In Moves of the Diamond Hand, I’ve lied about knowing the mayor, commanded a train’s computer to enter an “intense self-maintenance mode”, and, upon leaving the carriage, avoided taking damage from slipping on bubble tea on the platform by rolling against my wisdom to simply “accept the situation” and move on. If my cooking skill was higher, I could also overcome the odds here by trying to taste the bubbles. This is only ten minutes into the game’s opening in the Steam Next Fest demo.
Those familiar with developer Cosmo D Studios, who have already made waves in the indie space with the likes of The Norwood Suite and Betrayal at Club Low, may expect this offbeat edge, but Moves of the Diamond Hand makes it nevertheless joyous to take in. Exploring this world in first-person, and interacting primarily via dice rolls, this is an adventure that’s easy to get into but has plenty of depth beneath he surface.
Roll ’em and weep
Aesthetically speaking, this leans into lo-fi elements in a captivating way. A mash-up of visual styles, very human face textures sit atop lower-quality models, the train station architecture warps into giant stone animal heads, and a pigeon-person struts around. Its clashing elements, however, quickly become to feel cohesive – this is a strange world, and if I have any hope of joining Circus X to potentially escape it all, I’ll need to master the world to master my skills.
Because in Moves of the Diamond Hand, it’s all about the skills. This might have more dice-rolling than Baldur’s Gate 3, yet even though a litany of dice-rolling tabletop RPGs have me more than familiar with the concept of skill checks, there’s nothing quite like the system here. All of your skills, such as physical, cooking, or (my beloved) deception have a single die each. As you gain skill points from interacting with the world – be it completing quests, poking around, or completing other skill checks – you can level up each face of the six-sided die beginning at zero.
This deceptively simple system quickly complicates thanks to secondary dice. You constantly gain conditions based on what’s occuring that can have very positive or negative affects on your rolls. Things going well? Then maybe you’re Feeling Clever, and your next roll might be boosted or allow for bonus re-rolls. Something bad happen? You might end up Confused, giving a slight chance of a bonus, but a much higher chance of taking mental damage (lose all mental or physical health and it’s game over).
You’re rolling against other the rolls of your ‘opponent’ too (be it a person or an object), who can have their own bonuses, sometimes affected by previous decisions in dialogue. Annoy someone, and they’ll be less likely to put up with queries, adding bonuses to their own rolls; or loosen them up, and they may end up detracting from their value. Items and disguises can be equipped to add another layer. Follow quest chains too, and you may come upon items that will greatly even the odds on a challenge if you come back later, such as bird feed to neutralize a particularly rowdy group of gigantic pigeons.
There’s a lot of mechanics at play, but what’s important is that ultimately you’re just rolling six-sided dice. Few things are simpler. Yet, Moves of the Diamond Hand gets an awful lot out of modulating those basics just a bit here and there to add mechanical depth, using them to round out the storytelling and world building. There’s an awful lot of strangeness going on in this world, and you can bet you’re going to need to roll a lot of dice to get to the bottom of it all, completing quests from the strange characters you meet along the way.
Plenty is made of the train station in the demo, which also seems like it will be the opening to the imminent Early Access launch (Cosmo D Studio is planning to add chapters gradually over time while updating mechanics based on player feedback). It takes me around two hours to progress through this opening, unpicking all the plot threads within and exploring strange passages in behind-closed-doors areas. So far, Move of the Diamond Hand is easily one of the best RPGs I’ve played this year, and one of the most unique I’ve played in my life.
By the end, I’ve cooked up plenty of pizza, begun to unravel a clone conspiracy plot, and used multiple dice rolls to talk down a talking bass fish from attacking me with its spiked body. With sharp, funny writing, each character has a unique sounding voice, and the options for your dice rolls are frequently chortle worthy. But also, there’s also some prescient storytelling going on at the same time. I won’t spoil it – play it for yourself, but I am very eager to set foot outside this train station and continue my journey. There’s dice rolling to do.
Moves of the Diamond Hand will release on PC in Early Access in 2025.
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