on my Society6 store!

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CRAFT CORNER

January 2023 cross stitch progress

Cross-stitching progress on the parlour! Slowly but surely!

January 2023 sketch

Here's my second gazette sketch! This one was done with a Copic Multiliner SP 0.7. They're pigment ink, as well as waterproof and Copic (marker) proof. All housed in a lightweight metal body, with a refillable cartridge and replaceable nib. This sketch is of a cardboard Tetley tea canister filled with some of my craft supplies! I didn't start with a pencil sketch, because I tend to overwork pencil sketches for accuracy. I prefer to sketch directly with pens and commit to the errors and imperfections!

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watermelon tourmaline beads

(Beads enlarged 30x by loupe).

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: When buying gemstones, it can be helpful to research how different kinds of gemstones are graded! There is no universal system of grading, as different properties of different gemstones are desireable. For example: Lapis lazuli is graded for its intensity of colour as well as the proportions of calcite and pyrite that's present. Lapis lazuli isn't a transparent crystal, which means that one of the main methods of grading gemstones (clarity) isn't a consideration. Which brings me to...

My watermelon tourmaline beads arrived!

watermelon tourmaline beads in hand

watermleon tourmaline beads in light

watermelon tourmaline bead size variations

These watermelon tourmaline beads were graded by the vendor as AAA (though this wasn't a formally certified grading, as I'm not sure if that exists. But it can be useful when comparing items from the same vendor), due to their clarity and intensity of colour. When buying online it's important to be aware that a vendor's photos may appear enhanced, either through how the item is lit or with processing after the fact using image editing software. Here's now this exact item appeared in the vendor's photo:

vendor's photo of watermelon tourmaline It's possible that there is a type of light or lighting condition that will make these beads look that saturated in colour. Some stones will even change colour depending on the type of light that is shone on them, or the angle at which the light passes through the stone!

Alexandrite looks completely different in daylight vs incandescent light:

alexandrite under different lighting conditions

Source: Minerals.net

In contrast, my photos of the same item were taken using natural sunlight! I knew to temper my expectations, so I wasn't disappointed by what I received. I also left a review with one of my photos, so that other buyers might get a more accurate idea of what they can expect.

Here's the necklace I strung with my beads. I'm very pleased!

finished watermelon tourmaline necklace

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Holiday 2021 process

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy New Year and Happy Year of the Rabbit!

-- JM

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December 2022

Hello, dear readers! Happy December! First snowstorm of the season! Toronto has been pretty lucky so far, where the weather is concerned. But it was only a matter of time before it got cold and icy. Oh, Canada!

Developer update: Chapter 5 is complete! I've addressed player feedback, too. BUT I also decided to upgrade my version of Adventure Game Studio to 3.5.1 from 3.3.5.10, which has caused a few problems. I've solved them with help from the AGS community, and am just in the midst of testing chapters 1-5 to see if there's anything else that broke! I've already seen an improvement with version 3.5.1 -- Alt-tabbing doesn't crash the game as often, or cause the menus to stop displaying. And the game seems to display better, overall. I'm glad I upgraded! After that, I'll be working on this year's holiday card...

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Speaking of holiday cards! $5 Patreon patrons will get the new holiday card sent to their really-real mailboxes, and new $5 patrons will receive a bonus back of previous year's cards! Here's a link to my Patreon.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all my Patreon supporters. <3

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I love when streamers stream The Crimson Diamond demo! This month, GreedyLemming did just that! I always try my best to be in chat to answer questions or offer hints, so if you're considering streaming it, please let me know! It's always a very motivating and helpful experience. GreedyLemming had never played a text parser adventure game before, but wanted to support indie devs -- And he came through with flying colours! I'm happy to report he finished the demo in a couple of hours with one very minor hint. I've always felt that the text parser is an immersive and entertaining way to interact with games, and that nostalgia for this style isn't a prequisite to enjoyment. I'm happy to see that this can be the case!

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my Twitch recap graphic

Here's my Twitch recap for the year. It feels nice to see it all summed up here. I'm still surprised that I enjoy streaming so much! That's thanks to all the nice people who come and join me. You're the best!

