Happy New Year, dear adventure fans! May 2024 be a peaceful and productive year for you and may you find plenty of time to play the games that bring you most joy!

This week we'd like to talk about one of our core pillars: meaningful exploration. To put it shortly, we want you to have plenty of reasons to explore the mansion and its surroundings, without wasting your time. There is optional content, such as collectibles and optional puzzles, that you can choose if you want to engage with. But more importantly, we want it to make it easier for you to progress through the game. And when you do decide to dive deeper into the lore, we try to give relevant pieces of information and stay away from fluff text as much as possible. Below are some of the ways we use to achieve this.

There are plenty of objects you can inspect in the game, as any adventure game has. But one of our first goals in this game is to not make something interactable just for the sake of it, so you can read something along the lines "What a lovely painting!" We want you to inspect objects to learn new things, relevant info about the Rosenthal family or Irina, their present or their past, about Marius, his memories and what defines him as a person. Another rule we have is to keep the amount of objects you can inspect high enough to make the world feel rich and lived in, but low enough to not overwhelm the players, making them lose interest in exploring.

Get close enough to an object you can interact with and an icon appears over it. Get even closer and roughly look in the direction of the object and the icon scales up, while a label indicates the type of interaction. Click or press the interact button to perform the action: inspect, pick, read, talk or interact - this last one is for a more complex interaction, for example for puzzles, placing items, triggering something etc.

We implemented this intuitive system to make it easier for you to spot important objects when you explore and to process at a glance the actions you can perform. We didn't want you to pixel hunt that one item or interaction needed to progress, but to highlight things as soon as you get close enough. Furthermore, important objects that you need to interact with to progress the story are marked with an easy to spot red exclamation mark, similar to the important dialogue topics.

Sometimes adventure games can be a bit obtuse. What makes sense in the designer's mind isn't necessarily the most intuitive thing. Other times you have to stop playing, only to come back days later not remembering what you were supposed to do. To make it clear at all times what you have to do next, we have an objectives system. The current quest and its goals can be checked at any time. Objectives update constantly depending on your progress.

When you need to bring fresh water to your father, that objective is put on the list. Need to find an empty cup first? That's another objective on the list. Interacted with the well and realized you also need a bucket? Yet another objective on the list. Found the elusive empty cup? We're taking that objective off the list. Completed the well puzzle and now you have a cup of fresh water? The list now displays only one objective: bring the water to your father. This system ensures that you can enjoy playing the game, not become lost and frustrated. We want you to figure out not what to do, but how to do it.

In a future post we'll talk about another of our core pillars - light puzzles. Remember to wishlist and follow the game and check back frequently for more updates on The Crimson Maid!

In this week's post we continue with our dive into the core pillars for making The Crimson Maid, with the second part about optional depth. As stated in the first part, there are plenty of ways to get more out of the game, but it's up to you if you want to explore them. Aside from the optional dialogues, the tile puzzles and the documents, all described in the previous post, here are some more game features that allow you to immerse into the story just as deep as you want.

A key mechanic in The Crimson Maid is the journal. Marius, who you play as, will often write down his thoughts on events, people and discussions. Some of these thoughts will be revealed just by following the main path of the story, while others will need a bit more involvement from the player. Try to go over optional topics, solve optional puzzles, find collectibles, inspect the environment etc. to unlock all the journal's pages.

In-game, you'll notice empty areas in the journal where you still need to unlock some of Marius' musings. And you can also check out your journal progress in the main menu, by going to Chapters and checking out how many journal entries you've unlocked for each chapter, out of the total available.

Did you notice that Marius has a pet robin? He took the little guy with him when he left home to the seminary. Now that he returned home, he brought him back - you can spot him inside the car. Marius loves these cute birds and there are several birdhouses around the property where robins can take shelter and eat the seeds left for them by the Rosenthal family members. As you explore, when you encounter a birdhouse, you can interact with the seeds box to feed the robins. It's the wholesome thing to do!

But of course kindness is not the only reason why you should feed the birdies. For some reason, your selfless act makes a robin bring you a tiny piece of paper with verses on it - who knows where it's from? Better collect them all and read the entire poem.

Leon Rosenthal taught his children how to take pictures and paint over them - it became one of their shared hobbies. Find these lost pictures around the estate, depicting portraits of the Rosenthal family members at various moments in their lives. Marius will keep them in his journal, so these precious memories are never lost again.

In a future post we'll move on to another core pillar - meaningful exploration. But in the meantime remember to wishlist and follow the game if you haven't already done so. And check back frequently for more updates on The Crimson Maid!

One of our core pillars for making The Crimson Maid is optional depth. To put it simply, there are plenty of ways to get more out of the game, but it's up to you if you want to explore them. Below you can find a few examples of optional activities and content in our game, with more coming out in a future post.

The Crimson Maid revolves around dialogues. You'll have ample opportunities to speak to the characters inhabiting your family's mansion and its surroundings. Some topics are important to the game's progress, clearly marked with a red exclamation mark. But there are a lot of optional topics that help you learn more about either Marius or the person you're speaking to. As you talk to them more, you'll unlock new topics and they'll get more personal with the things they reveal. You might learn some secret about them or someone they'll gossip about. Or you might spot something in what they say that will help you put another piece into the puzzle of what's happening around you.

For example, did you discover that in Act 2, if you ask Catrina, your mother, about your father's condition, she mentions something about the doctor treating him. If you explore this new topic to the end, you can afterwards speak to Remus to further inquire about the doctor - a rather important character you'll meet later in the game. The story will make sense without exploring all these extra topics, for sure. But the experience will be much richer and complete if you take the time to get to know these people, their secrets and their motivations.

