Previously on the The Diamond Mystery of Rosemond Valley: Intrepid reporter Emma started her first day at the Rosemond Valley Post, was hit on by two of her coworkers, and then a mystery fell into her lap in the form of an anonymous note. Time to abandon our job and chase down this mystery from twenty years ago!
So the note told us to go to the museum, and thus, that’s where we go. I must say, the impetus for the plot feels a little lame. We just…get a random note out of nowhere and decide to investigate it to kick the plot off. There isn’t even an instigating incident or series of wacky suspicious accidents leading up to it. I suppose it’s not unusual that a reporter might follow a tip, especially if they have nothing better to do, but it still kind of reads like they couldn’t think of a better way to get Emma involved in the plot. Like, why does the note-writer think this random intern is the person for the job? Why are they suddenly invested in a mystery that’s 20 years old to begin with?
We show our membership card to this security guy, who derps that they have another member named Georgina Holmes. What a coincidence! Not a crazy enough coincidence to ask us questions or anything, though. He lets us in, and we can in fact just waltz around his desk and go into the security room right in front of him. I’m starting to see how this diamond heist was pulled off.
Back in the security room, we can see a camera, and at the end of the hall, there’s a door. “The door’s locked,” Emma muses. Alright, so we’ll have to go there eventually, but we don’t have to do that just now.
The red carpet in the museum leads us directly to this empty display case. OMG, could this be the display case the note was talking about? There’s no way there’s more than one empty case in a museum. We find a new note on the floor, which says that the true criminal hasn’t been punished. I mean, if you know that, note-writer, I don’t know why you’re not solving this case yourself.
While we look at the display case, we’re approached by this dude. He greets us with, “This is an interesting display case,” and Emma’s like, “It’s empty,” and he’s like, “That’s why it’s interesting.” The dialogue in this game is masterful. The dude tells us that this case held the diamonds from the great jewel heist twenty years ago. And it’s been empty ever since? They didn’t want to use it for…literally anything else in twenty years? Sure. Whatever.
Anyway, this dude tells us about the crime: the jewels were known as the Treasure Diamonds, and were the most valuable pieces inside the museum. They were protected by a super high-tech (for the ’80s) alarm, which reacted to the weight inside the case, so it should’ve been impossible to remove the jewels. The guy muses that someone must have known how to turn the alarm off, and Emma speculates that it was an inside job.
The guy finally introduces himself to us as Vicini. He’s a jeweler, not that that’s really made clear through his dialogue — instead, he sort of creeps and vagues about how we could say he’s kind of a jewel expert, and indeed, he has quite the interest in the stolen jewels. He’s super weird and suspicious about it, which naturally means that he is not the culprit.
After that conversation, our journal will update and tell us to check back in at the newspaper office, so let’s do that. On our way out, we find out that the reason half the office is missing is because they’re apparently all at the museum. We first run into Malcolm, who tells us that he also got a mysterious note telling him to come here. He refuses to say why the note-writer wanted him to come, though, which isn’t suspicious at all. We change the subject to his Kit Grace interview, and Malcolm tells us that he hasn’t managed to get through her team yet. We’re like, “But Bob thought you’d be able to charm her into an interview,” and Malcolm’s like, “Wow, Bob is putting way too much faith in me.” That’s how I feel about my boss too, tbh.
Speaking of whom, Bob is also here at the museum. He tells us that he’s the head of the Friends of the Museum organization, which is basically just a group of art lovers who sit around and drink coffee. He invites Emma to join, but she blows him off. Fuck those old people and their art club.
Then we ask him about this bear sculpture and Bob says, “It’s the famous Rosemond Valley Bear. It stands as a symbol for our town, holding us all in a big bear hug; warm, safe, and strong.” HEE.
Moving on, let’s ask Bob about the jewel heist. He lived in town at the time of the theft, and tells us that the museum leaves the display case empty because they still think the jewels will be returned one day. He doesn’t remember anything about the person who was convicted of the crime, though, and tells us to look it up in the database in the office. Alright, alright, I get the hint, let’s go back to the office.
Hey, do the disaffected youths know anything about the jewel heist? No, no they don’t. Oh, well, worth a try.
Back at the office, Tom isn’t in the darkroom anymore, so let’s pop in and steal his flashlight so that we can clean Mrs. Holmes’s attic.
With that done, let’s get down to Googling. We find the newspaper’s old articles about the diamond theft — apparently the Treasure Diamonds are ~cursed~ and are thought to bring their owner bad luck. Ooh, a curse? We’re really throwing every children’s mystery trope into this game. The only thing it’s missing is someone dressing up in a Scooby-Doo outfit and trying to sabotage the paper.
We also find an article detailing the arrest of one Jack Griffin, a janitor who worked at the museum. Despite confessing to the crime and giving a description of where the diamonds were hidden, they were never recovered. The lead detective on the case (“Captain Parker”) suspected that Griffin had an accomplice, although Griffin denied it. Intriguing!
Conveniently, as soon as we read those articles, we find a letter on Lucy’s desk…addressed to Jack Griffin! What are the odds!
