The Case Of The Golden Idol ((BETTER))
The player assumes a detective role in connecting together the details of the narrative from eleven cases, placing the player at or shortly after a static point in time where a central character in the narrative has met their death.[2] Players resolve chapters through two modes of gameplay, with the overarching objective to correctly identify the details of the events in the chapter.
The Case of the Golden Idol
In 'Thinking' mode, words of interest are used to piece together a narrative of what has occurred, through filling in blank slots against an incomplete description of events and characters. Parts of the 'Thinking' mode will differ depending on the chapter, in some cases requiring players to identify full names of characters, and in others specifying situational characteristics such as the titles of Brotherhood members, or the occupants of certain rooms.[3] To assist the player, slots are completed in segments, with the player being notified when the words in that segment are either entirely correct, in which case the segment is locked in, or when the segment has more or less than two incorrect words allocated.
In the epilogue, it is revealed that, after capturing Walter Keene in the cabin, Edmund demonstrated the Idol's powers and convinced Keene to his side. Edmund faked his own death, sapped the youth from a beggar outside, and made himself young again, taking the name Lazarus Herst. He planned to use the idol to gain power and build an ideal society, uniting the threads of the game's story.
A demo of the game was released on Steam on 25 August 2022,[12] in line with the Steam Next Fest event in October 2022, an event that showcases upcoming games on the platform.[13] The full version of the game was released on 13 October 2022.[14]
The Case of the Golden Idol received "generally positive" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic.[15] Critics praised the innovative and complex use of deduction to solve the puzzles in the game. Writing for The Guardian, Simon Parkin praised the game's "genuinely new and inventive forms of play" and "innovative" puzzles.[18] Nicole Carpenter for Polygon praised the game's ability to "take the time to consider each scene in depth", and "expand past its own boundaries...leaving me thinking about its clues long after I've closed the game".[2]Edge praised the use of "ancillary questions to answer" across cases and the use of "misdirection and red herrings".[4] Sam Stewart of Game Rant praised the use of a "trail of clues" across cases to lead to a "twisting mystery at the heart of the game", and the "subtle hand (the game) uses to guide players toward their solutions", noting that "players will feel like master sleuths when the pieces click."[19]
Critics also praised the game's narrative and writing. Alexis Ong of Eurogamer praised the "neat sliver of humor" to the game and its "witty, observational writing", remarking that the game also contained a "Hogarthian flavor of political and social commentary" and "cheeky digs at the upper class disconnect with the common man."[16] Chris Livingston of PC Gamer praised the "elaborate and intricate cases", stating "solving these murders (is) not just a fantastic series of crime-scene investigations but a highly imaginative bit of storytelling."[17] Metro UK found the story to be "surprisingly compelling" and a "fantastic bit of interactive fiction".[20]
Some critics noted the complex and trial-and-error guesswork of the game had occasionally inconsistent execution. Chris Livingston of PC Gamer observed some cases required "occasionally brute-forcing the final few names or detail of a case", noting some cases "didn't entirely come together".[17] Metro UK observed that "as each new case increases in complexity...not only do you end up with a seemingly endless number of gaps to fill in for each murder, but the motivations and explanations become increasingly obscure."[20] Katharine Castle of Rock Paper Shotgun noted "there were a few instances where (the game's) leaps of logic went one step too far" and reached a resolution through "sheer guesswork" instead of deduction."[21]
The Case of the Golden Idol appeared on several year-end lists as one of the best games of 2022. IGN nominated the game as one of the "best puzzle games of 2022", as a "refreshing take on the murder mystery genre" and having "incredibly satisfying" gameplay.[23] PC Gamer awarded the game as having the "best story" of the year, praising the "deep and fascinating story" of "the idol itself, its history and powers, and the lives of the ruthless people who would kill to possess it."[24] Polygon, rating the game as one of the "best of 2022", stated the game "expertly supports you through the trial and error of detective work" and contained an "excellent payoff" and "epilogue".[25] Simon Parkin of The New Yorker, also praising the game as one of the best of the year, found the game to be a "riveting detective game" and a "sophisticated, Sherlockian story about wealth and greed, delivered in a way that rewards close attention."[26]
Detective games are often about filling in the blanks. A terrible crime will sit at the heart of them, yes, but most take place in the days and weeks that follow, where the bulk of your time is spent gathering clues and building a case to work out whodunnit. Rarely do you get to glimpse the immediate aftermath of the crime itself, where all the major suspects are still in play and their pockets are stuffed with incriminating evidence they'll no doubt be disposing of in the coming minutes.
