Whether it be mystery novels, horror podcasts, or detective games, people have a fondness for stories where they get to puzzle out scenarios and pose theories. Being a fly on the wall is a common fantasy. Having some red-string-conspiracy type enrichment is necessary for some — me included. The Rise of the Golden Idol, the newest title in the Golden Idol franchise, is a logic-drive, story rich, point-and-click mystery developed by Color Gray Games and published by Playstack.

My relationship with this series goes way back. A couple of years ago, I watched my favorite streamers play through The Case of the Golden Idol. As you can guess, I enjoyed it immensely. I made a note that I wanted to show it to one of my best friends, and then life happened, and I completely forgot about it. This ended up being an excellent thing as I forgot the plot nearly completely. When, a month and a half ago, I remembered it and brought it up to my roommates, I was able to play through it with them all-but-blind.

You don’t need to have any familiarity with the previous game going into The Rise of the Golden Idol. If you do play these games in release (and chronological) order like I did, you’ll come into this game with an extra briefcase full of context and background knowledge. It added to my household’s enjoyment to have the extra knowledge and gave us a leg up in connecting certain dots.

Playing The Game

There is not a great deal of technical skill necessary to play The Rise of the Golden Idol. You can explore each scene at your leisure by clicking on the indicated places and collecting both important and superfluous information. This information is presented as words you collect in order to solve the scenario you’re presented with by filling in the blanks in various worksheets. Wait — worksheets?

Every scene presents you with a collection of what I will be calling worksheets. This is the heart of the gameplay. The Rise of the Golden Idol is a game about connecting the dots, making logical connections, and solving mysteries both complex and simple. The worksheets are where you put all the pieces together and have your theories confirmed or denied. Usually, you start by identifying the various persons in the scene you’re presented with and put names to faces. It’s important to know who you’re dealing with in order to clear a scenario, as you will not be able to move forward in the story until you know exactly what’s happening in front of you.

Progressing

Once you’ve investigated all the spots in a scene, collect all the words, and solve the side puzzles, your job is to describe what happened. What’s important varies from scene to scene, but no matter what you will be faced with several paragraphs full of holes. You can look at this at any point in your investigation, but my professional recommendation is to not even think about it until you’ve done everything else you can do. It can be overwhelming to look at everything you don’t know before you’ve found your bearings.

As I’ve previously mentioned, I played this game with my roommates. Despite the fact that The Rise of the Golden Idol is a single-player game, it’s best played as a group. Being able to discuss the plot aloud and bounce ideas off of each other added an extra dimension to the game and made it even more fun. We played the entire thing over a long weekend and didn’t have to use the in-game hints once. Occasionally we’d resort to brute force when the game was being uncharacteristically obtuse.

Style And Stylization

The Rise of the Golden Idol has a unique art style, shared by its predecessor, as well as an almost nostalgically janky feel to how it’s presented. The characters are ugly in the way caricatures are ugly. Their proportions are exaggerated and comical, with their flaws taking center stage. This makes all the reoccurring characters easily identifiable, and to me, emphasizes the themes of the game.

While each scene is capturing an exact moment — or occasionally a series of moments across distinct points of time — there is always subtle animation bringing it to life. The characters are caught mid action, limbs wiggling and mouths flapping. Only the dead are ever still. The exaggerated, cartoonish movements of the characters are uncanny, but it is a firm reminder that they are alive. At least for now.

Along with its intentional ugliness visually, it is also reminiscent of early point-and-click mystery games. It’s unconventional, but usually not in a way that hampers playing the game or understanding what’s going on. The retro clunk is charming — at least mostly. I played the game on my Nintendo Switch, so there were likely more idiosyncrasies than actually intended. The deliberate finickiness obscured some of the genuine issues of the game, but there was an underlying level of frustration with it from time to time.

The Story

The first thing The Rise of the Golden Idol does is give you a lot of questions. The first two scenes have absolutely nothing to do with each other, at least on the surface. The game is structured into chapters, each with its own little menu zone that takes the form of a specific location. Progressing through scenes unlocks new spots to investigate in the chapter’s hub, which in turn reveals more about the story and which character’s space we’re inhabiting.

As you move through the scenes, it is quickly apparent that you are not being given information in chronological order. Even while writing this, I don’t have everything properly organized into an accurate timeline. By the end, it’s clear what the rough order of events is, but there are pieces of the story that are quite fuzzy. That’s not necessarily a sin, but it is something some players might find particularly frustrating. However, I’m not one of those people. Figuring out where each scene fit into the order of events was fun for my friend group.

Structure And You

In The Rise of the Golden Idol, you’re not playing as any character within the story. You have no relationship to the other characters. At least not in any traditional sense. Whenever you’re introduced to a new character, you have no idea if you’ll only see them once, or if they’ll become integral to the story. For me, the experience of slowly realizing a character was important was very enjoyable.

The game’s approach to telling its story is akin to giving you evidence to put on your conspiracy board. A string of strange murders, a university professor gone mad, a theft at a drive in theatre… How are they connected? Are they connected? Your job as the player is to bring the red string. The more you put together, the better prepared you are for each new nugget of information. The Rise of the Golden Idol walks the difficult line mysteries must walk between obscuring the truth and offering earnest answers and does it well. At least it caters to my tastes in mysteries.

Final Thoughts

There’s a lot to love about this game, but it does have a number of flaws. The compelling story and engaging mechanics will absolutely hook you. However, both the intentional and unintentional jank shouldn’t be understated. There is a mandatory level of frustration to playing The Rise of the Golden Idol. While I might think that’s a low price of entry, I am well aware that I am not representative of the vast majority of gamers. This is a niche, dangerous treasure, and you need to be prepared for what you’re getting into. For those who like feeling a little unhinged when making narrative connections, this might be the game for you. However, if you’re easily frustrated by clicking the wrong button or not understanding where in the timeline you are, you shouldn’t buy this game.

Regardless, The Golden Idol series is an excellent addition to the mystery game canon. If you are a fan of the genre, there’s a lot to learn from this title. It takes major swings and big risks a. It’s more concerned with telling its story the way it needs to be told than appealing to a wide demographic. I’ve learned a lot about my own tastes from this game, and I think the lessons I’m taking away will be foundational to my own work. The Rise of the Golden Idol is destined to be a cult classic and seems to be very self-aware of that fact.

The Rise of the Golden Idol is available on Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox, and Windows and Mac via Steam. It released on November 12th, 2024 and retails for $19.99, with its DLC costing $17.99.