The Diamond Mystery of Rosemond Valley

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The Diamond Mystery
of Rosemond Valley

Release date Sweden: 10/2001
Release date USA: 05/2002 (only in compilation "Let's Ride")
Developer: Liquid Media
Publisher Sweden: Panvision
Publisher USA: Valusoft
Language: English
Boxshots

for all ages

A review by slydos 15th August 2002

"The Diamond Mystery of Rosemond Valley" was already released last year by Swedish Publisher Pan Interactive, now renamed Panvision. It belongs to a set of games particularly designed for young girls, set in the small town Rosemond Valley. The other games are however no adventures, but games about horse riding and simulations.

"The Diamond Mystery" was unfortunately only released in Sweden as single title, the English version was published by Valusoft within a compilation of three games with the name "Let's Ride". Very well hidden is our 3rd-person crime solving adventure.

Story

Our heroine is the 18 years old Emma. It's her first day in the Rosemond Valley Post, the only newspaper of the small town. She meets the chief editor and directly gets a job to do: Kit Grace, the famous Hollywood actress and most famous daughter of the town, is expected as a visitor in Rosemond Valley. While already more experienced colleagues must try to interview the lady, Emma should look after the actresses surroundings and friends, e.g. her old friend Debbie Winslow, who now owns a hairdresser shop.

But apart from the expected gossip Emma discovers an extraordinarily intricated crime of the past. 20 years ago a startling diamond robbery took place in the town's museum. Thow the perpetrator was caught and sentenced, the diamonds could never be found again. A stranger leaves notes for Emma, to get her on the correct trace. She finds ever more engaged and suspicious persons. She manages to discover more and more secrets and gets finally into very dangerous situations.

Installation/start

The collection "Let's Ride" comes on 2 CDs, from which "The Diamond Mystery" alone takes one CD. In the pretty box we can find a short manual, which also treats the other two games of the collection. Here you can get a scarce overview of the game controls. After a short intro, which shows very excitingly the nocturnal diamond robbery by a masked man in a trenchcoat, we arrive in the main menu. The intro as well as the end movie can be stopped with the ESC-key at any time.

Handling/controls

The main menu, which is accessable with the ESC-key from the game at any time, lets us begin, save, load or quit the game. There are no adjustable game options."The Diamond Mystery of Rosemond Valley" is totally keyboard-controlled.

There are 12 save slots where small pictures of the current screen are stored in each case. In both, the save/load screen and in the inventory, which we open with the "I"-key, we must use the arrow keys. Exactly the same we control our heroine Emma. If Emma comes near a hotspot, this is shown to us by a text reference in the lower left corner of the screen. One can look at an object with the "L"-key. With "U" we can begin dialogues or use/take up objects. The city map appears with "M" and Emma's note book with "N".

We do not need more than these 5 keys plus the arrow keys to control the game. The 4 main locations however don't appear completely on the map until we get sufficient information about new districts. We then can use the map at any time, if we are outside, in order to be transported fast to the other main locations.

In the note book Emma writes down all important facts and also a to-do-list. If one should possibly be stuck, the note book is a very helpful tool.

Icons for the note book and map can be found in the inventory right from the start. They can be also opened from here. The objects, selected with the arrow keys, are shown enlarged in a window and got also a describing text. With RETURN we can use an object. One cannot combine items in the inventory, this is automatically done when taking a new object. One never carries more objects, than one can see on the screen. Used items disappear immediately from the inventory, so it remains very clear and easy to use.

Dialogues sometimes run automatically, but usually one can make multiple selections for questions/answers, which likewise must be selected with the arrow keys. In general spoken texts are shown as sub-titles and cannot be switched off.

The arrow control of our main character is working perfectly. Emma doesn't run into furniture or walls despite this 3D-environment, but makes relatively large elbows around all objects or dangerous areas in this regard. She also doesn't stop in corners but automatically makes a turn here, so that one must usually only use the UP-arrow. The hotspots are quite large, usually Emma "sees" something already while running by and does not have to stand exactly in front of an important object. Emma is really walking supple and quite agile, but unfortunately we cannot let her run fast, which is a little nerving when the game advances.

This kind of movement control, with so few action keys to learn, is very comfortable and won't make problems even for point&click fans. Seldom Emma returns simply too fast from the end of a corridor or does not find directly her way through a door. You get much freedom of movement, in order to put Emma's nose everywhere in. The keyboard control of "The Diamond Mystery" belongs to the simplest, I became acquainted with so far.