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Dan made some more music for The Crimson Diamond! He composed a "triumphant ending", inspired by lots of classic adventure game endings. Check it out here! You can follow Dan on his Twitch channel dantheband!

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Work on the close-up fisherman image continues! I'm having so much fun adding dithering and working on a detailed EGA image that isn't complicated architecture or a challenging metallic effect. I'm pleased with the results so far!

Here are the streams from the past month:

November 15 art stream, November 22 art stream, November 29 music stream, December 6 art stream, December 13 art stream!

aniamted gif of fisherman closeup pixel art

Here's an animated GIF of the progress on the fisherman!

Bio Menace playing!

Bio Menace is so much fun! I'm currently on level 4. It's such a treat to play an EGA action game I've never played before. I was pretty fond of Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, but I think I like Bio Menace's art even more! If you're interested in giving it a try, it's FREE on GOG!

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My Let's Play of Cruise for a Corpse (armed with a walkthrough) continues! A bunch of interesting stuff happens, including the game starting to glitch and freeze. Eek! But I replayed the entire game from the beginning and I think it's okay now. I got an error about a memory issue, and I suspect it was when I tried to save a fourth save game... I'm not sure, but I'll make sure not to repeat that! Here's the Cruise for a Corpse LP so far.

I was having trouble keeping the characters and their relationships straight, so I made this handy diagram:

(Click the here or the above image to enlarge)!

I hadn't met a lot of these characters until quite late into my LP, so I'm not surprised that a lot of these characters haven't been memorable to me. Hopefully now that I've met them and made this diagram, things will be a bit easier!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989) playlist

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989) playlist

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

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I still haven't ordered any Fourthwall samples yet! I must get on that. I'm particularly curious about the stickers and the embroidered hats! Here's a link to my Fourthwall store! And here's a link to my Society6 store (which has tons of different kinds of stuff on it, from tshirts to iphone cases to... wallpaper?!).

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CRAFT CORNER

cross-stitch progress

Cross-stitching is coming along well! Slowly but surely. A very cozy and satisfying hobby!

photo of my sketch

I'm guilty of havings lovely sketchbooks and really cool art supplies, and never using them. I'm going to try to rectify that by posting a monthly sketch! This one is a sketch with a sketch of the sketch in it, done at a cafe.

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(Click the image to visit GeologyIn.com and read about tourmaline).

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Tourmaline is one of the most spectacular gemstones of all! It can give fluorite a run for its money when it comes to bright colours, and with a hardness of 7.0 on the Mohs scale (compared to fluorite's 4.0), it's much more suitable for jewellry. One of my favourite varieties of tourmaline is called "watermelon tourmaline". Scroll down to see why that's a perfect name!

watermelon tourmaline image

(Source: Jedora.com)

watermelon tourmaline slice

(Source: Jedora.com)

I've ordered some watermelon tourmaline beads as an xmas present to myself! Yay! I hope to share them in the next gazette.

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photo of pepsi beach glass

I found this amazing bit of beach glass on the shores of Lake Ontario! Thanks to the internet, I learned that it's a piece of a Pepsi Cola Company of Canada bottle from the 1940s. What a treasure!

photo of lakeshore

Here's a photo of that shore, taken the same day!

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Holiday 2021 process

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy December!

-- JM

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November 2022

Hello, dear readers! Happy November! We just had our first snowfall in Toronto, yet there are some green leaves still left on the trees. I hope the winter won't be so long this year!

Developer update: Chapter 5 is nearly nearly nearly complete. I'm currently implementing the second last animated sequence for a cutscene and have one more (simpler animation) left! Inching closer to finishing this chapter!

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OneShortEye is a Youtuber who creates wonderful adventure game speedrunning documentaries! Recently he tried a different format, delving deep into The Colonel's Bequest to reveal obscure quirks in the code. I was fortunate enough to be invited to weigh in on the gorgeous art of TCB! The video is fantastic, check it out here!

