You awaken on a train. You don’t know where you’re going, but there’s a man in high-vis nearby, reading the paper, eating a capsicum. He seems to know you, and your purpose. What purpose? Why, to join the mysterious Circus X – as a musician, perhaps? Maybe a strongman? Whatever the case, you know there’s just one way to get there: rolling an increasingly strange series of dice, defeating opponents in challenges of wit and strength, until you find your pathway forward.
In Moves of the Diamond Hand, Cosmo D’s follow-up to the IGF award-winning Betrayal at Club Low, that’s just how life goes. Everything depends on the luck of a dice roll – even shooing a bunch of over-large, very suspicious pigeons in a dingy subway.
Like Club Low before it, this RPG adventure leans into the bizarre and surreal, with few answers for its biggest questions. Who are you? How did you end up on the subway? Where exactly have you been left, and why is the subway populated by clones, pizza makers, and savants? What is Circus X? Moves of the Diamond Hand revels in being obtuse in its opening chapter (shared with GamesHub early), promising a growing strangeness in its next steps.
The entire journey is enhanced by a low-poly art style that creates a genuine sense of discomfort and unease, adding to the sense that you’re venturing into uncharted territory.
Enter the surreal and strange
Moves of the Diamond Hand is striking from the off, leaning into Cosmo D’s signature surrealist style to introduce a world of vivid colour. The night sky is bright and brilliant, wheeling over the weird train station. Neon green stink drifts from a garbage can nearby. As you approach a gang of pigeons, they all turn their heads to look at you. You’ll fail your first roll against them, but don’t worry – magical bird seed eventually comes to the rescue.
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Beneath the subway, you’ll find even more strange sights. A group of musicians demands you perform for them, and rolling a set of dice, you’ll pluck out tunes in 1, 2, +1, -1, 0, or ♪. This system of rolling for success is plucked from traditional tabletop mechanics, and builds on a similar system found in Betrayal at Club Low.
Success is the only path forward, so you’ll need to roll and keep rolling, hoping for better, as you discover new quests and challenges requiring your attention. Explore the further reaches of the subway, and you’ll eventually find items to help – costumes, gum, or pizza, all enhancing your rolls, and/or healing your stats (physical and mental health). With each roll, you’ll gain experience, allowing you to boost your individual stats and ensure your next challenge is easier to tackle.
In the subway, the primary puzzle of the game’s first chapter reveals itself: a mysterious AI companion is missing, and there’s all sorts of clues to suggest one of the subway residents must be responsible. You can’t leave the subway until you figure out who’s to blame – so you better get to chatting, fast. You’re a detective now, and each dice roll brings you closer to the truth, and to Circus X.
Become the dark detective
You’re encouraged to take a slow, curious approach to your investigation. Everyone is under suspicion. If you take the time to listen, to take a more off-kilter approach, you may stumble upon the right words to “unlock” your dice-rolling opponents.
You might also uncover a strange political conspiracy brewing in the back alley of Cosmo D’s world. The more you talk to folks, the more you’ll realise there’s secrets upon secrets in this subway, and untangling them all will take some time.
One particular suspect will only talk to you if you have a pizza in hand. Another won’t respond to an aggressive approach, but will share more with you if you choose to become their friend. If you’re kind enough to the lady at the subway ticket window, she might give you a second copy of a book she bought, which will allow you to roll an additional set of dice.
Fix a pizza oven. Get a key. Head to the subway surface. Escape a roaming man with a tiny pigeon head. Grab a sheaf of music. Head back down. Make sure you don’t pick up a lingering smell along the way, or you’ll get a negative impact on your future dice rolls.
So life is in Moves of the Diamond Hand. Based on its first chapter, it’s set be a layered RPG defined by a compelling sense of weirdness. There are threads left dangling by the demo’s final moments, and I’m certainly keen to see where they lead. What’s the deal with Circus X? Why am I so inspired to join them? What is the mysterious secret behind the clones of this city, and the strange experiments that litter its main subway?
Why are there so many pigeons?
Moves of the Diamond Hand will explore these hard-hitting questions in full when it launches.
In the lead up, those keen to check out the next steps into Cosmo D’s strange visions will be able to jump into the first chapter of Moves of the Diamond Hand via Steam, from today. The following chapters of the game will launch in Early Access at a later date.
