Creating Pixelated Perfection with Julia Minamata
What is The Crimson Diamond?
Set in a 1920s-era lodge in a rugged Canadian landscape, The Crimson Diamond is a delightful throwback to classic text-parser adventure games. These games invite players to interact with characters and environments by typing commands like “look at desk” or “open door.” This gameplay style encourages players to explore every corner of the game world while solving puzzles through creative problem-solving. Julia Minamata, the game’s creator, has embraced this approach wholeheartedly, designing The Crimson Diamond as a modern celebration of these retro mechanics.
Complementing its text-based gameplay is the game’s visual foundation: a strict 16-color EGA pixel art palette. The EGA palette was once a technical limitation of early computer hardware, offering artists a small but vibrant set of colors to work with. For Julia, this limitation became a source of creative inspiration. “Every pixel has to count,” she explained. The palette’s sharp colors create a distinctive aesthetic reminiscent of classic titles by Sierra Entertainment like The Colonel’s Bequest.
Inside the Game Development Process
Julia’s original intention with The Crimson Diamond was not to create a game at all. After working for several years as an illustrator for various publications like The New Yorker, she wanted to explore a new creative outlet. Inspired by the classic 2D games she grew up with, Julia started creating pixel art and animations in the style of early EGA games. As she created more characters and environments in this style, the art started to form a narrative, game-like feeling.
Julia primarily created the game’s graphics in Photoshop, using the pencil tool to craft pixel-perfect illustrations without the smoothing effects of anti-aliasing brushes. This tool allowed her to achieve the sharp, defined edges necessary for the game’s EGA aesthetic. Her commitment to authenticity extended beyond the visuals, drawing inspiration from historical furniture and designs, she researched period-accurate items to populate the game’s rooms. She often referenced art books and descriptions from museums to ensure every object in the game was true to its era.
The development process also relied heavily on Adventure Game Studio, an integrated development environment tailored to adventure games, enabling Julia to combine her artwork, puzzles, and narrative seamlessly into a cohesive experience. Although she didn’t always need to create game concept art or sketches, Julia has shared animated gifs showing her progression from a rough scene design to a fully detailed environment.
Creating Games with the Community
Throughout the development of The Crimson Diamond, Julia regularly shared updates on her blog and social media. Her posts detailed early pixel art drafts and game design challenges, giving fans and fellow developers a glimpse into her creative journey. This blog, which she started during her years as a commercial illustrator, became an effective method for building excitement around the game.
One of the most significant ways Julia connected with her audience was through weekly live streams on Twitch. During these sessions, she worked on the game in real time, collecting feedback from viewers on details like color choices and character designs. This interactive approach refined the game’s visuals and created a sense of community among her fans.
To learn more about Julia’s process in creating The Crimson Diamond, I asked her some questions. Here are a few of her answers:
Interview with Julia Minamata
Did the game’s story come first, or did you start by imagining the visual style and scenes? How did those elements develop together over time?
Julia Minamata: I started with pixel art rooms, inspired by the board game Clue—that’s why there’s a conservatory, study, and parlor. It felt like set design. When building sets, you ask questions: what kind of furniture fits the era, who lives here, and why? I read about these things and, from there, story ideas emerged. My own interests in mysteries and mineralogy shaped the puzzles and characters.
For example, the game didn’t really need a billiard room, but I liked the billiard room in Clue and wanted to create one. Once I made it as pixel art, I had to invent a reason for it to exist, which led to a puzzle sequence. The story evolved after the setting. It was a step-by-step process, fun and experimental, without a big goal in mind. If I’d aimed to create a seven-chapter game from the start, it would’ve been overwhelming, especially since I’d never written a story or made a game before.
Most of the time, this was a side project or hobby. If you look at my early blog posts, you’ll see long gaps, sometimes a year, between updates. I only worked on it consistently in the last few years, after spending so much time promoting and building an audience.
How did you create the pixelated art style? Did you create any early sketches or drafts?
Julia Minamata: I worked directly in Photoshop using the pencil tool, which doesn’t smooth out the edges like an anti-aliased brush. This creates the pixel-perfect, jagged look. You definitely don't need Photoshop for pixel art, but I was already so familiar with it over the years from using it for illustration. Unlike my traditional work, I didn’t need to start with hand-drawn sketches for pixel art. I tend to draw and erase repeatedly in my process, so cutting out the sketching process was a nice change while creating art in this style.
A great thing about this pixel art is the ability to learn from existing work without guessing how it was created. You can see exactly where every single pixel is on the screen and exactly what color they are. Looking across different titles that are done by different artists, you can see if people have certain techniques and styles, and it's incredibly educational to learn from those. Although, I definitely think that my background as an illustrator helped me because I was more comfortable with drawing and some of the tools than someone who is starting fresh.
How did you approach the constraint of an EGA color palette?
Julia Minamata: There's a lot of trial and error. I've spoken to some artists, like Doug Herring, who did the art for the Colonel's Bequest, which is one of my huge inspirations for my game. I've also heard from Mark Ferrari who has done interviews talking about this EGA color palette and it’s funny when you hear them talk about it. They didn't like the limitation because it was a technical limitation at the time, and they were used to using so many more colors because they are traditionally trained artists. They compared their work to painting where they had every color at their disposal. But to me, as a kid playing these games, I just saw fun, colorful, and bright artworks.
Later VGA games increased the available colors to 256, so developers often painted backgrounds, scanned them, and downsampled the images. But the result was usually blurry. EGA art, on the other hand, was generated directly on screen, which kept it sharp. That’s why there’s little concept art for EGA games, it looks best on a screen and it makes sense to create it in that environment. EGA’s bright, vibrant palette stands out on screens, and it doesn’t get muddy like mixed paints. It reminds me of pointillism: the colors stand alone as vibrant dots, but when you step back, they blend into something magical.
Color explorations for Carriage House
What was your motivation for sharing your development process through blog posts and live streams? How did community feedback impact the final game?
Julia Minamata: I really enjoy sharing the process. I started posting animated GIFs of my work to show how things came together. It’s a way to promote the game and let people see how I work. Even after six years of marketing, new people still discover it, which excites me. There’s always a new audience.
I also started streaming on Twitch during Covid. The past four years of streaming have been so effective because I'll be on for three and a half hours or something once a week and people get really invested in what I'm doing and they see the process of it actually happening in front of them. And it's been a wonderful way to build a nice community around the game and find other game developers working on similar projects.
Streaming with live community feedback also influenced a few aspects of the game, including the music. Dan Pollock created all the music in the game, and he originally suggested streaming during lockdowns. He bought a retro Roland MT-32 synth to create authentic retro sounds. Most of the music was actually created live on stream. I’d give vague prompts like, “It needs to be a sad loop with these sounds,” and he’d compose on stream while viewers provided instant feedback. It was a unique way to collaborate and develop the game, but it certainly proved to be effective.
Interested in playing The Crimson Diamond? Check it out on Steam.