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AdventureX was held in London (UK, not Ontario) for the first time since 2019! It's a wonderful event where lots of adventure game fans and developers can meet and show their projects. I showed The Crimson Diamond demo in 2019, when the venue was the British Library. While I didn't travel to London this year, I did get to participate in the accompanying Steam event, hosted by ASH Games. I streamed The Crimson Diamond demo and did a bit of developer commentary. Check out the video here!

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It's that time again! Every holiday season I design and print a holiday card, with a handwritten message inside. $5 Patreon patrons will get one mailed to them, and new $5 patrons receive a bonus pack! This year, the bonus pack is last year's card, the year before's card printed on a postcard, and glossy promo postcard of the Crimson Lodge at night. I usually mail out my cards in the new year, anyone at the $5 tier by the time I do my mailing will be sent a card! Here's a link to my Patreon.

This is also a good time to thank my current Patreon patrons. I don't do that enough. Thanks so much for your support, it helps me out so much.

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Space Warlord physical release

Here's my copy of Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator! It's a bit surreal to have a physical product with my art in it. SWOTS (for Nintendo Switch) has now been widely released, and is available for purchase just about anywhere! I checked online and it can be ordered from Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy. Probably more places, too! And of course, the digital version is available on Steam and the Nintendo e-store.

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I now have a merch store on Fourthwall! It's got Twitch integration and some other nice features (such as being able to send personalized video/audio messages to people who buy stuff). I have yet to order any samples, but I'll be doing that soon to show on stream!

Fourthwall Bucket tshirt

Fourthwall integrates with Twitch to allow me to do giveaways and I tested this out but running a giveaway in November! The winner of the giveaway was kind enough to send me these photos of the shirt so I could show the quality of the shirt and printing. Looks good to me!

Bucket t-shirt with real bucket and not-real fish!

And he even went the extra mile, with fish, bucket, AND diamond! Amazing!!

TCD puzzles now available on Society6

A reminder that there are The Crimson Diamond puzzles for sale on Society6! If there's a particular piece of TCD art you'd like on a puzzle, please let me know, via Twitter or email (julia(*at*)thecrimsondiamond(*dot*)com.

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Dan the Band was back this past month, and composed an "upbeat ending" for The Crimson Diamond! Dan has his own Twitch channel here. Crimson C'Tuesdays always start on my channel at 8pm Eastern!

I had a special guest on stream in November! Karl Dupéré-Richer is an artist and game developer, currently working on Betrayed Alliance with SlattStudio. He's also released a game of his own (with co-developer Nicolas Beaudette) called Amazing Fix! It's a hidden object game with a twist. Find it on Steam!Karl also has Instagram and a blog, where he shows more of his work.

I've put all my special guest streams in their own playlist. Past guests are Anna Vigue (co-host of the Classic Gamers Guild Podcast), Francisco González (of Grundislav games, currently developing Rosewater), Jim Maxwell (Emmy-winning VFX artist and longtime adventure game fan), and now Karl!

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Art streams continue! I've finished another animation for the introductory sequence of The Crimson Diamond! All the art streams are on their own playlist, here's a link. In the above image, I'm proudly displaying the completed Dido-cat patchwork quilt, made by my mom!

Dido Quilt Glorious!

Fish gutting animation

Here's the completed fish-gutting animation!

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After a few attempts at figuring out "Cruise for a Corpse" (Delphine Software International, 1991) on my own, I've finally resorted to a walkthrough. So far it seems that the game progresses after you've had conversations with people, plus occasionally pixel-hunting for an item. Even WITH the walkthrough, I had some trouble locating a piece of paper under a chair! Here's the Cruise for a Corpse LP so far, Part 4 is where I restart with the walkthrough.

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989) playlist

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989) playlist

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

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CRAFT CORNER

parlour cross-stitch progress

The "Nancy in the Parlour" cross-stich is progressing nicely. It's a perfect hobby that keeps my hands busy and requires a bit of thought -- but not too much! Very relaxing and rewarding, and something fun to display when finished!

