The Case of the Golden Idol [PC]

[Paulando]

No thread for this, one of the top-rated games of 2022? I imagine it’s had some discussion across various other threads.
 

Anyway:

 

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1677770/The_Case_of_the_Golden_Idol/

 

Just started it based on the ‘it’s a bit like Obra Dinn’ comments. The first couple of cases were super easy, but already the third one has ramped up the difficulty.

 

You’re given a scene with objects, people, and a death, and you need to piece together who is who, who is dead, and how they died, by filling in the missing words in a couple of sentences. Seems excellent so far, and I love the artwork.

 

If you’re playing in Steam Deck: use the top community layout that maps the mouse buttons to the triggers.

[thesnwmn]

It's a stunner, number three in my GOTY vote for last year.

 

In my GOTY vote I had this to say...

 

Quote

The Case of the Golden Idol is a late entry. After playing Obra Dinn just in the middle of December (no idea why it's taken me so long) the references to that in this game's discourse put me straight on to it. A wonderful way to pass a few hours. Great art. Great settings and puzzles. Lots of interesting incidental details. A world and story that slowly builds through each subsequent event/puzzle. The scale of Obra Dinn that it lacks due to partitioning the game into separate cases it makes up for by being more immediately rewarding. It therefore never quite hits Obra Dinn's peaks but it is more approachable and less overwhelming I think.

 

Looking at that now I'm sad I referred to Obra Dinn quite so much. It does the game a disservice. Yes it's similar in many ways but the texts you need to fill in are much more varied and offer scope of using the context and flow of the text itself as part of the clues. It's an extra dimension which Obra Dinn never has.

 

The final few puzzles are an utter delight. They offer a couple of twists to the formula and are a perfect crescendo to the escalating complexity.

 

33 minutes ago, Paulando said:

If you’re playing in Steam Deck: use the top community layout that maps the mouse buttons to the triggers.

 

Doing this, or mapping mouse buttons to the back buttons is basically my default setup for anything using a mouse. I find it amazing that it isn't Valve's default setup for mouse/keyboard games on the Deck.

[Jamie John]

Yup, definitely on my list, alongside Norco, Monkey Island, Pentiment and that Excavation of something something game. 2022 was a great year for narrative adventure games!

[Stoppy2000]

I'm presuming this would run well enough on a fairly moderate laptop? Or has their been any indication it might get a Switch release?

[thesnwmn]

18 minutes ago, Stoppy2000 said:

I'm presuming this would run well enough on a fairly moderate laptop? Or has their been any indication it might get a Switch release?

 

I'd be surprised if it doesn't basically run on anything.

 

These are the minimum specs from Steam...

 

Quote

 

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system

OS: Windows 7 64 bit

Processor: 1.7 GHz Dual Core

Memory: 4 GB RAM

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4600

DirectX: Version 12

Storage: 300 MB available space

 

 

[footle]

You can even run it on a Mac.

[BabelRich]

There's a demo on Steam if you want to give it a looksee.

[BadgerFarmer]

Good timing for the thread - I've been playing it this week and just finished it. Honestly, one reason I didn't get it before is that it looked offputtingly ugly, but once I started playing I grew to quite like the art style.

 

Anyway, I enjoyed it. It's nice having these entire cases contained in just a few screens so it never feels overwhelming even when there are loads of clues to collect and connect. The solution screen format is very well done too on the whole, although there were definitely times it nudged me towards an answer that I wasn't going to get from the scene itself.

 

I wouldn't say it had the brilliance of Obra Dinn, but it's neat and clever and fun. Well worth it if you're into investigation games.

[Stoppy2000]

1 hour ago, BabelRich said:

There's a demo on Steam if you want to give it a looksee.

This sounds like a plan...

[footle]

2 hours ago, BabelRich said:

There's a demo on Steam if you want to give it a looksee.

 

It's not until about case 4 it really reveals itself though, I can imagine that case 1 and 2 will just provoke - is that it?

[Paulando]

I’m struggling with Case 9, the one in the house 

 

I know the general gist of what happened, and the timeline, and there are a couple I’m suspicious of. I’ve even filled in every section apart from the sentences, and returned to it the last couple of days with a fresh pair of eyes, but there’s still something I’m missing.

 

I refuse to consult a guide or the in-game hints though! And brute-forcing it seems like a cop out.

[Stanley]

Another one for my Steam wish list 

[thesnwmn]

5 minutes ago, Paulando said:

I’m struggling with Case 9, the one in the house 

 

I know the general gist of what happened, and the timeline, and there are a couple I’m suspicious of. I’ve even filled in every section apart from the sentences, and returned to it the last couple of days with a fresh pair of eyes, but there’s still something I’m missing.

 

I refuse to consult a guide or the in-game hints though! And brute-forcing it seems like a cop out.

 

I think that's the real point at which the difficulty steps up a bit. There are a few steps throughout the game but that's a level of elaborate that hasn't been seen before then.

 

In fact it's probably the one I spent longest on.

[Paulando]

1 minute ago, thesnwmn said:

 

I think that's the real point at which the difficulty steps up a bit. There are a few steps throughout the game but that's a level of elaborate that hasn't been seen before then.

 

In fact it's probably the one I spent longest on.

That’s comforting, thanks! I feel like I might even need to get the pen and paper out.

[thesnwmn]

2 minutes ago, Paulando said:

That’s comforting, thanks! I feel like I might even need to get the pen and paper out.

 

(I'm assuming you don't mean the dinner party but the one with the library, greenhouse, chess etc).

[Paulando]

Just now, thesnwmn said:

 

(I'm assuming you don't mean the dinner party but the one with the library, greenhouse, chess etc).

Yep, that’s the one.