We pick the letter up, all twitterpated to read it, and then Lucy busts us. “We don’t normally go through each other’s stuff here,” she snips. Burn. We try to apologize and invite her out to coffee so we can interrogate her, but Lucy tells us that she’s busy. “I’m really sorry,” Emma bleats. Aw, Emma, don’t take it personally. Alienating our coworkers so we can invade their privacy is just part of the job!
We can do a bit more Googling, so let’s look up Captain Parker. Apart from the diamond heist, the only other case mentioned in the paper is that of a missing cat down a well. We find out literally nothing from our searching, so we log out of Ask Jeeves or Altavista or whatever we were using and move on to interrogating our suspects some more.
Hey, Carla, do you remember the Treasure Diamond theft? Carla says that she doesn’t remember much about the details, and we’re like, “But you were the one who wrote the article about it.” She was? Sure, whatever. Carla snipes that it was 20 years ago and she can’t be expected to remember that far back. I bet Carla did so much cocaine in the ’80s. Anyway, she keeps condescending to us and calling us “dear”, and finally Emma snaps and asks her not to call us that. “Everybody seems to call me that!” she whines. They do? Sure, whatever (x2). (Carla: “Don’t you want us to hold you dear?” I don’t know why that line amuses me so much, but it does.)
We try to bring up that Jack Griffin apparently had an accomplice, and Carla yells at us to stop asking questions. We’re like, “But you told us to come to you if we had questions?” and Carla’s like, “Yes, but not ALL THE TIME!” Okay, grouchy. She waves us off and tells us to go file some papers or empty a wastebasket or something. Ooh, maybe we can send some faxes! Or photocopy something! The possibilities of 2000s technology are endless!
We ask Carla if we can go to lunch instead, and bring up that our sister works in the diner across the street. “Is she the one that always has her thumb in the soup while serving?” Carla asks. Heh.
That’s our sign to go talk to Annie next, so we go to the diner. We can ask these two patrons — you’ll recognize the lady as the one from outside Debbie’s salon — where she is, and they’ll really aggressively tell us that she’s CLEARLY STANDING BEHIND THE COUNTER, what are we, DUMB OR SOMETHING? Jeez, okay. Everyone in this town is so cranky.
We chat with Annie and give her the rundown of everyone at the paper. Emma complains some more about being the most junior staff member, and how everyone calls her “dear” or “darling.” Seriously, do they? I can’t remember Lucy or Malcolm ever saying it, and I think Bob only calls her “kid” once or twice. Whatever. Annie says that creepy customers are always calling her “babe”, and we commiserate for a minute over sexual harassment in the workplace. This game is deep.
We tell Annie all the gossip about Kit Grace, but she doesn’t have much to contribute other than being vaguely shocked and impressed by Kit Grace’s sordid backstory. Once again, I question anyone being that interested in the personal life of a middle-aged actress. Like, even celebrities who were tabloid fodder in their youth tend to fade from the gossip circuit once their older. Has anyone talked shit about Winona Ryder since like 2005? Anyway, we then awkwardly segue into telling Annie about the diamond theft — which, by the way, occurred around the same time as Kit Grace leaving town and splitting up with her husband (twenty years ago). File that away for later.
Annie asks what we’re all thinking, which is why tf we’re getting invested in a cold case from 20 years ago. We show her the anonymous notes about the theft and say that someone must want to the truth to come out. “Maybe you should be a detective instead of a journalist,” Annie notes. Yeah! We could be a young, redheaded amateur sleuth, who spends her time searching for treasure instead of doing her job! That sounds like a niche no one’s ever explored before.
We have several conversation options, but you can only choose one. I chose to tell Annie about Lucy having a letter from Jack Griffin*, but Annie doesn’t have much to say; she only remarks that we shouldn’t go through people’s mail. Emma starts crazying that we HAD to, because we KNOW we’re on to something. “Someone WANTS me to care about the diamond theft. Someone’s shown me the way.”
I, uh. I’m not sure I want to be you anymore, Emma.
*When we first find the letter, Emma notes that it’s “for” Jack Griffin, but our dialogue with Annie says that the letter is from him instead. Whatever, it doesn’t make a difference.
Can we do anything else in the diner? Ah, yes, we can stop by the jukebox, and Emma will say that it’s playing her song. Stock soft trance background music IS our jam.
We can then leave the diner. Later in the game, we’re going to need an umbrella, and we pick it up now in a kind of bizarre interlude. Emma will note that it’s raining, and she turns to see an umbrella. She’s like, “Someone’s left their umbrella!” and Annie’s like, “Yes, it’s been there for ages!” and Emma’s like, “Can I have it?” and Annie’s like, “Well, nobody’s claimed it!” I know I make fun of Nancy Drew’s tendency to just steal things with no explanation, but four lines of dialogue solely to grab an umbrella feels like a little much. It’s very “Victorian author getting paid by the word.” Would it have been so hard to just be like, “Oh no, it’s raining! Annie, can I borrow your umbrella?”
