Acting like a detective always feels like cheating in a video game. A mystery game is seldom accomplished without the premise that the player puts together all the clues, as if a guiding hand were casting a shadow. Even just putting all the little pieces together, relying on his powers of observation, is one of his most rewarding experiences in the game. Titles like Return of the Obra Dinn, A Hand with Many Fingers, and last year’s Immortality have a triumphant state, so to speak, but the real triumph is when the player reaches “Wait!?” It’s time to It’s the moment you understand how the different pieces fit together. Case of the Golden Idol is a truly amazing addition to this subset of detective games, spinning an intriguing tale that makes it feel incredible to understand how it all comes together.
The Golden Idol Affair traces the history of several British-influenced aristocrats around the 1700s and the trajectory left behind by a small golden idol. You play as an all-powerful observer, investigating what can only be described as a tableau. Each tableau depicts a moment that coincides with death. Tableau has a small interactive set where you can click on people and objects to add words to your notes. It is up to you to use the information we collect to accomplish some goals. This can range from identifying all the individuals who are part of the tableau, to where everyone was when the event happened, and their intertwined relationships. Some of these are very simple, such as servants and lords. However, some may have suddenly entered the tableau for the first time, and others may have been caught up in the event by accident. A tableau is completed when you can summarize exactly what happened at that time, and usually who died and for what reason.
The game is incredibly low-handed. All tips are numbered in a checklist at the bottom of the screen so you can always access your thoughts. Perhaps you could start by naming all the people you see on screen, or you could try putting together a story right away. Navigation is pretty straightforward, with players dragging hints and words into specific fields and typing them to complete their train of thought. All of this is presented in a great visual style reminiscent of his LucasArts games from the 90’s. I especially liked the musical style that changes as you explore different scenes within Tableau. The music has a theme when you’re looking at the big map, but the violin is added to speed up the tempo once you start exploring the hut, and when you encounter a dead body and have to figure out what exactly happened It’s going to be a dire situation. My only objection with the soundtrack is that it gets a bit repetitive when you get stuck solving a puzzle. Sometimes when we were really trying to put together a particularly difficult scene, we would throw in something else in the background.
All of this makes The Golden Idol Case a great tale of revenge, absolute power, and the corruption that power can bring. The problem is, it’s also a game I want to talk about as little as possible. Because discovery and investigation is what makes this experience so special. If you like titles like the Gyakuten Saiban series with their puzzle-box-like approach, The Case of the Golden Idol does the same, albeit with a much less obvious logical line. . So just figuring out who was in which place and why they were there made me scream in excitement several times. In that sense, it can’t really be compared to a visual novel, instead empowering the player to its narrative. The Return of Obra Din is the closest analogy, but even then, The Case of the Golden Idol’s use of the world and characters is much more coherent. Tableau can be dizzying at first, but it’s full of moments when you have absolutely no idea what’s going on. But understanding that, why X is here and what it means for Y, or that someone is referencing an earlier pictorial moment, has been a challenge in the last few years. It thrilled me in a way that few detective games could.
Even if you get stuck, the hint system is a great design that’s easy to access. The game won’t type the right words if you get stuck. Instead, you’ll get general advice, like laying out all the clues you have, take a break and think, or recontextualize the words you’ve found so far. If you want a hint after that, you have not been given a hint yet, but you must answer a small test of putting the correct word under an object or letter you have already encountered. You’ll then have to choose from four general tips that don’t spell out your answer, but suggest ways to think about your characters and their motivations. It’s a really beautiful system that lets the player understand what happened but doesn’t ruin the game. I really hope more games adopt this kind of hint system. Because using the hint system is rewarding instead of disappointing.
The Nintendo Switch version also works very well. The variety of control options is great. You can choose to use a traditional touch screen in handheld mode. In TV mode, you can also use the joystick to move freely around the cursor or use the trigger to speed up the cursor movement. Finally, you can also browse in-game manually by simply snapping to the nearest object using the directional buttons or right stick. This setup is perfect for controlling point-and-click adventure games in a way that feels more natural on consoles. Great job by the developer who created this.
I want to keep talking about ideas and stories for The Case of the Golden Idol, but I don’t want to take anything away from people who might be interested in playing it. There are additional DLC chapters with even more story to discover, and they are arguably some of the hardest puzzles in the game. Point-and-click adventure games may sound intimidating, but anyone with an interest in detective stories will understand and enjoy The Case of the Golden Idol. The story can be gruesome and terrifying at times, but that also makes for an interesting box of puzzles to sit down and solve. I looked up at the clock from time to time while playing and squinted at the screen to see that he had been immersed in solving puzzles for nearly an hour. The year of the narrative banger continues. If you have even the slightest interest in solving a good mystery, The Golden Idol Case should be at the top of your list.
