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PC
5/3/2025
Over the course of the 1990s, the presence of personal computers in American homes rocketed from near obscurity to a common household object. It shouldn't be surprising that point-and-click adventure games, designed specifically for PCs, were at the height of their popularity at the time. The Monkey Island series, Myst, and Maniac Mansion are just a few examples of highly influential titles born of this era, and most have retained their prestige all the way to the modern day. Fitting with the limited technical capacity of 90s PCs, these are usually pretty short games, and one of the genre's more infamous tendencies is to draw this short length out by way of increasingly complex or seemingly nonsensical puzzles.
Used sparingly, these can greatly increase the charm of a title by adding in a bit of irreverence. An over-reliance on them, though, can lead to a frustrating experience that almost relies on having a guide handy—a category that many of the genre fall into, sadly. The current gaming landscape, however, tends to be generally more friendly towards prospective players, and as such, modern point-and-click games have the opportunity to rely less on so-called "moon logic" and more on reasonable deduction.
That's clearly what developer Color Grey Games were going for, at least, with their 2022 debut, The Case of the Golden Idol. It certainly makes no secret of its inspirations—your very first encounter with it references a Monkey's Paw Island—but it swaps a swashbuckling pirate adventure for an 18th-century mystery.
| Played For | 4h 42m |
|---|---|
| Completion Type | All Base Game Chapters |
| Favorite Chapter | The Interrupted Weekend at the Doctor’s Salon |
| Fun Fact | This game makes a cameo in 2025's Mind Diver! |
But instead of an adventure game, it's probably more accurate to call Golden Idol a detective game. Each chapter of the story will have you, the omniscient observer, witness a singular moment in time (usually revolving around someone's death) and try to figure out the puzzle of who did what and why. First you'll gather clues by surveying the scene in the discovery phase, then you'll use them to fill in the blanks in the solving phase.
Right away, you'll probably be able to tell that Golden Idol is trying to do things differently than many of its forebears; the game will suggest upon startup that clues be highlighted, taking away the need to click every inch of your screen to find that last clue—though it allows you to turn them off if that's something you prefer. It's a very user-friendly puzzle game, and it starts you out with some pretty simple puzzles that allow you to get a feel for what the game expects of you. It's also very fair, and if there's one thing to say about Golden Idol, it's that it never feels like it's deliberately working against you.
It accomplishes this in a number of ways; to solve each chapter, you only have to fill out the main mystery (the typical Five Ws), but you also have some other panels that, if filled out correctly, can get you started with some key information. This could be anything from attaching a name to a face to determining who sat where at a dinner party, and some of these secondary puzzles are just as interesting and satisfying to solve as the main one.
Case of the Golden Idol is also a game that rigorously rewards those with an eye for detail; some of the chapters may seem disconnected at first glance, but careful attention to previous chapters will reveal a lot of the overarching narrative that isn't even "revealed" yet. It can also make future puzzles a lot easier to solve, and it's incredibly satisfying to connect the dots in an early chapter, then your theory proven true in a later one.
The game's actual story is decent enough, and there are some twists that are fulfilling to find, but it's definitely more of a vehicle for the gameplay than it is a supremely compelling narrative. It definitely has moments of smart writing, though—the fate of a particular character in the game's final chapter has a delicious taste of irony when it dawns on you. But due to the game's focus on attention to detail, it's a game that is best experienced in one sitting, which is a tough ask for a game with an average HLTB completion time of about 6 hours.
Playing over multiple sessions will undoubtedly cause some to lose track of some of the finer details, and as a result, some story sections may feel unsatisfying or confusing. The quality of the puzzles suffers slightly in the final few chapters as well with some new elements, and it doesn't feel like Golden Idol finishes with the aplomb many of its previous chapters deserve.
That could just be because many players will have, by that point, beaten the story to the punch. And while it may not perfectly stick the landing, it certainly deserves credit for giving players the tools to figure things out early. And it should be considered a testament to the quality of the game that it so frequently deserves such granular inspection. Armed with a nostalgic art style and a strong ambient soundtrack, The Case of the Golden Idol delivers a genuinely fulfilling detective experience, perfect for your next dark and stormy night.