a Brutal Scene: A shadowy figure forces someone into a high-voltage circuit box. The victim becomes unable to move at the moment of death, his body convulsing and sparks flying. Downstairs, everyone froze in shock the moment the lights went out. You must scrutinize this scene to determine who everyone is, where they are, why they are there, and, of course, who committed this murder. Examine faces and objects, search everyone’s pockets to see what’s inside, and read notes, signs, and letters for clues. Eventually you’ll piece it together and fill in the report with the missing words that describe exactly who, what, when, where, and why.
Rise of the Golden Idol is a 1970s alternate reality detective game where, when solved, individual scenes tell us something about a larger mystery. This is a sequel to The Case of the Golden Idol, set 300 years after the game’s Age of Exploration mystery, but following the trail of the same cursed object. Some of these scenes are relatively harmless and even funny, such as a drive-in cinema where an unexpected fire breaks out and cosplayed patrons rush for the exit. There are other scary things too. In the opening incident, the strangulation unfolds in an endless loop, like an Instagram boomerang story.
Solving these cases is very satisfying, but you better hope your memory for names and faces is good. Scenes could include 10 or more people and required a notebook to record them. There are more and more obvious hints offered when you get stuck, but as the game warns, using them takes away the fun of using deductive reasoning. Nevertheless, when I understood the gist of the case but couldn’t get someone’s last name correctly, I was glad that there was a button to show me which blanks in the report were incorrectly filled in. I thought.
The strangeness of Rise of the Golden Idol is what makes it so memorable. The art style is intentionally grotesque, with the characters’ asymmetrical faces and eyes moving like crazy, and the backgrounds filled with paint pens. The murders, robberies, and other crimes here are strange, and the picture becomes unsteady in its eternal two-second loop of movement. Until I solved the problem, the scene stuck in my head and I ended up staring at my phone screen for half an hour at a time, thinking, cross-referencing, and taking notes. Where is the character’s gaze leading me? Why is that rug in disarray? Where did that dirt come from?
The big story that comes from these details is worth all the effort. As the chapters change, the fill-in-the-blank incident report turns into a fill-in-the-blank summary of everything you’ve learned from several past cases, helping you draw connections that make the story full of intrigue. This is not a game you can play while thinking about something else. You have to pay close attention, focus your thoughts, and see what your brain can do. I was pleasantly surprised by my own reasoning skills.
The crime scenes are so bizarre that you never know where this game will take you, but there’s always something you need to solve.
Source: www.theguardian.com