Then again, I guess I too am padding my word count by ranting about this for so long. Let’s move on! Despite having the umbrella, they didn’t (or couldn’t) actually animate Emma walking around with the umbrella, so we wander outside looking exactly the same as always.
The logical thing to do here would be to go back to the museum and follow up with Bob, now that we know more about the diamond theft. However, logical? Me? Never. Actually, I did go back to the museum, but I forgot to talk to Bob and instead had a scintillating conversation with Malcolm wherein he claimed to be undercover. You know, so that he can stealthily stand in that corner of the museum room, doing nothing.
Having done that and accomplished nothing, let’s go see Debbie again. We can look around the salon, and we see a novel called “A million in the hand” [sic] by Karen Stone. Debbie gushes that it’s a real page turner and one of the best books she’s ever read. Emma snarks, “Isn’t this just a cheap novel?” Wow, judgy. We ask what it’s about, and Debbie tells us that it’s about a diamond heist. Is there anything in this town that isn’t about a diamond heist? Anyway, we can ask to borrow it, and Debbie will straight-up give it to us.
We tell Debbie that we have more questions about Kit Grace, and Debbie agrees to answer them, but only if we get a haircut from her. Emma is trepidatious, which is weird considering it’s not like she has that much hair to lose. I think we’d look cute cosplaying the Bride of Frankenstein!
We ask Debbie about Kit Grace’s husband, but we don’t find out much — only that nobody knows why he left, and Kit Grace left town to become an actress shortly afterwards. Wow, so we let her butcher our hair for nothing. When she’s done cutting, Emma despairs that we look awful, how could Debbie do this, no one will even recognize us with our most recognizable feature so drastically altered, et cetera.
Indeed. Debbie offers us a free wig as compensation.
“This wig is even worse than the haircut!” Emma says, even though it looks perfectly fine to me. This girl is so judgmental.
On our way back to work, the disaffected youths compliment our hair. I guess we’re supposed to take that as a sign that Emma’s hair looks spiky and weird. However, I was a budding emo Avril Lavigne stan when this game came out, so actually, I did think the disaffected youths were style icons.
Anyway, we can also ask the youths if they have any feedback that might make the paper better, but they like the paper as it is. Especially the fishing column! Hee. They have layers.
Armed with our stolen flashlight, we can now return to Mrs. Holmes’s house. She sends us up to the attic to clean it, and thus, the most difficult portion of this game begins: getting into the fucking attic. I lost a solid five minutes trying to turn Emma around in that tiny-ass vestibule, accidentally walking back into the living room, accidentally leaving the house entirely by spinning too far and facing the front door, and walking into the doorframe about 80 times.
Jesus, finally.
There’s lots of plot devices we need to look at up here, so let’s go through them. First is Kit’s wedding photo, which we find in a box on the floor. Emma will note that her husband looks familiar, not that we can see the photo, or have seen another photo that we can compare it to. One place this game really falls down in is the lack of interactive clues. There is a lot of telling and very little showing. We can’t ever physically look at the articles Emma reads on the computer, for example, or see any of the photos she references. This means that, whenever part of the case is solved, Emma has to tell us what’s happening instead of the player getting the satisfaction of putting the clues together. It would be a pretty cool reveal if we had seen a photo of Kit’s husband before, and then recognized him upon seeing her wedding photo — but we don’t. Emma casually being like, “Oh hey, I’ve seen this guy before”, while looking at a photo we can’t see, totally sucks the drama from the moment.
Also, on a purely impatient note, I can definitely silent read faster than Emma reads all those newspaper articles out loud, my God sitting through some of those paragraphs-long monologues is a pain.
Anyway, let’s leave the attic. We also want to stop and take note of a bunch of old clothes hanging in the corner.
Let’s now go talk to Mrs. Holmes again. Those moments when the camera is directly bird’s-eye over Emma’s head really add an extra something to the game, don’t you think?
We show Mrs. Holmes the wedding photo and reveal why Emma was so shook: Kit’s husband was Captain Parker, he of saving cats from wells and not solving diamond heists! Mrs. Holmes, kind of sweetly, is still furious with Captain Parker for walking out on Kit, and snarks that she’s not surprised he never recovered the diamonds. “He probably wasn’t much of a policeman. Stupid cop!” Mrs. Holmes would be so popular on Twitter. We ask if she ever heard from Captain Parker again, but the answer to that is no. Emma suggests that he disappeared because he was ashamed over not solving the diamond mystery, to which Mrs. Holmes snarls, “All men are cowards.” Heh.
We then ask her what she wants us to do with all the clothes we found in the attic, and Mrs. Holmes says we can keep them. Man, Emma’s really getting stuff just handed to her in this game — umbrellas, shitty books, vintage clothes. I kind of miss the rush of stealing shit from our suspects. Do I have a problem?
When we leave, it’s nighttime, and a title card flashes up, telling us that we’re now in Chapter 2 of the game.
We go back to the newspaper office and see a mysterious figure jump out of the window and escape down the alley. Spooky! Let us end the post here, and continue on with act two of the mystery in the next one.
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