The surreal RPG Moves of the Diamond Hand, sequel to the “realheads know” Betrayal at Club Low, is launching in early access April 13. The dice-em-up got a fittingly vibey trailer and update to its already substantial demo to celebrate the occasion.
Developer Cosmo D has been quietly building up the mythos of Off-Peak City—which has the energy of a half-remembered 3AM Adult Swim show from 2001—for years, but he hit on some real magic when he leveled up from pure narrative and exploration into RPG territory with Club Low. You adopt the roles of a secret agent posing as a pizza deliveryman, with a crucial mission to infiltrate the titular discotheque and rescue a colleague from an undercover sting gone wrong.
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It plays like Disco Elysium by way of a madcap tabletop one-shot, with tons of reactivity, branching paths, and viable builds. No word of a lie, the Cooking/Music multiclass is not to be slept on. Club Low is short, but eminently replayable.
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Moves of the Diamond Hand zooms things into a more immersive, first-person perspective instead of Club Low’s adventure-game fixed camera. Even more transformative is a shift to a multi-act structure, each one consisting of its own sandbox of a similar scope to Club Low. It took me about four hours to beat Club Low for the first time, and three to finish Diamond Hand’s demo, which offers the full first act of the game.
I was seriously blown away by that demo. Like a drunken boxer, it lurches masterfully between pure Xavier Renegade Angel absurdity and some genuinely gripping noir storytelling, while even the silliest little freaks you meet have some heart to them. It’s been a year since I played the demo, and I can still acutely remember the thrill I felt arguing with the demo’s “final boss,” a sentient Big Mouth Billy Bass.
We don’t have to wait much longer for Moves of the Diamond Hand’s March 13 early access release, but you can wishlist it and try the demo for yourself right now on Steam.
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