The game is afoot
Playstack and Color Gray Games’ The Case of the Golden Idol is heading to Nintendo Switch. The detective game will arrive on Nintendo’s handheld console next week on May 25, 2023.
Both the base game and the recently released DLC, Golden Idol Mysteries: The Spider of Lanka, will be coming to the Switch eShop. The Case of the Golden Idol will go for $17.99, while The Spider of Lanka DLC will cost $5.99.
Publisher Playstack has put up a trailer, showing a little bit about what the game’s about and how the Switch version will handle Golden Idol.
The Case of the Golden Idol is a detective game where the player is taken through a series of vignettes. Each one centers around a gruesome death, as well as a golden idol that seems to be causing quite a ruckus. The player has to observe the scene, pulling keywords from text and other sources to then fill in answers about what’s happened.
Whodunnit?
Color Gray Games’ mystery has some clear similarities to games like Return of the Obra Dinn. It’s pretty open in terms of letting the player try, fail, and try again to solve the mystery, but having a definite set of options and clear framework might help less investigatively-inclined folks solve their way through it.
I played The Case of the Golden Idol last year in a Discord server with friends, and I can’t recommend that format enough. It’s an enjoyable game to think through and solve together, and the revelations you uncover case-over-case are pretty great. The art style of Golden Idol is also unlike most other games out there; initially, I was a bit hesitant about it. But over time, the look of Golden Idol grew on me. I haven’t played the Spider of Lanka DLC yet, but it’s good to see this team is still exploring the world and structures it built for Golden Idol.
The Case of the Golden Idol hits Nintendo Switch on May 25.