[Illyria]

Played this with the bf last year, it was tons of fun and made for a few cozy, sleuthy evenings together. I also felt it ramped up the difficulty at just the right pace. We also got stuck one evening when dead tired, fresh eyes the next morning helped us solve what we thought was impossible within a minute!

 

I also was put off by the art style at first though but really grew to like it over time, of course it helped that game itself was so entertaining. So don't let its looks stop you from this giving a go! 

[Paulando]

Woop, figured it out!

 

Spoiler

I was fixated on the boomerang being the stolen Lemurian item, which messed everything up for me. Once I got that right, and noticed the inconsistency in Alistair’s story, it all fit into place.

It really is a wonderful little game, and the overarching story is excellent.

[thesnwmn]

5 hours ago, Paulando said:

Woop, figured it out!

 

  Hide contents

I was fixated on the boomerang being the stolen Lemurian item, which messed everything up for me. Once I got that right, and noticed the inconsistency in Alistair’s story, it all fit into place.

It really is a wonderful little game, and the overarching story is excellent.

 

I had real blind spot issues on the final case. It was only when I properly stepped back and reconsidered my assumptions about what that part of the solutions was about entirely that I got there. And quite quickly really.

 

After completing it I remain obsessed by it and hearing about others playing it. Maybe it's similar to how those who played Obra Dinn early on (I only finally got to it at the end of last year even though it's completely my thing). This deserves to see everyone who liked that at least giving this a try.

 

But I think the point and click stylings probably either put people off a little or misdirect them about the type of game this is.

[Paulando]

On 15/01/2023 at 17:27, thesnwmn said:

I had real blind spot issues on the final case. It was only when I properly stepped back and reconsidered my assumptions about what that part of the solutions was about entirely that I got there. And quite quickly really.

I’m stuck there now 

 

I have every other section completed, but can’t quite get the first sentence (the early morning one).

[thesnwmn]

8 hours ago, Paulando said:

I’m stuck there now 

 

I have every other section completed, but can’t quite get the first sentence (the early morning one).

 

That was exactly the one that had me stumped for a good while after doing the other two.

[b00dles]

It's a very interesting way of doing an investigation game too as it's a frozen moment of time and you can't do a lot of other things as you're an omniscient viewer rather than a character in the game. 

 

Personally i prefer obra dinn so far but I like the different take on it. 

 

I still think there's an absolutely amazing whodunnit/ detective game out there in the ether that will combine a lot of the bits and bobs from other games that then also uses the medium to it's full extent. 

[Paulando]

And finished! The epilogue at the end was excellent, which brought to light lots of story bits I completely missed.

 

Spoiler

Edmund Cloudsley was Lazarus Herst! WTF!

 

And going back through the cases, there are loads of little things hidden throughout that you completely miss first time around, that all point to the bigger story. Wonderful, wonderful stuff. Quite possibly my fave game from last year too.

[George Clooney]

Ive been enjoying this, and its close to reeeeeally scratching that itch that a lot of "detective" games miss the mark on wildly, but sometimes the puzzles just dont feel that satisfying - to me anyway.  Sometimes it still feels a bit like I can guess stuff rather than ending up working things out, or thats what I've ended up doing.  I dont know how they'd ever remove that completely, and there is some very satisfying stuff in here.  Its certainly one I'd recommend anyone on the fence to give a shot to.

[LaveDisco]

Partner and I have been playing this on the tv via a docked steam deck and it’s been a huge delight. The stylings of the game really made me dismiss it, but now they’re one of my favourite parts and I think its graphics are just perfect for it. 

Sat on the sofa with margaritas debating murders. It’s brilliant. 
 

As a co-op game I would argue it’s more effective than Obra, (which we played the same way) simply because the fixed viewpoints means there’s far less, ‘look left, other left, bit more, now down’ style chat. It’s just theory chat. 
 

Retroactively hitting my GOTY list. 

[Paulando]

22 hours ago, George Clooney said:

Ive been enjoying this, and its close to reeeeeally scratching that itch that a lot of "detective" games miss the mark on wildly, but sometimes the puzzles just dont feel that satisfying - to me anyway.  Sometimes it still feels a bit like I can guess stuff rather than ending up working things out, or thats what I've ended up doing.  I dont know how they'd ever remove that completely, and there is some very satisfying stuff in here.  Its certainly one I'd recommend anyone on the fence to give a shot to.

Case 4 required a fairly large jump in logic for me, and wasn’t too satisfying. Either the game gets better straight after that, or that case prepares you well for how the game works, I’m not too sure! Perhaps a bit of both.

[thesnwmn]

I think the art of this is that some of it isn't detective work at all.

 

At times I'm just documenting the story. I don't have to decipher every element of what happens in each scene because my knowledge of the over-arching story between cases provides an extra layer of information. And I was simply enjoying following the story.

 

The epilogue captures this idea perfectly. Part puzzle, part story telling.

[schmojo]

Well, on your collective recommendations, I tore through this at the weekend. As with others, I grew to like an art style I found off-putting initially. It was clever and very absorbing. Although there wee definitely a couple of cases where it was my third or fourth intepretation of what happened that proved to be right. Which felt a bit like brute forcing.

 

My next question: what are the games in this detective genre, outside of Obra Dinn? Is Immortality one? I didn't like the Sherlock Holmes games I played too much as collecting glowing clues seemed to be more of the work than deduction.

[BadgerFarmer]

Sam Barlow's games are all kind of detectivey. Paradise Killer is great. Strange Horticulture is a good sort-of-detective game.

[thesnwmn]

I'd definitely recommend Strange Horticulture. It's very different to Obra Dinn and this but uses much of the same skills. It also tells a lovely set of tales, has a wonderful map and doesn't outstay its welcome. A real hidden gem that has been badly overlooked I think.