If you like deduction puzzlers, then you'll enjoy The Rise of the Golden Idol.

If you haven't played it's predecessor, The Case of the Golden Idol, you're probably best to give it a go first. It's not required, of course, but it's *also* a great deduction puzzler that provides the backdrop story to the Golden Idol and it's a wonderful game in its own right.

All of the clues are right in front of you, all you have to do is put it together. There are very few red herrings, if any, so everything is important.

In the Rise of the Golden Idol, I feel like they've made some very minor quality of life improvements over "Case". Here, there are less "sprawling empty clues" that you find near the end of Case, and more what I might call smaller clues to solve that interconnect with each other in new ways.

Lots of depth and lore to discover here, and if you're familiar with the backstory and plot from the previous titles, you're in for even more of a treat.

Big recommendation for fans of the detective and mystery style of genre.

A pretty strong follow-up to the amazing Case Of The Golden Idol.

Balancing it all up, I think Case is the better game, but Rise is not a let down by any means, and it definitely doesn't succumb to "difficult second game" syndrome that such a strong first game could cause. Even though it doesn't have that "revolutionary experience" that the first game brought it still manages to hold its own, as the puzzles are just as solid as the first game and the story is just as interesting, though this time it's presented in a confusing time-jumping way.

It features the same unique "Gargoyle-Grotesque" art style, only now they developers have decided it needs to jiggle and tween about the place. I quite like the change from pixel-art to high-res linework, but all of this jowl-jiggling makes me uneasy. Maybe that's what they wanted?

The major flaw here is the new UI, which I really hate. And playing with it really brought down my enjoyment of the game.

I understand exactly why they had to redesign the UI, and it's because the new puzzles simply contain a lot of information. The Case DLC was already suffering heavily from this, and the phone and console ports already redesigned this with their Redux UI. But I think the Rise UI is really poorly thought through solution. The major flaw is that they've gone for a "desktop OS" metaphor, and so the "solution" interface is presented with apps/tabs at the bottom on a taskbar, and floating windows at the top. The problem is that this metaphor is overlaid over the old-style modal, immovable windows that can only be interacted with one at a time. This is incredibly frustrating because often you want multiple scene windows open, but can't, and then when you open up a single explore tab they *all* suddenly pop un-minimize and COVER everything you were trying to look at, so you spend most of your time awkwardly shifting everything around and continually closing and opening different tabs every time you want to interact with a different part of the scene.

If they developers are reading this and have the time, I urge them to simply commit to the desktop OS metaphor entirely and make _all_ of the windows floating windows, in the same ordering stack, exactly like using a desktop OS, including the standard minimize-maximize-close controls, resizeable windows with scroll bars. Everything would work fine then. Also make any words draggable from anywhere to anywhere (except the square chapter arc ones of course).

Until it's redesigned (assuming it is), you can put the UI scale down to minimum, so at least you can still see things. But that just means the font is tiny :(

Overall: Good game, but a lot of friction to play!

ps it has a very conspicuous Elon Musk counterpart in the game, and that character idiocy makes me dislike the real one even more. So congrats to the writers on that.

I really, really liked this game. Maybe it's because I knew how to play from the first game, or maybe it really was a more cohesive story, but I bought into the storytelling-through-deduction mechanic way more this time around and as a result I had a blast with this game.

If you played the first game, you know what you're getting into -- it's more of the same gratifying detective work with the occasional leaps of faith/guesswork that are so delightful to hit on. Getting all multiple-dozen of the clues right the first time on a mad lib sheet of events is just a wildly satisfying feeling. Seeing the big picture story fall into place bit by bit through vastly different vignettes and eventually loop back around to the beginning to tie it all up was awesome.

I look forward to the DLCs, and it's tragic that this kind of game lacks replayability by design -- I cannot get enough of games like this.

I got halfway through the fourth act before I realized I am just not having the same kind of fun with this one as I did with the the original Case of the Golden Idol. I feel less like a detective trailing a dark case of murder and intrigue and more like a student watching a series of wacky scenarios and filling out a study guide. I mean, I seriously spend more time formatting my answers than figuring out the actual puzzle.

I had high hopes based on Act I, but I could not be more disengaged with the story where I am now (which mind you is supposed to be accelerating towards a finale). It feels like a series of loosely connected tragedies instead of a mystery thriller.

Some pros: the UI and artwork is very slick. The puzzles tend to be fun, except for the end of chapter super-worksheets you have to fill out re-summarizing everything you already saw and said but with even more detail this.

Conclusions: go play the first one instead if you haven't. play this one if that one doesn't satisfy you. Wait for the DLC all to come out instead of paying for that season pass.

11.9 hours ingame. If you ignore the 3 or so hours I went AFK while stuck at the end of Chapter 5, that's a 9 ish hour game.

A lot like the last one. Stylish, classy, interesting alternate history type setting. Good music, art with personality, all the fun stuff.

The Chapter 5 wrap-up stumped me. As the hint menu says, "Did you check for grammar or typos?" The last couple missions are a bit more obtuse. I agree with some of the other reviews in that it reminds me of the Case DLC. Trying to figure out what the puzzle is asking you to say gets a bit annoying at times, same as Case. A lot of the puzzles I managed to solve the first time, though.

