Moves of the Diamond Hand is an unfinished, irresistibly weird dice-based RPG
Moves of the Diamond Hand is an unfinished, irresistibly weird dice-based RPG
Moves of the Diamond Hand 是一款尚未完成、却有着令人无法抗拒的怪诞魅力的掷骰 RPG 游戏
A hardboiled world of sinister corporations, animal-human hybrids, and master sandwich-makers is both clever and absurd. 这是一个由邪恶企业、人兽混种和三明治大师构成的硬汉派世界，既聪明又荒诞。
From its opening minutes, Moves of the Diamond Hand is upfront about what it offers: You’re going to have a lot of strange conversations, and you’re going to roll a lot of dice. Get on board with this proposition, and the reward is one of the most creative roleplaying games I’ve seen in years, even if its many mysteries won’t be resolved until 2027. 从开场几分钟起，《Moves of the Diamond Hand》就开门见山地展示了它的核心：你将进行大量的奇怪对话，并掷出大量的骰子。如果你能接受这个设定，你将收获近年来我所见过的最具创意的角色扮演游戏之一，尽管它的许多谜团要到 2027 年才会揭晓。
Moves of the Diamond Hand is an Early Access videogame available on PC, macOS, and steamOS (including the Steam Deck, where I played it) from musician and game designer Cosmo D. The game looks and feels like a 2000s-era first-person RPG or immersive sim: environments are grimy, stark, and blocky; characters’ features are stretched over smooth heads a bit too small for their faces; an eerie soundtrack pulses over all. 《Moves of the Diamond Hand》是一款由音乐家兼游戏设计师 Cosmo D 开发的抢先体验版游戏，现已登陆 PC、macOS 和 steamOS（包括我游玩时使用的 Steam Deck）。这款游戏在视觉和感官上都像是一款 2000 年代的各种第一人称 RPG 或沉浸式模拟游戏：环境肮脏、冷峻且充满块状感；角色的五官被拉伸在略显窄小的光滑头颅上；诡异的配乐在背景中不断律动。
You’ll arrive on a train and immediately meet an old mentor, disgraced by some kind of political scandal. You convey your desire to join a powerful organization called Circus X, then declare which of several wildly different paths you’ll take into its fold — you can try joining the city council, but could find equal success crafting the perfect sandwich or joining the best band. 你乘坐火车抵达，随即遇到了一位因某种政治丑闻而名誉扫地的老导师。你表达了加入名为“Circus X”的强大组织的愿望，然后选择进入该组织的多条截然不同的路径之一——你可以尝试加入市议会，但制作出完美的三明治或加入最棒的乐队同样能让你获得成功。
These options help introduce the central mechanic. The game gives you one upgradeable die for each of seven stats, ranging from standard fare like Physique and Observation to the more idiosyncratic Cooking and Music. To set a challenge, it will roll a die corresponding to one of those attributes, and you’ve got to match or beat it with your own roll. 这些选项引出了游戏的核心机制。游戏为七项属性中的每一项都提供了一个可升级的骰子，从“体格”和“观察”等标准属性，到“烹饪”和“音乐”等更具个性的属性。在面对挑战时，系统会掷出一个对应属性的骰子，你必须掷出相同或更高的点数才能胜出。
Once you emerge into the train station, the complexity quickly multiplies. There are a plethora of sub-mechanics including cooking, performing music, laundering disguises, and mixing cocktails — all of which add additional dice with unique quirks. You can selectively re-roll dice in a manner similar to Yahtzee, introducing an element of strategy within each encounter, and your final score (win or lose) is translated into experience points. 当你进入火车站后，复杂性迅速增加。游戏中存在大量的子机制，包括烹饪、演奏音乐、清洗伪装和调制鸡尾酒——所有这些都会增加带有独特怪癖的额外骰子。你可以像玩《快艇骰子》（Yahtzee）那样有选择地重掷骰子，这为每次遭遇战引入了策略元素，而你的最终得分（无论胜负）都会转化为经验值。
The basic system was introduced in Cosmo D’s last game, Betrayal at Club Low, but in a less flexible and elegant form; Diamond Hand feels like its evolution. (Disclosure: My husband has provided outside feedback for Cosmo D’s games.) 这套基础系统曾在 Cosmo D 的上一部作品《Betrayal at Club Low》中出现，但当时的形式不够灵活优雅；而《Diamond Hand》感觉像是它的进化版。（披露：我的丈夫曾为 Cosmo D 的游戏提供过外部反馈。）
It’s all a little intimidating at first. But the game allows you to ease into its options, which happens quickly, since you’re rolling for virtually every action and verbal exchange from making small talk to opening a door. There’s a meaningful element of chance to all this, without descending into unbounded randomness. 起初，这一切看起来有些令人生畏。但游戏让你能够轻松上手，因为从闲聊到开门，你几乎所有的动作和对话都需要掷骰子。这一切都包含着有意义的随机性，而不会陷入无边无际的混乱。
