CICADAMATA DMND Rank Guide: Clearance Scoring Explained

What DMND actually is

Every level grades your run into a clearance level, and DMND (diamond) is the top grade. The Steam achievements map the milestone path: + SHIMMER for your first DMND (26.5% of players), and + EVERY 17 YEARS for DMND clearance on every sphere (2.6%). The game itself explains very little of this — which is why “DMND rank” is one of the most-searched CICADAMATA topics and why the first popular Steam community guide is specifically about reaching DMND “as easily as possible”.

Where score comes from

From official material and early community testing, your score has three levers:

  • THREATS — each enemy pays out per hit, not just per kill. The community point-farming consensus: open fire from distance while you approach, land as many pre-kill hits as possible, then finish. Score popups (the ”+$” numbers you see in official screenshots) tick per action.
  • CORES — collectible pickups worth flat points. They matter enough that a full pacifist-style clear funded only by cores has its own achievement (+ JOYEUSELESS).
  • ZONE TIME chains — points earned inside one ZONE TIME window chain upward; + IT’S TRICKY (50,000 points in a single window) is the tech demo for this. Dense arenas are chain fuel.

A realistic DMND route

  1. Pick a Sphere 1 level you know cold. Rank thresholds scale with the level, and EMERGENCE arenas are the most farmable per minute — that is why the community guide targets early levels for a first DMND.
  2. Route threats before touching the exit. Freeform levels mean the exfil is always tempting; a DMND run ignores it until the map is milked.
  3. Farm hits, then kill. Range hits on approach → melee-range finisher. Repeat per THREAT.
  4. Bank cores last, exfil clean. Cores are guaranteed points with no execution risk — sweep them once the fighting is done, then exfil to lock the score.

What we haven’t verified

Exact numeric thresholds per level (how many points = DMND on each map) are not published anywhere official, and community numbers are still stabilizing a week after launch — we list none rather than guess. When multi-source confirmed thresholds exist, they will appear here.

Next: the achievements page shows how rare each rank milestone is, and the speedrun guide covers the DMND% categories where rank and speed collide.

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