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Fire Opal image

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Fire opals have gorgeous warm red and orange hues, yet often lack the "play-of-colour" that give opals their name! The most commonly known form of opals are milky white, with raindows of colours inside them (if an opal exhibits this iridescence it's referred to as "precious opal"). But opals come in many colours, including black, green, and grey. Fire opals are my favourite (sometimes called Mexican fire opals, as they are famously from Querétaro, Mexico), and are sometimes called "jelly opals" if they don't have the play-of-colour. They certainly look delicious!

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Agatha Christie book, Dead Man's Folly

This 1974 fourth printing of Agatha Christie's "Dead Man's Folly" from my mother's collection frightened me as a kid! But in that way kids can sort of delight in a safe fright. The cover painting is by Tom Adams, a fantastic illustrator who created some of my favourite scary Agatha Christie covers! And I'm not alone in that, as Guillermo del Toro tweeted the same sentiment!

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Holiday 2021 process

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy November!

-- JM

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October 2022

Fall colours photo

Hello, dear readers! Happy October! The Fall colours have been spectacular in Ontario. The weather's been crisp. It won't be too long before things turn cold and grey, eeek!

Developer update: Chapter 5 is nearly complete. Almost all the assets are finished and implemented, except for a cutscene sequence. I still need to do a few close-up screens and those tend to take the most time. But the end is in sight!

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The Adventure Game Hotspot is a new adventure gaming news and media site that launched recently! To celebrate, they hosted a 12-hour streaming marathon, featuring tons of adventure game folks: Lori & Corey Cole (Transolar Games) Dave Gilbert (Wadjet Eye Games), Ron Gilbert (Terrible Toybox), Francisco González (Grundislav Games), Anna Mimik (Kapia), Roberta Williams (Cygnus Entertainment), and many more!

Adventure Game Hotspot streaming event

I'm happy that I got to participate and show a bit of The Crimson Diamond demo!

Here are my segments during the event: Part 1 and part 2!

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indiecade nominee, SWOTS

Exciting news! Space Warlord Trading Simulator (get it on Steam!) was nomiated for an IndieCade award! We're nominated for the Spotlight Award in the Systemic Design category, as well as the general categories of IndieCade Jury Prix, IndieCade Grand Jury, IndieCade Developer's Choice, Innovation in Interactive Design, and Innovation in Experience Design. Fingers crossed! SWOTS also has a page on Wikipedia!

The Crimson Diamond now has its own page on Speedruns.com! Thanks again to SpeedyAdventures for choosing the demo for their short run challange for September. I had a lot of fun trying my hand at speedrunning the demo, and was happy to see my times soundly beaten by the pros! I'm keeping a playlist of the current world record holders on my Youtube channel. It's so cool to see my game being enjoyed this way!

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TCD puzzles now available on Society6

A few folks on the Twitch stream were asking if Society6 makes puzzles. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they do! So I've added some puzzles to The Crimson Diamond Society6 store. If there's any The Crimson Diamond art you'd like to see made into a puzzle, please let me know! I can be reached at julia(at)thecrimsondiamond.com !

Speaking of Society6 products, the Bucket t-shirt is now available! Someone sent me photos of their t-shirt, to show what the printed colours look like:

photo of Bucket T-shirt in the wild

EGA will always be at its most brilliant on a screen. I'm glad to have photos of the print job so that anyone who might be considering a Bucket t-shirt can see what it looks like in real life!

photo 2 of Bucket t-shirt in the wild

Those pixels look pretty sharp!

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The Return of Dan the Band! On his premiere comeback stream Dan updates us on what he's been up to all summer, and on his sequel stream we get to some music-making for The Crimson Diamond! Tuesday streams always start at 8pm Eastern on my channel. Follow me there to get notified when I go live, and follow Dan on Twitch here!

Art streams continue! The fish-gutting scene is going well, I think it'll be finished soon. Here are the art streams I've posted since the September issue of the gazette: Sept 20, Sept 27, and Oct 12!

Fish work in progress pixel art

Here's the fish-gutting illustration so far!

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I was recently introduced to a Yahtzee Croshaw game that I didn't know existed! I've played through and enjoyed his Chzo Mythos series, so to learn that he made an EGA text parser adventure game was too cool! Here's a one-shot Let's Play of "The Sorceror's Appraisal", check it out! If you'd like to play the game yourself, it's available for free!