As you explore the various locations of the game, you may find these tile puzzles lying around. They are optional to solve, but are a great distraction when you want a bit of a change of pace. If you solve a tile puzzle, the resulting image will also be unlocked in your journal, sometimes accompanied by a brief recollection from Marius' childhood.

To keep things fresh, the tiles positioning is randomized every time you reload the chapter. By solving all tile puzzles, aside from earning the mandatory achievement, you might also be a step closer to unlocking... Well who knows, but maybe they're not just an innocent distraction after all?

Why are people so disorganized? They keep leaving documents, letters and personal notes around. As a responsible young man, Marius should probably find them all. And give them a good read - maybe that's not very responsible in real life, but in a video game it's the definition of a well behaved individual. Especially if one wants to find out untold secrets and hidden affairs!

Some of the documents found in the game will unlock journal entries. Some might help with solving a puzzle. Others are there for extra depth, but each one offers insight into the life of this family and their acquaintances. We make it a goal to keep them brief and meaningful - this actually ties into another of our core pillars that we'll talk about in a future post.

Next week we'll continue with even more details about our Optional Depth core pillar. Be sure to wishlist and follow the game and check back frequently for more updates on The Crimson Maid!

We are so happy to have finally announced The Crimson Maid to the world, accompanied by a playable demo! We hope you had the chance to try the game or at least you're planning to soon. We wanted to follow up with a Q&A about the game and the team, so you can decide if the game is a right fit for you.

What is The Crimson Maid?
It's an adventure game, in the classical sense of the word. You explore a mansion and its surroundings, talk to the people inhabiting it, pick up items and use them to solve various light puzzles, read optional documents, find collectibles and more. You'll spend a lot of time speaking to people, with lots of optional dialogues - while you don't have to go through all of them, they add a lot of depth to the story and the characters.

Who is making the game?
The Crimson Maid is a collaboration between two indie developers, Catalin Marcu (me) from GrimTalin and George Remus P. from Darkania Works. We've previously made Last Days of Lazarus together. And we have lots of experience making games, both indie and in other companies - 17 and 10 years respectively. George's career highlights include Gray Dawn and the upcoming What Have You Done, Father? While I have created The Adventures of Elena Temple and Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale to name a couple of the more recent titles.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1359920/Last_Days_of_Lazarus/


What is the scope of the game?
The demo has three chapters, two playable and one with cinematics only. The current plan for the full game is to have 20 chapters in total, 17 of which are playable. They vary in length, but plenty of them will be quite longer than those included in the demo. We're estimating about 3-4 hours of gameplay, but that will vary a lot depending on your playstyle. As you read above, we're just two people making this rather ambitious game, so we have to keep its scope in check to be able to complete it.

Will the game be voice acted?
The cinematics will feature voice acting, but the in-game dialogues will be text only. There will be thousands and thousands of lines, so it's well outside our budget to hire voice actors for so much dialogue. Even if we had the budget, we believe that reading the lines yourself makes for the best immersion into the story and better connects you to its characters. There isn't any off-putting voice acting to break the immersion. It's just you, your imagination and the story.

How about localization?
Our current plan is to release the game in English only. But we're also prepared technically to localize it in other languages, should we run into a big pile of money. Which means that only with the right partner will we take on this endeavor. With the amount of dialogues in the game and their crucial role to the experience, we can't risk having any subpar localization.

What is the story about?
You play as Marius, a young and inexperienced priest to be. He left home a couple of years ago to study at the seminary, straining his relations with his family - his mother and brother in particular. When his father becomes inexplicably ill, Marius rushes back home to be by his side and try to understand what happened. But he will have trouble focusing on the task at hand when his attention is diverted by the beautiful young maid working for his family. Will they fall for each other? Solve the mystery together? Run into unexpected obstacles? Only by playing the game will you find out. But be prepared - this noble family has a dark legacy. Blood will be spilled, hearts will be broken and destinies will be shattered.

Is this an adult game?
Definitely not. There will be plenty of flirting and maybe some passionate scenes, but everything is tied to the story. There will be no gratuitous nudity, nor is the purpose of the game just to charm the beautiful maid Irina. You have a mystery to solve and as you progress, things will escalate in unexpected ways.

Who is the game for?
First and foremost The Crimson Maid is for adventure gamers. People who enjoy exploration, puzzles and lots of text. Fans of visual novels and walking simulators should also find it up their alley. In general, it's for players who prioritize storytelling over complex gameplay.

When is it coming out?
We hope to release The Crimson Maid sometime near the end of 2024. But a lot of things can change between now and then, so please take that as just a very rough estimate.

Follow us on our development journey and don't forget to wishlist the game!

To celebrate the announcement for The Crimson Maid and its playable demo release, we are discounting all our other games this week.

You can get the best deal with the Games by GrimTalin bundle. Take advantage of the discounts for all included games and get yourself a bargain!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/21953/Games_by_GrimTalin/


You can also buy any of the games individually, like the dark post-communist adventure Last Days of Lazarus, the relaxing puzzler Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale or the nostalgia filled retro puzzle-plaformer The Adventures of Elena Temple: Definitive Edition

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1359920/Last_Days_of_Lazarus/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1589920/Long_Ago_A_Puzzle_Tale/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/800190/The_Adventures_of_Elena_Temple_Definitive_Edition/


Finally, could you please do us a big favor? Would you kindly review the games you buy after you play them? It would help a lot with visibility. Thank you!