The Case of the Golden Idol

The Case of the Golden Idol is a puzzle game released in 2022 by Latvian indie developers Ernests and Andrejs Kļaviņš, under the studio Color Gray Games and publisher Playstack. Its story unfolds across four decades of the 18th century, where players gather clues to identify characters, concepts, and evidence, gradually reconstructing the narrative. Initially launched on PC, the game later arrived on consoles and mobile devices in 2023 and 2024. The developers wanted to make a detective game that looked like 1990s adventure titles.

They also took design cues from Lucas Pope’s 2018 game Return of the Obra Dinn, and reviewers often compared the two. Critics praised The Case of the Golden Idol for its deductive storytelling and distinctive visuals, and it won several awards as one of the best games of 2022. Two downloadable expansions, The Spider of Lanka and The Lemurian Vampire, were released in 2023. A free update called The Case of the Golden Idol Redux, which added quality-of-life improvements, came out in October 2024.

Gameplay

A sequel, The Rise of the Golden Idol, followed in 2024. The game is a detective puzzle where players connect narrative details across eleven cases. Each level freezes a moment in time, shown as a looping animation of characters, and the player usually arrives just after a central character has died.

There are two modes. In Exploring mode, it works like a point-and-click adventure: players click on characters, objects, or documents to collect keywords—names, places, verbs, items—which appear at the bottom of the screen. Although the scene is frozen, players can move between rooms, open containers, examine what characters carry, and read any spoken words. In Thinking mode, players fill blank slots in an incomplete description of events and characters using those keywords. The required information varies by chapter—sometimes full names, sometimes titles like Brotherhood members or room occupants.

Slots are filled in segments, and the game tells the player when a segment is fully correct (locking it in) or when it has one or two wrong words. The story follows a supernatural Golden Idol as it passes through the Cloudsley family, the criminal underworld, secret societies, and the political elite over fifty years. In 1742, Albert Cloudsley obtains the Idol on an expedition after pushing his partner, Dr. Oberon Geller, off a cliff. In 1786, his descendant Sebastian Cloudsley dies in an accident.

Plot

Sebastian belonged to the Brotherhood, a secret society of the wealthy and powerful. His will gives the Idol to fellow member Willard Wright. Edmund Cloudsley, the eldest son, sees Willard use the Idol to spontaneously combust a servant and orders his servant David Gorran to steal it. David succeeds but kills Willard.

Brotherhood Steward Walter Keene investigates, discovers Edmund’s role, and tries to have Edmund poisoned—but fails. Edmund hides in his estate’s cabin, experimenting with the Idol, learning it can absorb and release properties like matter, temperature, and even age. Walter finds him, recruits thieves, and storms the cabin, but is caught by a rigged explosive vase. Afterward, Walter and David report that Edmund died in a chemical reaction from the explosion.

Walter, with a disguised David, returns to the Brotherhood and endorses a mysterious young man named Lazarus Herst, who helped Walter escape the authorities. Lazarus has the Idol and uses its powers to rise through the ranks, eventually becoming the Brotherhood’s leader. Years later, the Brotherhood, now called the Order Party, becomes the dominant political movement.

Members are ranked by virtuous behavior. Lazarus uses the Idol to take youth from low-ranking members and give it to high-ranking ones. They plan to overthrow the King, who doesn’t recognize their authority. Before they can, Lazarus is lured back to the Cloudsley manor by news of a past romantic interest, but is killed by a cannon blast, breaking the Idol.

In the epilogue, it’s revealed that Lazarus was actually Edmund, who used the Idol to de-age himself. He convinced Walter and David to join his movement and fake his death, aiming to build an ideal society. Eventually, the Order Party disbands, and the broken Idol is discarded as scrap metal. This DLC serves as the first half of a prologue, showing how Oberon and Albert first obtained the Idol on an island.