I'm very excited to share the beginning of my new Let's Play series: "Cruise for a Corpse" (Delphine Software International, 1991)! The game was released on a few platforms and the best-known version is in VGA. I heard tell of an EGA version, and I'm overjoyed to have been provided with a copy to play! Here's the first video. It's gorgeous!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989) playlist

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989) playlist

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

Here is the Rise of the Dragon Let's Play playlist so far.

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CRAFT CORNER

Dido quilt progress

The Dido-cat cross-stitch is now complete! The patchwork quilt is well on its way, too. My mom's doing a lovely job with it!

Parlour cross-stitch

And here's my next cross-stitch project: the parlour in Crimson lodge! It's my most ambitious cross-stitching project so far. I'm going to complete the little cross-stitch Nancy, first! You can see her bottom half and one of her hands here.

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Lake Superior agates

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Lake Superior agates have a long and fascinating history! They have a special place in my heart because Lake Superior is the closet Great Lake to where The Crimson Diamond is set. Lake Superior agates have varying hues of orange and deep red (crimson!), due to iron leaching into them during their formation. They were created by volcanic eruptions about a billion years ago (in Minnesota!), and were carried far and wide by glaciers between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago.

I acquired a set of these agates and my friend Anna found some incredibly skilled craftspeople (Raincoast Jewelry Design) who lived near her who could cut, polish, and wire-wrap the stones into beautiful jewelry! The results are shown above, and I couldn't be more pleased.

Anna is an amazing craftsperson in her own right! She and her husband run a business in Victoria, BC, creating gorgeous cutting boards, coasters, and more out of recovered and recyled wood. They also do custom wood finishes and staining! Find them on Instagram and Facebook.

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Agatha Christie book

I got my love of mysteries from my mom. Here's her 1975 copy of Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", in pristine condition! She's got so many of these vintage paperbacks -- I think I might start sharing them in future issues of the gazette!

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Happy Halloween image

Happy Hallowe'en! An oldie but a goodie! A while back I created this tribute to some classic EGA Sierra villains (clockwise from centre): Lolotte, Manannan, Ad Avis, and Baba Yaga!

Lazy Game Reviews tweeted the image loaded on one of his "oldie and goodie" computers, check it out here!

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy October!

-- JM

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September 2022

Hello, dear readers! Happy September! Fall is nearly upon us in Ontario and the weather is cooling down fast. We've still been having some sunny, muggy days here and there. I must remember to savour them!

Developer update: Chapter 5, section 2 is complete! I'm testing it now, but will be moving onto developing section 3 soon! The good news is, some bits planned for section 3 worked their way into section 2, which means this last section should take a little less time. My goal is to finish chapter 5 completely by October. We shall see...

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Speedy Adventures (an adventure game speedrunning community!) selected The Crimson Diamond demo as their "short challenge" for the month of September! I've been curious about adventure game speedrunning for a while now, so it was a very pleasant surprise to learn that the TCD demo was chosen! To read the rules for the challenge, you can join the Speedy Adventures Discord community here. The details are in the pinned post under the "short-challenges" thread! You can also follow them on Twitter here!

Image of one of my speedrun attempts

I tried my hand at a bit of speedrunning, too! I had a lot of fun with it. Twitch chat was very helpful in suggesting possible run categories -- Here are timestamped examples of each kind of run I tried!

100% Completion Run 2:16:09

Any% Completion Run 1:49:95

Open All Doors, Cupboards, and Drawers Run 3:41:68 (I forgot to open both sets of double doors on the ground floor!)

Booze% Run (Nancy becomes inebriated) 0:52:11

All Objects Obtained Run 2:14:42

Shower% Run (Get shower scene ending) 0:45:96

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Dido crafts

This didn't QUITE fit into the developer update... But there will be a Dido-cat painting in the lodge, in the next version of the demo and in the final game! Dido was our family's last cat, the sweetest tuxedo cat you ever could meet. The little cubes are Yahtzee dice, because Dido really liked sitting with us when we played Yahtzee and batting at them. My mom has been requesting a pattern for a Dido patchwork quilt for a while now. Once I had the gridded design, it was easy enough for me to start a cross-stitch version too!

