Case of the Golden Idol, a great investigative graphic adventure review

While some genres decades old, especially in the indie scene, are still incredibly popular and continue to evolve over the years, those of graphic adventures have long been neglected even by reality, after the golden age of LucasArts white discs. It’s no coincidence that non-conformist indians Return to Monkey Island got so much attention, it not only represented the return of one of the most iconic symbols of the entire medium, but also an opportunity to return to a point-and-click game. for anyone who has been dramatically widowed from this kind of experience.

We’ve already strongly recommended you to keep an eye out for the occasion of the attempted incident a few weeks ago, but if you know yourself in the category we’ve just mentioned, you should seriously consider the idea of ​​approaching the Golden Idol Case. A detective adventure hack and clicker that managed to grab our attention thanks to the demo published by Steam on Steam. Color Gray Gamesis an independent Latvian studio made up of only two developers, Ernests and Andrejs Klevins. The game is available as of today, and it’s time to finally reveal if all the potential that emerged from the demo has managed to be realized.

Let’s see, in Golden Idol Case review.

Idols, cults and curses

Violent murders, unfortunate accidents, mysterious crimes. It’s all tied to a single object, a golden idol that seems to bring great fortunes to its owner, but also puts an early and particularly violent end. i have twelve cases The fact that the Klevins brothers’ game is staged with a gorgeous graphic style in pixel art and that by solving each one, we can gradually reconstruct the history of the idol through the generations, even if it focuses on the title from a certain point. on a small recurring cast of characters that are very easy to assimilate thanks to a great characterization that is largely about their cunning and wickedness.

However, every detail about the characters can only and always be conquered through analysis of the evidence, because yes, The Case of the Golden Idol is by no means a classic interactive adventure, and in some ways it is not, because since the title it has been dominated by a main character or a real script. not supported.

It is the player, through clues and in first person, who must piece together the pieces of a complex game. the resulting plot The pieces, script after script, magically snap into place, often very unexpectedly, creating a story full of unexpected twists and turns.

the most striking thing about History The Case of the Golden Idol is coherence where the hidden threads of the story intersect without creating plot holes and other narrative flaws; A very difficult goal for the Latvian studio, given the absence of a traditional narrator. We had to get to the end of the credits for about 8 hours of gameplay, only a small detail of the story clashed with everything else. Well, that single element later showed up in the main twist of the entire adventure, so we can’t help praising Ernests and Andrejs for the quality and cohesion expressed by the narrative component of their early games.

Solving cases with words

Another great virtue of the Golden Idol Case is a investigative game It is truly unusual, where the clues are represented by words that the player comes up with by carefully exploring the scenarios of the game. Basically, each case is divided into two distinct phases, the first seeing us searching for words in the setting, and the second being used to reconstruct a diary explaining what happened to the victim. Developed by the Klevins brothers, the true point-and-click spirit of the title is evident early on, as finding every clue requires a watchful eye and a lot of spirit of observation, while missing just one can be incomplete. an essential part in the reconstruction of crime. The game includes a mode where points of interest are constantly highlighted, although we had to activate it several times during our adventure, our advice is to start by disabling it and then use it only in case of difficulty. .

If the early stages of research follow the classic dynamics of interactive adventures, there it is. deductive phase represent a major innovation in the research genre. The reasoning screen varies from scenario to scenario, but usually involves compiling a diary with words learned by exploring the environment to find out what happened to the victim. However, each level contains other specific sections that are very useful for verifying preliminary cuts before attempting to solve the case. For example, first crimes include a panel with portraits of related characters, which can be filled in by giving each a name. If the choices are correct, the words used are removed from the hypothesis space, and in doing so it is easier to proceed step by step without making unnecessary attempts.

The solution in the Latvian studio game is always hidden beneath the surface of documentary evidence and is never clear even when looking at the big picture. The real star of the Golden Idol Case is plain and simple interruption processThis forces the investigator to go backwards through exclusion, as there is often a lack of direct evidence that can nail the perpetrators to their crimes. Precisely for this reason, while the first levels might not keep those accustomed to puzzles and puzzles too busy, the later stages of the story really managed to put us in crisis, even if we never had to resort to the game. the suggestions that the game makes public are getting stuck on the reconfiguration of the vault.

The only flaw with the formula studied by the Klevins brothers is that with the limited number of spaces in the diary to enter words, when a piece is missing, you can progress through the game by cunning trial and error without punishing the exercise. anyway. For some, this will be a convenient way out of the most complex situations, but for our part we would prefer a more naive approach to the matter. Another big detail that it’s important to warn you about is that the title currently doesn’t include it. any kind of Italian localization And because it’s an experience focused on words and understanding text, it can be really hard to properly enjoy The Case of the Golden Idol if you don’t chew a word in English.

Given the graphic style the game has adopted, there isn’t much to say about its technical component, so we’ll use these lines to celebrate what’s extremely inspiring. artistic direction The Case of the Golden Idol, which not only boasts exquisite pixel art enriched with a very unique drawing style, but seasons everything with an iconic soundtrack that truly suits the atmosphere of the title created by Color Gray Games. The indisputable values ​​of Latvian production, which only increased the vote, we chose to assign it even more.