Wait, wait, Cosmo D Studios is making a full-length game. The dev of The Norwood Suite, among others, is known for short, surreal games, with its previous game mixing things up by switching from first-person narrative adventures to a game built on dice rolls. Moves of the Diamond Hand merges these two disparate styles into something that’s as incredibly unique as it is bizarrely fascinating. The game has entered Early Access with its first couple chapters, planning to stay in development for the next six-to-nine months. However, the question stands; is Moves of the Diamond Hand worth it in Early Access?
The game begins with your character on a train, before shortly moving to the train platform and having to exit the station. This section, naturally, acts as a tutorial and sees you tracking down various leads to escape from the station, which is under lockdown due to a mayoral candidate’s talking fish going missing. Moves of the Diamond Hand is set in the same universe as the dev’s other games, meaning that it’s the same level of surreal and oddball. I personally really enjoy the sense of style and off-beat nature, so the dialogue and characters are all quite amusing here.
Once you escape from the station, you actually get to go out into Off-peak City, which is where most of the chapter takes place. Although the dev’s previous games are typically just a few hours long, Moves of the Diamond Hand is very much a full-length game. These two chapters by themselves is probably as long as all of their previous games put together, which is quite a treat for fans. I was surprised by how in-depth the game is too, as it borders on an immersive sim thanks to the amount of options you have at your disposal.
Moves of the Diamond Hand uses dice rolls for pretty much everything. Your character has several different focuses, with each being represented by a die. Talking to people, doing dice rolls, and completing quests all reward you with experience points that you’ll use to upgrade each die. You have to be careful with this, though, as building things out improperly can and will soft lock you. Most dialogue and physical actions require you to win a dice roll by having a higher number than your opponent, so you’ll have to constantly pick and choose which die to level up in order to pass skill checks.
Maybe you’ll be trying to get information out of an NPC or even attempt to fix a pizza oven. Speaking of pizza, you’ll be finding ingredients to cook pizza, which basically grants you three pizza dice that you can use at a chance to heal. There are many equippable items that can help you in combat, plus there are disguises that you can wear to give bonuses to your stats. There are, of course, many ways to deal with various scenarios. Early on you’ll find giant pigeons blocking you from grabbing items and you can either level up your die in the hopes of forcing them to move, or you can talk to an NPC who will give you an item to make this task much easier.
There are so many options here that you really have a ton of freedom in regard to how to progress. It’s honestly quite impressive just how much you can do, although I chose to always squeak by choosing options with the lowest barriers. This typically means upgrading dice until you have at least a chance to win the roll via saving and reloading repeatedly. Some might find this annoying, but it makes the game feel more tense. Plus you have health bars that you need to keep track of, as some opponents will be able to lower them and kill you if you allow the gauges to empty.
Moves of the Diamond Hand is shaping up to be a legitimately impressive game, featuring tons of player choice, an interesting, off-kilter world, and plenty of detail for lots of immersion. Whether or not you want to jump in now and play it piecemeal is, of course, up to you, but I do feel that the game’s already worth it in Early Access and am looking forward to seeing the new chapters as they roll in, as the dev has clearly done it again.
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