The Case of the Golden Idol Review: An Artifact Of Great Power

At the center of The Case of the Golden Idol sits an artifact of great power, capable of ending life in an instant, but also capable of incredible miracles. It manipulates matter itself in ways that seem impossible. Naturally, seemingly everyone in this 18th-century country wants it. Who wouldn’t want to create something out of nothing or make things vanish into thin air? Over 40 years, you’ll follow the golden idol, and the death and destruction it leaves behind.

Playing The Case of the Golden Idol resembles nothing as closely as those old puzzle books where you have a set of clues, and you have to use the information you have to answer a bunch of other questions. Six people are wearing different colored hats. You know, three of them. Use other information about them to figure out the hats the other three are wearing. No, you’re not figuring out hats here, but it’s very much the same sort of thing. You must figure out who people are, who killed a victim, how the victim was killed, what people were eating, and much more. I spent hours hooked to those puzzles as a kid, and The Case of the Golden Idol scratched an itch I didn’t even know needed scratching.

Increasingly Complex

Through eleven chapters, you’ll go from relatively simple puzzles, which most players will figure out in minutes, to huge, multi-part ones that can take hours. Some of the later puzzles are very deep, forcing you to reconstruct timelines and multiple screens’ worth of information. It can be a lot to keep track of, and I do wish that the information you gather was kept for you in some sort of journal or central location. Having to jump back and forth between multiple screens of information, looking at the same clues over and over, or worse, not being able to figure out where the detail you half remember is to double-check it. I’d recommend keeping a notepad on hand to jot down things that seem important. Otherwise, you’ll spend a lot of time jumping back and forth and checking the same details repeatedly, like I did.

As The Case of the Golden Idol takes place over forty years, with time jumps between chapters being common, there’s an interesting extra layer of information that you don’t tend to have in those old puzzle books. Not only can you use the information found in each individual chapter, but you’ll start recognizing things between chapters. Characters will return, though sometimes in very new contexts that don’t make a ton of sense. One character in particular seemingly vanishes, only to be replaced by another, and it took me a few chapters to get what happened to them.

You’ll get to know the rather large cast here throughout these eleven chapters. There is a fair number who only appear once or twice, but many characters show up repeatedly over this forty-year period. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the story despite there being no one to root for, this isn’t a story of good guys and bad guys. Almost everyone is greedy and lustful and only out for themselves. Of those who appear multiple times, the very best of characters are spineless or clueless, being dragged through events bigger than them. The worst are the ones doing the dragging, so nakedly fighting for power that murder seems inconsequential.

A Look That Grows On You

When I got to check out a preview of The Case of the Golden Idol a few months ago, the one thing that didn’t really grab me were the graphics. Pixel-Art definitely can look stunning, but the images here are somewhat muddied and dark. While I still don’t think anyone is going to describe them as beautiful, they grew on me playing the full game. The somewhat brutish style actually fits the story being told.

Despite being quite clever, there are a few spots where I think The Case of the Golden Idol may have gotten a bit ahead of itself. There are a few spots where the clues you need to move forward just don’t make as much sense as the game wants them to. Where the wording you’re filling in is a bit confusing and doesn’t seem to say what actually happened. One puzzle, in particular, left me stumped for nearly an hour because I had tried every possible option that made any sense. I finally just started plugging any name in and was quite shocked when the one that solved things did so. Either I seriously misinterpreted the scene, or that section doesn’t quite hang together, and even after knowing what the game wanted, I couldn’t quite make sense of it, even after examining the scene again.

No Way Out

If you get stuck, The Case of the Golden Idol won’t hand you an easy escape either. There is a hint system, which requires you to solve a series of repetitive puzzles to unlock hints, but the game discourages you from using it, and I think the fact that these puzzles are fairly boring is actually part of that. It doesn’t want you becoming reliant on the hints, and it wants to make you want to solve it on your own. I actually really enjoyed this, as it pushes the player to figure the game out instead of just skipping through.

Even if you unlock the hints, they’re far less straightforward than you might expect. You’re not going to be given the answer. Instead, you’ll be given a look into how the creators think through the puzzles themselves, which will hopefully point you in the right direction. Sometimes you might even be pointed toward a specific clue to reexamine, but even that isn’t always the case. While some might be unhappy getting stuck, I really liked this. Instead of just pushing you through, the game teaches you how to play it when you need help. If you must just have the answers, I’m sure walkthroughs will pop up online soon enough, but in a game where solving these puzzles is the whole point, giving you the answers would mean you’re no longer even playing the game.

Conclusion

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.

Final Verdict: 4/5

Available on: PC (Reviewed); Publisher: Playstack; Developer: Color Gray Games; Players: 1; Released: October 13th, 2022; ESRB: N/A; MSRP: TBA

Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of The Case of the Golden Idol provided by the publisher.