The Rise of the Golden Idol review

Since we’re all human and therefore can’t find time for absolutely every game we’d like to play, there’s a list of shame for all of us. Mine is full of all sorts of gaming regrets, ranging from AAA megahits to indie darlings that I just couldn’t fit into a busy life. One of the most painful of these is Return of the Obra Dinn, because I love when a game actually makes me think about a mystery and I’ve heard nothing but praise for the game. When The Case of the Golden Idol released in 2022 so many of my lovely peers talked about it being the closest new game to Obra Dinn and a return to this clever genre, and again I somehow missed it entirely. Well no more – my redemption is named The Rise of the Golden Idol, and after much longing I can confirm it was worth the wait.

The Rise of the Golden Idol is an interesting concept for a video game, featuring all sorts of crime scenes and incidents to investigate and prove you understand by finding the words to summarise it. To start with this is incredibly easy, with a man choking out another man in an asylum and all sorts of documents scattered around that you can check for details about them. It doesn’t take long for things to get much much more complex though, with an overarching plot connecting these scenes together.

In an alternate reality 1970s, a string of strange occurrences are shaking the political landscape. Bizarre deaths, religious cults and those hoping to capitalise on the turmoil means that there’s not a whole lot of peace and quiet in the world. When you’re putting together the pieces to learn about an individual scene this isn’t always a narrative you need to worry about, but eventually you’ll have to figure out the intricacies of this universe one scene at a time.

Now the actual scenes of The Rise of the Golden Idol showcase one frozen moment in time, where there is undoubtedly something interesting going on. From your first person perspective you first need to click around the scene to find information, which you’ll gather individual words from. Sometimes you’ll do this by checking the pockets of a dead body, sometimes you’ll be able to read an email open on a computer, but however you find the details of what’s going on you’ll end up with a panel full of words relating to what you’ve found.

Once you’ve got all the words you need it’s time to start figuring out some facts about the scene in front of you. There are multiple blanks you need to fill in to fully solve one of these brain activating stages, but usually this begins with the names of the characters in it. This continues with other basic information until eventually you need to fill out a full on summary of everything happening in the scene, with loads of blanks required to prove you’ve got it all worked out in your noggin.

What’s really clever about this system though, is how the game helps lead you to the solutions so elegantly. Words are colour coded based on what they are (names, places, etc) so you at least know what type of word you need for each slot you’re filling in. The game will also let you know if you’ve made two or fewer mistakes in filling in a particular section, which with a bit of swapping around will lead to you figuring out your mistake and rectifying it accordingly. It never means you feel like you weren’t the one who solved the mystery, but gives you the ideal nudge in the right direction.

Each chapter of The Rise of the Golden Idol is made up of a few different scenes, and before you move onto the next one you’ll need to connect these chapters by filling out one big overall story and show how they’re all connected in this world. It’s a really clever idea that joins all the dots together, but I must admit I was left stumped by these a couple of times (especially when I’d solved previous scenes in other play sessions) and as such found them a bit much.

Outside of all the other unique elements that make up The Rise of the Golden Idol, it’s worth mentioning the visuals which are grotesque in all the right ways. Something about how so many of the characters just look unappealing and awful really fits the theme of the game, and makes it stand out from anything else I’ve experienced.

There’s so much to love about this ridiculously clever detective game, but one issue I did have was sometimes I just had a few too many windows open to really fit them on the screen together. There are some clever features that help with this a little (like the ability to hide all windows at once to check out the scene in full) but I still just found it a touch fiddly whether I was using the touch screen on my Steam Deck or a mouse on my laptop.

The Rise of the Golden Idol is a ridiculously clever detective game that guides you perfectly to solving its cases with elegant design. Its grotesque world is such a compelling place to learn more about too, and how all these incidents fit together is seriously clever. I do think the menus are a touch fiddly to deal with, but once you get over this it’s hard not to fall in love with one of the best brain testers of the year.