Dido on watercolour card

Dido is also the star of the watercolour cards I paint for special occasions...

...And she's appeared in a game already! Dido's computer game debut was in Goloso Games' Inspector Waffles! I streamed the process of creating that piece of art, too!

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My Playdate has finally arrived! Hooray! I've had a developer's unit for a while now, but the Mirror app didn't work with that one. The Mirror app allows the user to play Playdate games on their desktop, which means they can be magnified for those who have issues with viewing the small screen; it's a wonderful accessibility feature! This feature also allows streamers to easily stream Playdate games, which I hope to do in the future!

Recommendation Dog!! game image

Speaking of showing and streaming Playdate games: I still can't show Recommendation Dog!! (the Playdate game I art directed and made art for), unfortunately! It was produced by Sweet Baby Inc. in association with Panic. When it's released I'll be sure to let everyone know!

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More fun Twitch emotes! Now that the "fish into bucket" animation has been completed, I've created a few fish emotes -- Including an animated one!

Twitch emotes

fish into bucket animation, iolated

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I'm continuing to update the introductory sequence art for The Crimson Diamond on my Tuesday 8pm art streams. I'm making a simple fish-gutting (not too graphic) scene right now, which isn't nearly as detailed as the fish-into-bucket. It's a welcome change of pace!

Here are the art streams I've done since the last gazette: August 16, August 23, August 30, September 7!

image of the whole fish

Here's the completed fish for the "fish into bucket animation"!

fish gutting work in progress

And here's the work-in-progress of the fish gutting animation! Thanks very much to the donor of a remarkable reference photo, it's incredibly helpful (and no real fish involved. It was stuffed fish cat toy!).

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Dan is back in town and ready to stream! We did a "Dan's back" stream, in which Dan gives us an update on what he's been up to -- But it didn't make it into this issue of the gazette, unfortunately! Next time!

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I finished Rise of the Dragon (EGA)! There was not one, but TWO arcade sequences to battle through, both with tricky (verging on unfair) bits! But thanks to the helpful folks in chat, I prevailed! BUT I didn't save Karyn -- So I'll be playing one more time! After that... I have more EGA adventure game plans! I can't wait to show what's in store next!

My completed Let's Plays:

Last Half of Darkness (Softlab Software Laboratories 1989) playlist

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (LucasArts 1989) playlist

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There's Crimson Diamond merch in my Society 6 store! There is other fun stuff on there (besides buckets), including Nancy walk cycle graphics and The Crimson Diamond logos!

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CRAFT CORNER

Kimi cross stitch is completed!

I finished the cross-stitch portrait of Kimi Kishiro, avid birder and pal of Nancy Maple! I'm currently working on the little Dido cross-stitch, but after that I'm thinking of tackling one of the Crimson Lodge rooms. We shall see!

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quartz vs lake glass

MINERAL TRIVIA SECTION

DID YOU KNOW: Identifying rocks can be fun! No matter if it's quartz, glass, or anything else, finding pretty things on the shore is enjoyable and relaxing. For example, I found this piece of quartz (top, centre) on one of my walks along the Lake Ontario shoreline, sanded and polished it, buffed it with renaissance wax, and wire-wrapped it into a pendant. Pictured are some other bits of quartz(?) I found on the same outing (top and bottom left), some lake glass I also found (bottom middle and bottom right), AND a bit of comfirmed rose quartz from my collection.

I'm not 100% sure that the pendant is quartz. But I've made that conclusion based on the following:

- the other probable quartz bits easily scratch the lake glass. Quartz is harder than glass!

- I have difficulty scratching the lake glass with the pendant, BUT the polished rose quartz has difficulty scratching the lake glass, possibly because it's been polished very smooth. I should've performed the scratch before I'd polished and waxed it!

- the potential quartz is thicker than the lake glass. Most lake glass is fairly thin, unless it comes from the bottom of a bottle or similar.

-the inclusions (coloured imperfections) in the potential quartz look very much like the inclusions that can be seen in the probable quartzes.