And what puzzles they are. Color Gray Games have assembled a variety of artfully drawn scenarios here, from garden parties gone wrong to court-based virtue trials and lighthouse miracles to name just a few, each of them more intricate and ingenious than the last. You'll likely speed through earlier cases, but the late-game murders are complex, multi-screen affairs where you'll need to connect several, seemingly disparate dots to arrive at the correct conclusion.
For all of their clever clue drops, however, there is sadly no evidence of Obra Dinn's galaxy brain theorising to be found here. There is one solution, and one solution only to each of these cases, and you'll arrive at it exactly the same way each time you play. There will be no socks vs shoe heel debates to determine who's who in The Case Of The Golden Idol (although the latter do feature in the aforementioned lighthouse scene), but to be honest, I'm fine with that. Even if there's less room for player expression, Colour Gray Games have still prepared a caseload of brain-teasingly good crimes to solve here, and many had me staring at my screen for a good 15-30 minutes, just trying to absorb what clues were in front of me and how they all fitted together.
Each case is split into two halves, you see. The first, and easily most exciting part is when you're 'exploring' the case in question. Here, you'll nose through scenes in point and click fashion, rifle through pockets, bins, secret compartments and other bits of furniture, and absorb other great visual clues, all so you can gather them together to ready yourself for the second part of each case: the 'thinking' window, which you can flick over to at any point using the lower menu tab.
This thinking screen is mostly blank when you first begin a case, but its various scrolls will gradually fill themselves in with more information as you progress with your exploring. You only need to fill out the first one describing the chain of events in order to actually complete each case, I should add. The rest, such as character identities and other little puzzles present throughout the scene are wholly optional. The latter are often quite critical in actually working out whodunnit, though, and are worth filling in just for the sake of it. After all, who doesn't like a big green tick over their homework, eh?
Indeed, there was no amount of underlining that could prepare me for some of its late-game puzzle solutions. While most cases are very artfully constructed, both in terms of their visual design and their spiderweb-like trails of evidence, there were a few instances where its leaps of logic went one step too far, leaving me genuinely stumped on how I would have worked it out. Some I'll own up to just being a bit too thick to fully comprehend at the time, and because I stoutly refused to use its built-in hint system (and the game's persistent 'are you really, really sure?' screens didn't seem to want me to, either, in fairness), there were a handful of times where I cheesed the answer into existence through sheer guesswork. A scroll will flash red if you've filled it out incorrectly, for example, but the error message will adopt a shade of yellow if only one or two words need replacing. It's at this stage where it's easy to become a bit lazy, slotting in different words by process of elimination to get the right solution.
Tapping the space bar swaps from exploring the murder scene into "thinking" mode where you can drag and drop the words you've collected into blanks to solve the crime. A scroll on the left contains the description of the events: Blank murdered blank on blank island, for example. Murder via Mad Libs. All you need to do to proceed to the next case is correctly fill in the murder scroll, one word at a time.
But there are bonus objectives: In the middle of the thinking screen is a portrait gallery where you can match faces with first and last names, which brings to mind another brilliant mystery game, Return of the Obra Dinn. In later cases the right side of the screen has slots for more details: who was sitting where at a dinner table, for example. It's well-worth filling in everything because some characters will appear again in later murders, and knowing them make a future investigation a bit easier.
My favorite case feels like a classic mystery novel setup: A body is found in the parlor of a sprawling manor, with an odd collection of suspects to choose from (including a butler, naturally), and there's some all-too-convenient evidence pointing at one likely perpetrator. A detective has been called and he's been interviewing everyone in the house as to their whereabouts at the time of the murder... but since I'm the real detective of the game, I get to look through the visiting detective's notebook and use his notes to help me solve the case. Good work, but I'll take it from here, pal. 041b061a72