The days are getting colder, the nights are getting longer. Going outside is becoming less and less appealing, so I’m spending more evenings sitting at my computer, which is essentially a mini heater next to my legs, keeping them warm while I warm up my brain with Rise of the Golden Idol Detective puzzle game from Color Gray Games and Playstack. It is a sequel to the 2022 game The Case of the Golden Idol.
I haven’t played The Case of the Golden Idol, but the reviews speak for themselves. It is a connected crime thriller from the 18th century that deals with gruesome deaths that also center on a golden idol. Two hundred years later, we pick up the idol’s story, in a new world still plagued by gruesome deaths and freak accidents. It is also a world characterized by a particular artistic style. “The Fall of the Golden Idol” seems to be inspired by paintings of the time, while “The Rise of the Golden Idol” takes it and adapts it to the 1970s, turning it up to 11 to convey their emotions, madness and more. This helps give Rise of the Golden Idol its charm right from the start, and while you might find the visual effects a little over the top, especially as the distracted characters move closer, they’re a nice piece of design work , on the contrary, not only look absolutely unique but also help your case.
What are you actually doing on “The Rise of the Golden Idol”? Well, you find yourself in a scene where you discover details and clues that provide you with a series of keywords that you can use to solve the events in the scene. Often you have to check more than one location, assign names to the people in the scene, and usually figure out another secondary objective, such as: B. the names of the characters in a film shown or the meaning of certain symbols are shown. A crazy woman has attached herself to an object. The paths of the objects, the relationships between the characters you see in front of you, everything is important, and usually you have to figure it all out before you can deal with the events in the scene. In each scenario, you’ll build the overall story of a chapter, meeting familiar faces and discovering the terrible deeds carried out to achieve a greater goal.
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It’s a challenging game because you can’t just pay attention to what’s being said and what you’re reading in the clues. You also have to keep an eye on the map and draw a lot of conclusions yourself, especially over time. However, you never really get frustrated with Rise of the Golden Idol because there’s always something else to work on, another piece of the puzzle that you haven’t paid enough attention to. In addition, the game has a guessing element. As you near the end of a scenario and have all but two or fewer correct answers, you can change some of the words of things you’re not entirely sure about.
They also have hints that the game doesn’t want to abuse. Deal with frustrated tapping on cue requests by doing a breathing exercise before receiving your cue. An interesting way to once again make the player wonder if they don’t want to figure everything out on their own. I’m not ashamed to say that I used the clues more than once, but they didn’t all seem the same to me. Some are very helpful, while others get straight to the point and still feel like your question hasn’t been answered.
Apart from a few unhelpful hints, the only criticism I have about the game is that the interface becomes increasingly confusing as time goes on. When you need people’s names, where they were and what they did before you, as well as all the other words you’ve collected along with the events of the scenario, it can be difficult to see everything and you often find yourself clicking around just removing one thing to make it appear again. It’s a minor frustration, but one that if fixed would have helped in the long run. Otherwise, the interface is very pleasing to the eye, as Color Gray Games has replaced the parchment look of The Case of the Golden Idol with yellowed, printed paper in this sequel.
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Aside from these two minor gripes, Rise of the Golden Idol is a delicious detective game and the perfect way to spend those cold winter nights. It’s a short experience depending on how quickly you can solve the murders, but as you delve deeper into the overall story and put more pieces of the puzzle together, it’ll keep you hooked until you’ve completed it all.