- sometimes glass has spherical air bubbles in it. I used my handy-dandy loupe and didn't find any air bubbles.

My conclusion: The pendant is quartz, but I'm happy to be proven wrong! I'm still learning how to identify rocks!

pendant wire-wrapping attempts

Left: My first attempt at wire wrapping. Right: My much more successful second attempt!

small quartz stone, rough

Here are the photos of the quartz as I found it on the lake shore (front and back), and after the sanding, polishing, and buffing with renaissance wax. Renaissance wax is a microcrystalline wax polish used by museums to preserve and enhance many surfaces, including wood, metal, and gemstones. We don't get much quartz on the Lake Ontario shores, so to find one that was already so smooth and symmetrical and a perfect size for jewellry was a real treat!

small quart stone, polished

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Updated fish into bucket animation

bucket animation

INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE CRIMSON DIAMOND?

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Thanks for reading! Happy September!

-- JM

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August 2022

Hello, dear readers! Happy August! We've had some hot, hot days here in Toronto, but I'm already dreading the cooler days that come with autumn. Ontario winter never seems to get any easier!

Developer update: I'm well into working on section 2 (of 3) of chapter 5 (of 7) of The Crimson Diamond! Developing new bits is always so much fun, but must be followed by the slightly less fun testing phase. Though zapping bugs and tightening up writing can also be very satisfying!

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At long last! I've added my EGA bucket to my Society 6 store! There is other fun stuff on there, including Nancy walk cycle graphics and The Crimson Diamond logos! Here's the bucket t-shirt with no background, and here's the bucket t-shirt with background included.

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Dan and Sean Paul

Dan (aka DantheBand, the musician making the music for The Crimson Diamond) came into town recently, touring and performing with Sean Paul! I got to go backstage and meet Sean Paul and the rest of the band, which was awesome because I've been a fan for a while (Dan also gave me a dTb "Dan the Band hat! Woo-hoo!)! Dan was also on the Jimmy Kimmel show not too long ago, performing with Sean Paul and Gwen Stefani! Go go Dan!

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This just missed last month's gazette -- I had a wonderful conversation with DisasterSquad about indie game dev and adventure games! Check it out here!

Twitch streamer KaraJitsu streamed The Crimson Diamond demo! I was hanging out in chat to offer hints and answer questions, but KaraJitsu was a pro and didn't need my help! Here's a link to his playthrough!

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I made some animated Nancy gifs and a bucket emote my Twitch channel, and added follower emotes! The animated gifs are subscriber only, but the bucket emote and the standard Nancy emote and Crimson Diamond logo can be used by followers when hanging out in my stream! I hope you enjoy them!

Nancy animated gif 1

Nancy animated gif 2

Nancy animated gif 3

Nancy animated gif 4

pixel art bucket only

Twitch emojis

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I'm continuing to update the introductory sequence art for The Crimson Diamond on my Tuesday 8pm art streams! I put the finishing touches on my EGA bucket and am currently working on the fish! Here are the art streams I've done since the last gazette: July 19, July 26, August 2, August 9!

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Dan Policar is making the music for The Crimson Diamond, using a genuine Roland MT-32! He's been pretty busy this summer (see earlier in the gazette!) so hasn't been streaming much lately, but we're sure to catch him some time! Here's Dan's last The Crimson Diamond music stream, back in June!

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Augst 9 stream

I'm well into my Let's Play of "Rise of the Dragon" (Dynamix 1990) and loving every minute of it... Except this wire puzzle! This puzzle has finicky hotspots, a kinda-sorta rhythm component, AND an unforgivingly short time limit! Oh, and also you die (nibbled to death by rats or electrocution) if you get it wrong. Also the music is pure chaos. I died a lot. Well, about thirty times. And I knew what to do and even had a photo of the correct solution!

Of course I'm playing the EGA version of RotD, because the EGA palette is my favourite thing ever, and all my other Let's Plays have been EGA adventure games! I hope to continue Let's Playing EGA adventure games! I think I'll be needing to pick a new one soon...

Here is the Rise of the Dragon Let's Play playlist so far.

My completed Let's Plays: