This post is part of the Keeping Score series about games and their soundtracks. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Long time readers may remember that I wrote about Lucas Pope’s Return of the Obra Dinn about a year ago. Specifically, I wrote about the experience of playing it with my partner, who is less well versed in games than I, and how it served as an excellent introduction to games. We enjoyed its intricate puzzle-like mystery so much, we looked into other games that might offer similar deduction puzzles. A kind reader suggested The Case of the Golden Idol by Color Gray Games — although mistakenly referred to it as The Curse of the Golden Idol, a mistake I keep repeating as I write this. It was inspired by Return of the Obra Dinn, and it got a lot of praise from the press, so it seemed like a good choice. But then we got distracted. Now we’ve finally given The Case of the Golden Idol a try, and I’m happy to report that it not only offers some quality detective work, it may be an even better introduction to games.

That’s because Return of the Obra Dinn, for all its design brilliance, still relies on established first-person movement controls, which take some getting used to if one has never played such a game before. The Case of the Golden Idol, by contrast, offers a series of 2D scenes, (mostly) frozen in time, with points of interest to click on and peruse. By exploring these scenes, players collect words: names, objects, verbs, and more. At any time, they may switch to the “thinking panel”, which features a scroll describing what transpired, except most of the words are blank. By collecting clues, eliminating possibilities, and doing a little lateral thinking, players can fill in the blanks with the words they’ve collected and figure out what happened. Usually, what happened was a murder.

This process will be immediately intuitive to anyone who has used a computer or smartphone. You click on things, and drag words into slots. That’s all. No barrier to entry whatsoever. There’s no 3D camera control to worry about, no mouse sensitivity or field of view or anything like that. Just scenes to click on. And each is a vignette, with no time pressure. Work at your own pace. It plays just as well collaboratively with another person as it does on one’s own, which was great news for me and my partner, and also for anyone who wants to introduce someone else in their lives to games.

But, I regret to report that it cannot match the intricacy of Return of the Obra Dinn. That game offers a single, huge, interconnected puzzle, expertly intertwined with the story of what befell its titular ship. Working through each crew member’s death out of chronological order and deducing who is who and what happened to each of them, all while learning where things went wrong, is simply sublime. The Case of the Golden Idol is instead a series of scenes that offer their own, isolated puzzles. These do link together into a larger story, and solving each scene remains satisfying, but the connection between each individual mystery and the overarching narrative is weaker.

Solutions can also, at times, feel too exacting. Every word must be placed correctly, and by the end of the game there are a lot of words spelling out a complex series of events in a scene. It can sometimes feel like being quizzed on all the observations one has made, instead of a satisfying deduction. Also, while my partner and I were able to reason our way through most of the game, there were some moments where we only found key bits of information because there was no other way to make sensible sentences on the scroll.

On the other hand, The Case of the Golden Idol manages to weave some pleasingly convoluted tales in each of its scenes, since there are so many clues to be found in each. Rendered in beautiful pixel art, the scenes have a lovely dynamism despite ostensibly being a frozen moment in time. Characters fidget, tremble in fear, or recoil from a ghastly sight. If clicked on, they spout (text) dialogue as well, revealing the last thing they said. These statements are often key clues, along with whatever the characters have on them, which can be rifled through and examined. Read the letters in their pockets, see how much loose change they’re carrying, spot an item that seems to belong to someone else. By default, everything that can be clicked on is highlighted with a little glint animation, which changes color once it’s been fully explored. That means that instead of scouring scenes to find tiny things that can be clicked, players can focus on observation and pondering.

To help players understand what’s happening in each scene, the thinking panel contains some optional extra sections (once discovered) that can guide one’s thinking. Often this is simply figuring out everyone’s name and matching it to their face. But later in the game, these get more complex. Deduce who’s been winning or losing at cards. Figure out who is staying in which room. Order some events chronologically. Once fully filled in, these bits will inform players if they’ve got it wrong, are almost right (two or fewer incorrect things), or got everything correct. Armed with that information, players will be more confident at tackling the main scroll that describes what went down (and which has the same indicators for mistakes or near-correct guesses). Often, the story told on the scroll is one of an elaborate double-cross, a clever ploy to make a crime appear to be an accident, or some similar shenanigans. Players who like a lot of twists and turns in their mysteries will be pleased.

The story gets a little spooky, with a few particularly ominous scenes (in no small part due to the musical score, which I’ll get to later), but nothing as unsettling as The Curse of the Obra Dinn. It leans into some tropes early on, depicting apparently English colonizers in the 1700s stealing valuables from other peoples. Color Gray Games assume that players know enough history to understand the context for these scenes, including the harm that colonialism inflicted on the world. But it’s soon evident that the world of the game is not exactly our world, with some key differences that make things a lot more interesting. The tale takes pleasing turns, as devious characters meet fitting ends, and events spiral in unexpected directions.

It is, however, mostly a story about men. I suspect Color Gray Games would use the pseudo-historical framing as an excuse for that, but it’s a bad excuse. The game may depict a patriarchal society, but that doesn’t mean women would completely lack agency. Yet there are only a few female characters in the game, and they are not always presented in the best light. The two story DLCs, included in the Complete Edition we played, improve this a little. The Spider of Lanka and The Lemurian Vampire offer much shorter, related stories that act as prequels to the main game, and pleasingly take place in other parts of the world than the England-analogue of Albion. That lets other cultures take the spotlight, ones that played important roles in the most interesting historical details of this world. These cultures include more women in important roles, although they’re still outnumbered by the men. Overall, we were impressed by both DLCs, even though they have some of the most convoluted and confusing scenes of all.

If I’ve been making some complaints here, that’s because The Case of the Golden Idol cannot avoid comparisons to its inspiration, Return of the Obra Dinn. And few games are going to approach that game’s brilliance. The Case of the Golden Idol is still a great mystery game, and it’s one that anyone could pick up quickly. There’s also a sequel now: The Rise of the Golden Idol released just a couple of months ago, and I’m sure my partner and I will check it out when we get a chance. I’d recommend The Case of the Golden Idol to anyone who’s looking for more games like Return of the Obra Dinn, and its accessibility means it might become the one I’d recommend first to someone who isn’t familiar with games. But if they like it even a little, I would strongly push them to try Return of the Obra Dinn next. It really is that good.

The Complete Edition of The Case of the Golden Idol doesn’t just include the two DLC stories, it also includes the original soundtrack. Which brings me to:

The Score:

The score to The Case of the Golden Idol, by Kyle Misko, spans 13 tracks and clocks in at nearly 50 minutes. Kyle’s website describes the music as “orchestral, dark, Neo-Classical”, which is apt. Strings are prevalent, and most pieces strive for an ominous tone. Often, this is achieved by adding space: let a tinkling piano take the lead, with a few sparse strings as accompaniment, and a hefty dose of reverb so the melodies echo through the emptiness. Generally, the arrangements are more sparing than the word “orchestral” suggests, with just a few quiet string swells while a more unusual instrument takes the lead.

Those lead instruments reflect the content of the scene. If players are poking through an aristocrat’s house, they may be treated to a harpsichord melody, whereas a card game in a seedy dockside tavern gets some fiddle and jaunty percussion. Outdoor scenes might bring in a lot of insect buzzing or crashing waves, while the strangest scenes are made truly unsettling with some distorted bells and discordant strings. Even the more structured pieces tend to take a turn into surreality at some point in their runtime, fitting for a game where a seemingly innocuous scene will actually hold disturbing secrets. Melodic motifs recur throughout the soundtrack, including some associated with specific characters, which I was not consciously aware of while playing. The music was clearly carefully thought out, and Kyle has written a bit about the process.

It is a little strange to listen to in isolation, however. I was able to focus on the music and appreciate what Kyle Misko was going for, but (as can often happen for soundtracks) many pieces are more about mood than melody, and are a little odd without the scenes they’re paired with. This isn’t a soundtrack that many will want to put on as they go about their everyday lives, but as a showcase for Kyle Misko’s talent it’s excellent.

Misko also scored The Spider of Lanka and The Lemurian Vampire DLC stories, but that music is not included in the soundtrack bundled with the Complete Edition. This is a shame, because the new settings for those stories gave Misko an opportunity to explore other musical traditions and instruments. As we played, I was intrigued by the musical arrangements for these shorter DLCs, which add a lot of interesting timbres, even including some vocal elements. Fortunately these soundtracks are available separately from Kyle Misko’s Bandcamp page, for any interested players to check out.

Overall, it’s fascinating music, even if I will not always be in the mood to listen to it. It’s definitely worth checking out if you are at all intrigued by the score as you play.