The Case of the Golden Idol

Its fun gameplay and coordinated story will have you dive deep into its details until you discover all its secrets.

Some flow hiccups will do little to interrupt the fun for most players, who will instead see a uniquely clever game, full of wonderful idiosyncrasies, that tells a delightful tale of murder and deceit.

The Case of the Golden Idol is one of the biggest surprises of this year. I liked the demo a lot, but I honestly wasn't expecting the full game to go far beyond that and offer a completely original and memorable experience like Return to Obra Dinn. You'll be sorry if you miss it.

A challenging and inventive set of mysteries to solve tied together with a brilliant storyline.

As a debut title from a new indie team, it's difficult to imagine how things could have gone better: Gray Color Games has indeed managed to create a charming and well-crafted investigative adventure that every wannabe detective should really consider playing.

The Case of the Golden Idol is an excellent debut. Color Gray has learned the lesson of Return of the Obra Dinn and reinterpreted it with its own style. The cases to be solved are well thought out and to come to grips with puzzles that require deduction and intelligence rather than skill with the classic mechanics of the genre is quite satisfying. The Latvian developer duo in his first game shows they have personality, including in the graphic style that does not mind being disturbing and in the appropriate background music, all of which conveniently mystery-themed.

The Case of the Golden Idol is a brilliant and original detective point & click adventure, supported by an excellent art direction and some really fresh ideas about its gameplay.

The Case of the Golden Idol is a tight adventure with good mechanics, excellent design for all the scenes, and great presentation. Players should try to play a sequence at a time, savor the clues and avoid relying on the hint system as much as possible. Playing with a group of people will probably make the entire experience, with or without hints, even more enjoyable. The Case of the Golden Idol shows what Color Gray Games can do with a solid premise and carefully designed scenarios and I would love to see their set of skills applied to other settings.

Another great indie detective game that not only makes solving crimes fun and interesting but has some surprisingly good storytelling to tie everything together.

For situations where players have exhausted all their available options and brainpower, The Case of the Golden Idol also offers a fantastic in-game hint system. It doesn't overreach and offer solutions blatantly, but instead uses phrases like "consider the food on the dinner table, and everyone's personal eating habits" to point confused players in the right direction. None of the puzzles presented in the game are impossibly difficult (except for one late game chapter which suddenly threw maths in, but that could be my own personal shortcomings) and the story it tells about the golden idol itself is delightfully weird and fleshed out despite the game's short runtime. For anyone looking for 3-6 hours of cryptic crossword-like murder mysteries, The Case of the Golden Idol is a solid choice.

While I do think there was room for some additional quality of life features here, and it sometimes gets a bit too clever for its own good, The Case of the Golden Idol took me back to my childhood, reminding me of the puzzles I once loved while putting its own spin on things that would only work in a video game. This idol might be cursed, but you should still take a chance on it.