Graphics

In "The Diamond Mystery" are both, the beautiful autumnal backgrounds in Rosemond Valley and the character-graphics three-dimensional. Even if some textures are a bit rough and here and there a tree comes along completely in two dimensions, the general impression is nevertheless very positive. It simply makes fun to run with Emma through the small town and let the splendourful autumn colors affect you. We, as watching gamers, are rarely forced to travel through a 3D-window-awning as usually the camera is positioned in such a way to Emma that one does not run into obstacles. Also the interiors are bright and nordic colorful, if we are in the coffee shop, where Emma's sister is working or in the hall of the Grand Hotel. Since the game extends over several days, naturally the sun goes down and we can discover the same small town in the light of the many lanterns. However both, at day or night, we must do without complex shading of the game characters.

The 3D-characters are sketched in detail and inserted into the environment without disturbing edge pixels. Particularly well succeeded the body movements. While the backgrounds were done without animations, our actors work unusually life-like. Motion and gesturing are very well done. If Emma swings on her office chair or takes a photo, then it looks like in real life. Unfortunately there is no correspondence to the really perfectly succeeded body movements in the face. Emma and her fellow actors open usually suitably the mouth to their texts, however any mimic is missing, e.g. raising an eye-brow. We see Emma and her colleagues usually in close-ups on the screen, so especially the missing mimic is noticeable - however I do not know any pure 3D-adventures except Dragon Riders, in which this was already carried out.

We see Emma from different points of view, so that no boredom arises, and the changes of the camera perspective during the courses of motion succeeded. While you can become a little bit dizzy during fast mouse movements in 1st-person-3D-games and also can become a bit orientationless, in this game we have our heroine always well in our view.

Unfortunately the throughout good graphics quality is a little bit clouded by the very much blurred intro and end movie.

Puzzles

The puzzles in "The Diamond Mystery" are easy, about Syberia-quality.However I could recognize a small rise of the puzzle difficulty in the end, in chapters 5 and 7 of altogether 7 chapters, where I had to stop and think about it for some time. Otherwise you can enjoy the very interesting story without hesitation.

The game is absolutely linear, you can only continue if you speek e.g. with certain persons or visit certain places. Sometimes it's your task, to simply find the persons somewhere in town, because they are moving here and there. Then there is naturally also a set of object/inventory puzzles, always logical and quite original. There are no labyrinths, no sliding or coding puzzles. You won't have to cope with time-dependent sequences and you also cannot die. Nevertheless you get a gaming length of 12 to 14 hours.

Speech/texts

The English dubbing is, in my opinion, very nicely done over all. Mostly you rercognize how important a good synchronization is, when something's going wrong with it. Not so with "The Diamond Mystery". Emma's melodious, expressive voice supports her self-confident, energetic character. Malcolm, one of Emma's colleagues, owns a downright sexy voice and one can understand, that Emma feels like flirting with him. The photographer Tom is also very well endowed, vocally and with everything else too, and here also pricks and flirts are exchanged besides the really "important" topics. The supporting characters are casted with the same dubbing speakers, but I only realized that when reading the credits.

You'll find humorous to ironic undertones all over the texts, not too much but always shining through. There are interlocutors, which from the start are meant as funny element, for example the "cool" punk rockers in the park, the japanese tourist in the museum or the hairdresser's poor victim. Even longer dialogues are entertaining, never boring. From time to time you might observe a delay of speech against the written texts on the screen, despite a high processor performance und fast CD-drive.

Musik/sound

There is not much music during the game up to some few, only accompaning music themes, for example the sound from the radio at the hairdressers or also somewhat dramatic music when the story becomes exciting. The sound is also economically set, there is bird's chirping in the park, murmurings in the museum, traffic noises on the roads or quiet telephone ringing and typewriter noises in the office. I missed the sound of Emma's steps on the pavement or in the grass.

Bugs

There are actually some minor bugs in the otherwise satisfyingly running game: Malcolm can still be seen as figure in the hairdresser salon, although he is actually at the newspaper office. If you select him, he disappears. Looking at a parked car in the north quarter you can see, depending on your view angle, the car's seats on the outside. 2 times I was suddenly sent back to Windows with no warning.

Fazit

"The Diamond Mystery of Rosemond Valley" is a game that will not only bring fun to the target group (teenage girls). It offers one of the simplest keyboard controls, which I became acquainted with so far beside good 3D-graphics and voice dubbing. Here and there some small errors occur and one could still work on improving handling and some graphic details. However you'll be entertained in the best way by this detective adventure with a story full of surprising turns and thought out connections.

Unfortunately this game cannot be found anywhere under the term "Adventure" and is thereby easily overlooked by the adventure game fans, since it is part of a collection together with horse riding games. It is surely a game, which will also please the lovers of the Nancy Drew series and all, who like to find out in best sleuth manner up to the very end, who is the real villain.

The "Let's Ride"-collection is online available for example at www.starvector.com via this amazon-link for around $35 including shipping to Europe.

Rating: 74%

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