Some rolls can be mathematically impossible to win or lose at a given skill level, but it’s possible to still damage your health or gain an unwelcome status effect with safe challenges, preventing them from becoming purely rote. You can retry most actions if you fail them, but they’ll become slightly more difficult on a second attempt, so there’s a constant balancing act of deciding when to take the initial leap. 在特定的技能水平下，有些掷骰结果在数学上是不可能赢或输的，但即使在安全的挑战中，你仍可能损失生命值或获得负面状态，这使得游戏不会变得纯粹机械化。如果失败，你可以重试大多数动作，但第二次尝试的难度会略有增加，因此你必须不断权衡何时该进行首次尝试。
The ambient low-level risk makes even simple spaces feel substantive and engaging — it negates the common RPG urge to speed through environmental detail and flavor text while looking for the “real” parts of the game. 这种环境中低水平的风险感让即使是简单的空间也显得充实且引人入胜——它消除了 RPG 玩家在寻找游戏“核心”部分时，匆忙跳过环境细节和背景文本的常见冲动。
Through countless skill checks, you’ll internalize the odd logic of the game’s world. The setting, Off-Peak City, is a garish metropolis shaped by the machinations of sinister corporations, corrupt politicians, and shady operatives, but also musicians, restaurateurs, and literally and figuratively underground tailors — a neon retro-future for streetwise aesthetes. 通过无数次的技能检定，你会内化这个游戏世界古怪的逻辑。游戏背景“Off-Peak City”是一座光怪陆离的大都市，由邪恶企业、腐败政客和阴暗特工的阴谋所塑造，同时也充斥着音乐家、餐馆老板以及字面意义上和隐喻意义上的地下裁缝——这是一个为街头审美家准备的霓虹复古未来世界。
What might be niche skills in any other game prove extraordinarily powerful here. The Music stat, whose uses include sewing (machines can, among other options, be literally operated by improvisation), calming aggressive animal-human hybrids (by whistling tunes), and mixology (which can be performed “rhythmically”), is arguably the single strongest power in the game. 在其他游戏中可能属于冷门的技能，在这里却显得异常强大。“音乐”属性的用途包括缝纫（机器可以通过即兴演奏来操作）、安抚具有攻击性的人兽混种（通过吹口哨），以及调酒（可以“有节奏地”进行），这可以说是游戏中单项最强的能力。
Circus X, you’ll soon learn, is a secretive arts institution that influences everything from politics to the sandwich supply chain — imagine the Factory crossed with the Freemasons. While pursuing membership, you’re embroiled in a local election between a scandal-plagued technocrat, a former boy-band star, and the corporate-controlled clone of a mayor from decades past. 你很快就会了解到，Circus X 是一个秘密艺术机构，其影响力渗透到从政治到三明治供应链的方方面面——想象一下安迪·沃霍尔的“工厂”与共济会的结合体。在争取入会资格的过程中，你被卷入了一场地方选举，候选人包括一位丑闻缠身的技术官僚、一位前男子乐队明星，以及一位由企业控制的几十年前市长的克隆人。
In place of a Maltese Falcon, everyone’s scheming for control of a sentient Big Mouth Billy Bass. And meddling behind the scenes is the mysterious, anarchic Diamond Hand, frequently alluded to but not explained. 大家争夺的不是“马耳他之鹰”，而是一个有感知能力的“大嘴比利鲈鱼”（Big Mouth Billy Bass）。而在幕后操纵一切的，是那个经常被提及却从未被解释的、神秘且无政府主义的“钻石之手”（Diamond Hand）。
Diamond Hand’s story evokes real-world parallels, but as a jumping-off point for something that’s rich and alive in its own right. In perhaps the most obvious example, a company in Off-Peak City is pumping the place full of clones, supplanting human artists with corporate-guardrailed regurgitations of old media. 《Diamond Hand》的故事唤起了与现实世界的共鸣，但它只是作为一个跳板，引向了一个丰富且鲜活的独立世界。最明显的例子是，Off-Peak City 的一家公司正向城中大量注入克隆人，用受企业管控的旧媒体复刻品来取代人类艺术家。
But rather than stop at commentary, the game walks this out to explore the idea that clones are also conscious beings who are frustrated by their creative limits and lack of autonomy, while letting human characters reflect on their own relationship with nostalgia and artistic taste. 但游戏并没有止步于评论，而是进一步探讨了克隆人也是有意识的生命体，他们对自身的创造力限制和缺乏自主权感到沮丧，同时也让游戏中的人类角色反思他们自己与怀旧和艺术品味之间的关系。
Put this all together and you’ve got a hard-boiled sci-fi thriller involving subway busking, finding library books, stumping for politicians, harvesting lettuce, arguing about jazz, and doing laundry. 将这一切结合起来，你就得到了一部硬汉派科幻惊悚片，其中包含了地铁卖艺、寻找图书馆书籍、为政客助选、收割生菜、争论爵士乐以及洗衣服等各种奇妙体验。