From its opening minutes, Strikes of the Diamond Hand is upfront about what it affords: You’re going to have lots of unusual conversations, and also you’re going to roll lots of cube. Get on board with this proposition, and the reward is without doubt one of the most inventive roleplaying video games I’ve seen in years, even when its many mysteries gained’t be resolved till 2027.
Strikes of the Diamond Hand is an Early Entry videogame obtainable on PC, macOS, and steamOS (together with the Steam Deck, the place I performed it) from musician and recreation designer Cosmo D. The sport seems and seems like a 2000s-era first-person RPG or immersive sim: environments are dirty, stark, and blocky; characters’ options are stretched over clean heads a bit too small for his or her faces; an eerie soundtrack pulses over all. You’ll arrive on a prepare and instantly meet an outdated mentor, disgraced by some sort of political scandal. You convey your want to hitch a strong group referred to as Circus X, then declare which of a number of wildly completely different paths you’ll take into its fold — you may attempt becoming a member of town council, however may discover equal success crafting the proper sandwich or becoming a member of the most effective band.
These choices assist introduce the central mechanic. The sport offers you one upgradeable die for every of seven stats, starting from customary fare like Physique and Statement to the extra idiosyncratic Cooking and Music. To set a problem, it should roll a die akin to a kind of attributes, and also you’ve received to match or beat it with your personal roll.
When you emerge into the prepare station, the complexity rapidly multiplies. There are a plethora of sub-mechanics together with cooking, performing music, laundering disguises, and mixing cocktails — all of which add further cube with distinctive quirks. You possibly can selectively re-roll cube in a way just like Yahtzee, introducing a component of technique inside every encounter, and your last rating (win or lose) is translated into expertise factors. The fundamental system was launched in Cosmo D’s final recreation, Betrayal at Membership Lowhowever in a much less versatile and chic type; Diamond Hand seems like its evolution. (Disclosure: My husband has offered outdoors suggestions for Cosmo D’s video games.)
It’s all somewhat intimidating at first. However the recreation means that you can ease into its choices, which occurs rapidly, because you’re rolling for nearly each motion and verbal trade from making small discuss to opening a door. There’s a significant component of likelihood to all this, with out descending into unbounded randomness. Some rolls might be mathematically unattainable to win or lose at a given ability degree, however it’s potential to nonetheless harm your well being or achieve an unwelcome standing impact with secure challenges, stopping them from turning into purely rote. You possibly can retry most actions for those who fail them, however they’ll grow to be barely harder on a second try, so there’s a continuing balancing act of deciding when to take the preliminary leap. The ambient low-level danger makes even easy areas really feel substantive and fascinating — it negates the frequent RPG urge to hurry by environmental element and taste textual content whereas in search of the “actual” elements of the sport.
By numerous ability checks, you’ll internalize the odd logic of the sport’s world. The setting, Off-Peak Metropolis, is a garish metropolis formed by the machinations of sinister firms, corrupt politicians, and shady operatives, but additionally musicians, restaurateurs, and actually and figuratively underground tailors — a neon retro-future for streetwise aesthetes. What could be area of interest expertise in some other recreation show terribly highly effective right here. The Music stat, whose makes use of embody stitching (machines can, amongst different choices, be actually operated by improvisation), calming aggressive animal-human hybrids (by whistling tunes), and mixology (which might be carried out “rhythmically”), is arguably the one strongest energy within the recreation.
Circus X, you’ll quickly be taught, is a secretive arts establishment that influences every little thing from politics to the sandwich provide chain — think about the Manufacturing facility crossed with the Freemasons. Whereas pursuing membership, you’re embroiled in a neighborhood election between a scandal-plagued technocrat, a former boy-band star, and the corporate-controlled clone of a mayor from many years previous. Rather than a Maltese Falcon, everybody’s scheming for management of a sentient Large Mouth Billy Bass. And meddling behind the scenes is the mysterious, anarchic Diamond Hand, continuously alluded to however not defined.
Diamond Hand’s story evokes real-world parallels, however as a jumping-off level for one thing that’s wealthy and alive in its personal proper. In maybe the obvious instance, an organization in Off-Peak Metropolis is pumping the place filled with clones, supplanting human artists with corporate-guardrailed regurgitations of old media. However fairly than cease at commentary, the sport walks this out to discover the concept clones are additionally aware beings who’re annoyed by their inventive limits and lack of autonomy, whereas letting human characters mirror on their very own relationship with nostalgia and creative style.
Put this all collectively and also you’ve received a hard-boiled sci-fi thriller involving subway busking, discovering library books, stumping for politicians, harvesting lettuce, arguing about jazz, and doing laundry, infused with the lizard-brain attraction of a nonstop recreation of likelihood. It’s irresistible.
Most of Diamond Hand’s most important quests finish in roadblocks, as a result of its Early Entry construct consists of solely the primary two of six chapters, with the following scheduled for this summer time and a full launch set for the spring of 2027. However even in its present state, Diamond Hand is dense and tantalizing, delivering a string of absurd premises and dry humor with a straight face. (Amongst many tossed-off jokes which can be additionally precise recreation mechanics, native pizza-makers require everybody to bake their very own pie, so for those who don’t like your order, you might have solely your self responsible.) You’re granted expertise factors for letting characters ramble by their backstories and opinions — which lands someplace between a sly gag about RPG infodumping and a straightforwardly intelligent determination — however the dialogue pays off even with out that prize.
And for all its dystopian parts, there’s one thing idealistic a couple of world the place artwork, for good or sick, deeply issues. Diamond Hand could also be a piece in progress, however it’s a recipe for turning into obsessive about ability and perfection, chasing the world’s best sandwich and the string of fortunate cube rolls that may get you there.
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