Story is less stimulating. Nothing really shocking going on. It's a deeper narrative with more intertwined bits but the general plot synopsis sounds basic when taken out of context. Personally, I felt a similar type of anticlimax as the previous game's ending. Oh well.

Anyway, similar zero reservations recommendation as Case of the Golden Idol. It's very very very good. I hope this team can keep making games like this for a long time.

P.S. when you press the hint button it makes you take a breather for a couple seconds. Neat and saved me from using hints more than once.

You know that a game is good when all of the people that don't recommend it start their review by saying it is a good game. This game is good. If you haven't played the original, then play that first. If you have, then buy this one, play it through, and steadily come to the realization that it is better than the vast majority of detective games, but not quite as good as its predecessor. Then return to us, and write a very conflicted review on the internet. Make the circle complete.

The Rise of the Golden Idol is a delightful mystery/deduction game. It's a sequel to Case of the Golden Idol and its DLCs, but set roughly two centuries later, in a send-up of the 1970s and all the weirdness that came along with that era. The signature grotesque art style really works well for the setting and the music's very good at adding to the feel of it all.

Knowledge of the first game isn't required (though Case is a great game and worth a play), but it follows the same sort of gameplay loop. You're presented one or multiple screens of an ongoing scenario, there are a bunch of interactible points to click on that give you information (search people's pockets, read books, look at posters, listen to brief conversational snippets, etc), and then you're asked to answer some questions about the scenario. What's asked of you varies each puzzle, but can range from "identify the full names of everyone in this situation" to "figure out who lives in each room" to far more esoteric requests like "determine what agitated each species of bird in this aviary". You'll also be asked to fill in a summary of the events using the different words you unlock from your search. Familiar stuff if you played Case, but Rise streamlines the UI and the process for this somewhat, spreading the info and solutions into different UI panels you can move or hide, and also makes it far easier to get all of the appropriate info each scene, leaving you able to focus on the deductions and not the pixel hunt. As you progress you'll run into some of the same recurring characters and learn more about the powers of the namesake Golden Idol, and it's a very creepy and good way to flesh out more of the setting and the powers of the artifact. The game's also segmented into chapters and it's a good way to provide little progression points as each set of cases and summaries are manageable little chunks, but all lead towards a huge and elaborate finale that relies on all of them.

Is it better than Case? I think I liked Rise more due to the gameplay QoL improvements, but I've seen arguments in favor of both, and that's really just a reflection that this series is great and worth your time. I may have been more in tune with what and how the game asks you to solve so it felt like a smoother experience, or it may just be their increased experience at designing good puzzles; there were only two or three questions across the entire game where I needed to look up hints for what I needed to provide the prompts, which was definitely an improvement from the first game. I'm really looking forward to the DLCs and anything else this studio does in this genre, they've got a great talent for it.

A really good puzzle game. If you haven't played Case before, I'd recommend playing that one first. If you have played Case, then on the whole, I think this game's a worthy sequel. It's got some rough edges, and just by its nature as a sequel it doesn't have that same surprise, lightning-in-a-bottle quality the first game had, but it has some very interesting scenarios, satisfying puzzles and an intriguing plot.

Things I really liked:
1. The music is incredible. The first game also had a great soundtrack, but this lives up and possibly even outperforms it. There are several songs that I've found myself repeatedly coming back to even after playing. Shortcomings, The Neptune Theater and The Whole World is a Box in particular are personal favorites.
2. The chapter-wide meta-puzzles are a really cool addition. I think they're at their strongest in the earlier chapters, but they remain a really fun innovation throughout.
3. There's a great variety of settings throughout that helps keep things interesting, and whenever the game explores a new setting, it does a solid job making it feel like a real place.
4. They play with the format in some really fun ways. Speildance is a really unique highlight. While not as innovative, Steelside Warehouse, Blockbuster Release and Complex also stand out as really strong individual scenarios.

If I were to have a few complaints/notes:
1. The pacing feels a tad uneven compared to Case. Some plot points are covered quickly & snappily within single scenarios, some plot points end up taking an entire chapter to be explored in-depth.
2. In general, the scenarios feel less cohesive with each other compared to Case, whether that's in tone or in character writing. That's kinda an inevitability when you consider how the development team expanded and how different scenarios were handled by different people, and overall it's not a major problem, but it can still be felt on occasion.
3. Some of the puzzle design I wasn't a fan of. There are a few puzzles that rely on close observation of the game's art, which given its very unique (good, but unique) art style, can be annoying. Characters names are largely easier to figure out compared to Case, often either introducing themselves by name or carrying identification with them or having been introduced in earlier chapters, which can feel like you're doing busywork. The game can be persnickety, where it feels like you know the solution but have to figure out the exact wording the game expects.
4. Without getting into spoilers, I didn't find the ending as satisfying as Case. It was still good, but felt like there wasn't as clear of an emotional catharsis, and it feels like it's intentionally leaving room for DLC or sequels compared to how conclusive Case's finale felt.

Just like the first one, but better and slightly more streamlined. There are still some annoying elements present, where in almost every scene you're forced to drag the names of characters that you already know, and hunt down specific words in a word-cloud mess, but other than that - it's great, and the overarching story is more interesting than the one from the previous game. Can't wait for the DLCs.

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