A game of bluff and counter-bluff, of second- and third-guessing your opponent, Diamond Trust Of London is a surprising release from Jason Rohrer. It’s a full retail release, for a start (if an unlikely one), from a man who usually sends titles straight into the public domain. More interestingly, though, is that DTOL is the gamiest game Rohrer has produced. This isn’t a content-light think-piece or mechanical experiment. It’s a game with a winner, a loser, and a long series of tactical decisions to establish who’s which.
Nintendo Insider writes:
The first boxed retail game on the Nintendo DS to be funded solely by Kickstarter is now available to purchase, but is it worth a punt?
Jason Rohrer’s Diamond Trust of London is a virtual board game, in which the object of the game is to simply have the most diamonds after a set number of turns have passed. Doesn’t immediately sound particularly thrilling, right?
MTV Multiplayer - Not all games are created equal. Some games have a massive staff of hundreds of people behind them, with multimillion-dollar marketing budgets. Other games have one guy, and Kickstarter. Diamond Trust of London is a demonstration of the latter, and has finally completed its three-year journey to be released, helmed by indie darling Jason Rohrer.
DHGF: Diamond Trust of London isn’t the type of game that is going to blow you away with top of the line graphics or a killer story. Instead it’s proof that a single person with a vision and backing can put out a high quality title. Diamond Trust of London is a fun little Euro-style board game for two players. Sure that means the potential audience interested in picking this game up is extremely limited, but those that do will be impressed by the easy to learn but incredibly deep gameplay. It’s a bit pricey due to a low print run, but if you’re a collector or just a gamer looking for a highly original title to plug into your DS, DToL won’t disappoint. At the end of the day, though, it’ll mostly be remembered as the first console game to be successfully crowd-funded and that’s an accomplishment in and of itself.
