Diamond Hand’s Moves: An Unfinished Yet Intriguingly Quirky Dice RPG
From the very start, Moves of the Diamond Hand makes its intentions clear: expect a series of bizarre conversations and plenty of dice rolls. Embrace this premise, and you’ll find yourself immersed in one of the most inventive roleplaying games to come along in years, even if its many enigmas won’t be unraveled until 2027.
This Early Access title is available on PC, macOS, and steamOS (including the Steam Deck, where I experienced it) from musician and game designer Cosmo D. The game channels the vibe of early 2000s first-person RPGs and immersive sims, featuring gritty, blocky environments and characters with exaggerated features on slightly too-small heads, all set to an unsettling soundtrack. You arrive via train and quickly encounter an old mentor, who has fallen from grace due to a political scandal. You express your desire to join a powerful group known as Circus X and choose from a variety of wildly different paths to integrate into its ranks — whether that’s joining the city council, crafting the ultimate sandwich, or rocking out in the best band.
These choices introduce the game’s core mechanic. You have one upgradeable die for each of seven stats, which include standard attributes like Physique and Observation, alongside more unique ones like Cooking and Music. When faced with a challenge, the game rolls a die linked to one of these attributes, and you must match or exceed that roll with your own.
Once you step into the train station, the complexity ramps up quickly. A multitude of sub-mechanics come into play, such as cooking, performing music, laundering disguises, and mixing cocktails — each adding extra dice with their own quirks. You can re-roll dice selectively, reminiscent of Yahtzee, which introduces strategic depth to encounters, and your final score, whether a win or loss, translates into experience points. This system builds on what was introduced in Cosmo D’s previous game, but here it feels more refined and flexible.
Initially, the game can feel a bit overwhelming. However, it eases you into its mechanics, as you’ll be rolling for nearly every action and dialogue, from casual chit-chat to opening doors. There’s a significant element of chance involved, but it doesn’t veer into chaotic randomness. Some rolls may be mathematically impossible to win or lose at a given skill level, yet you can still suffer health loss or gain unwanted status effects from seemingly safe challenges, ensuring they don’t become mindless. Most actions can be retried if you fail, but they become slightly more challenging on subsequent attempts, creating a constant balancing act of when to take that initial risk. This ambient low-level risk makes even simple interactions feel meaningful, countering the typical RPG urge to rush through environmental details and flavor text in search of the “real” game.
Through numerous skill checks, you’ll start to grasp the game’s peculiar logic. Set in Off-Peak City, a vibrant metropolis shaped by the machinations of shady corporations, corrupt politicians, and dubious operatives, it also features musicians, restaurateurs, and underground tailors — a neon-infused retro-future for the streetwise. Skills that might seem niche in other games become incredibly potent here. The Music stat, for instance, allows you to sew (machines can be operated through improvisation), calm aggressive animal-human hybrids (by whistling tunes), and mix drinks (performed rhythmically), making it arguably the most powerful ability in the game.
As you delve deeper, you’ll discover that Circus X is a clandestine arts institution influencing everything from politics to the sandwich supply chain — think of it as a blend of a factory and the Freemasons. While seeking membership, you find yourself caught up in a local election featuring a scandal-ridden technocrat, a former boy-band star, and a corporate-controlled clone of a long-gone mayor. Instead of a Maltese Falcon, everyone is scheming for control of a sentient Big Mouth Billy Bass. Meanwhile, the enigmatic Diamond Hand lurks in the shadows, frequently referenced but never fully explained.
The narrative of Diamond Hand draws parallels to real-world issues, using them as a springboard for a rich and vibrant story. For example, a company in Off-Peak City is flooding the area with clones, replacing human artists with corporate-controlled reproductions of old media. Yet, rather than merely commenting on this, the game explores the notion that clones are conscious beings frustrated by their creative limitations and lack of autonomy, while also prompting human characters to reflect on their own relationships with nostalgia and artistic expression.
Combine all these elements, and you have a hard-boiled sci-fi thriller filled with subway busking, library book hunts, political campaigning, lettuce harvesting, jazz debates, and laundry, all infused with the primal thrill of chance. It’s utterly captivating.
Currently, most of Diamond Hand’s main quests hit roadblocks, as the Early Access version includes only the first two of six chapters, with the next set to arrive this summer and a full launch planned for spring 2027. Even in its early state, however, Diamond Hand is rich and enticing, delivering a series of absurd scenarios and dry humor with a straight face. Among the many clever jokes that double as game mechanics, local pizza-makers require everyone to bake their own pie, so if your order doesn’t meet your expectations, you have only yourself to blame. You earn experience points for allowing characters to ramble about their backstories and opinions — a clever nod to RPG infodumping — but the dialogue is rewarding even without that incentive.
Despite its dystopian themes, there’s an idealistic undercurrent in a world where art, for better or worse, holds significant importance. Moves of the Diamond Hand may still be a work in progress, but it’s a recipe for obsession with skill and perfection, as you chase the ultimate sandwich and the lucky dice rolls that will lead you there.
