Rejoice, expensive readers, for at the moment heralds the arrival of a brand new Cosmo D recreation. Technically, it is episode 1 of a brand new Cosmo D recreation, as this newest mission – Strikes of the Diamond Hand – will probably be break up into 4 separate chapters, and launched in at the moment unknown intervals at a later date. As we speak marks the discharge of Chapter 1 in its entirety – as a free demo – and when Chapter 2 finally arrives, it should shift into paid early entry.
However sufficient logistics chat. Onto the sport. In the event you’ve been following Cosmo D’s work since his Off-Peak and The Norwood Suite days, you may know that every recreation within the loosely-connected Off Peak Metropolis-verse is often fairly completely different from the final. All of them share the identical off-kilter tone and love of unusual, undulating structure and NPCs with haunting, dead-eyed stares, however the way you navigate and work together with these pockets of dreamy, city nightlife adjustments from one recreation to the subsequent. Strikes of the Diamond Hand, nonetheless, is sort of a direct continuation of the dice-rolling talent checks from 2022’s Betrayal at Membership Low, albeit with some added twists to recreation your cube even additional.
You start on a subway prepare with goals of becoming a member of the mysterious Circus X, and a shock encounter with an previous pal slowly reintroduces the sport’s crop of core abilities. Like Betrayal at Membership Low, they’re the necessary issues in life: cooking, deception, music, statement, physique, knowledge and wit. All of them take the type of six-sided cube, and the extra expertise you achieve from finishing (or failing) sure duties, the extra you possibly can pump these factors into elevating the numbers on these cube to offer you a greater probability of succeeding in later conditions. As earlier than, your opponents even have cube of their very own you may have to take care of, they usually’ll change relying on which plan of action you determine to take.
However earlier than you are in a position to attain and infiltrate this circus that is probably not a circus, you have to discover a means out of each the prepare, and the station the place you find yourself. That is what Chapter 1 consists of, and I had a really jolly two hours noodling round its platforms and secret tunnels, and rooting via bins and strangers’ pockets to seek out money, gadgets, keys and extra to additional my escape. The station’s in lockdown if you arrive, you see, because the Jade Bass AI companion for a sure mayor candidate has gone lacking, and the detective answerable for coming to seek out it and query suspects is working late.
It leaves a helpful vacuum so that you can step into and kind out whereas everybody else mills round being a bit ineffective and shifty-looking. You may have to enquire, cajole and generally forcibly get people to confide in you by way of the aforementioned dice-rolls, however because of its enjoyable and entertaining script, there’s a number of selection in the way you go about it – you possibly can inform a joke to win them over together with your wit, for instance, or bluff your solution to victory utilizing your deception. Others, in the meantime, are extra vulnerable to being impressed by your culinary expertise, as as soon as once more, pizza and the artwork of creating them sits on the coronary heart of many an excellent social interplay on this recreation.
Certainly, like Betrayal at Membership Low, you can also make pizzas utilizing numerous components to assist juice your cube rolls and offer you an edge in sure conversations, and one character will not even provide the time of day except you’ve got bought a pizza outfitted in your stock. Pizzas aren’t the one type of equipable sustenance in Strikes of the Diamond Hand, nonetheless. This time, you can too use a merchandising machine to purchase gum, drinks and different foodstuffs, all of which have numerous, one-time results that come into play throughout cube encounters in case you determine to equip them. Some, for instance, can restore your vitality and nerve – which in the event that they hit zero is recreation over for you – making it a contact simpler to remain in your toes this time in comparison with the spirals of failure you possibly can generally get into after a nasty run in Membership Low. Others offer you additional numbered cube to play with, as do sure disguises yow will discover in numerous inexperienced tubs all through the station.
The disguises are maybe a little bit overpowered for this early stretch for the sport, although I did like how every profitable cube roll from it steadily degraded the general effectiveness of the disguise over time. If my low-cost blue swimsuit jacket gave me a +2 in a single encounter, for instance, subsequent time that aspect would solely give me a +1, and so forth. By the point I completed the chapter, a few of my disguises virtually grow to be extra of a hindrance than a assist, although they are often repaired for a charge later within the recreation.
As I reached the ultimate stretch of the opening chapter, I actually did not need it to finish – and the tantalising glimpse you are afforded of the town past the prepare station when you’re allowed to depart simply makes me much more excited for the launch of Chapter 2. To borrow a pizza analogy from the sport, if Betrayal at Membership Low was a tasty traditional pepperoni, then Strikes of the Diamond Hand looks like extra of a meat feast, its extra methods piled on prime of its core cube rolls to make all the pieces really feel a bit extra enjoyable and fulfilling.
It is maybe a little bit simpler and extra of a crowd-pleaser than Membership Low – at the very least based mostly on this early slice – however I am intrigued to see how every subsequent chapter will develop and evolve its cube rolls as time goes on. It is a a lot bigger and extra formidable recreation than something Cosmo D’s made earlier than, and I hope that later chapters can keep that sense of steadiness and development that is usually so taut and tightly constructed in his earlier microcosms. Solely time will inform on that entrance, however for now, who might presumably say no to a different free, two-hour jaunt inside one other bizarre and kooky pocket of Off Peak Metropolis? Get it down your gullet and revel in.
