was looking forward to this sequel all year and would recommend it despite falling short of the first game imo

i found Rise overall much less challenging than Case, which i attribute to Rise having double the scenarios at the cost of complexity. i personally prefer 4+ room scenarios over the bite-sized, compact ones which make up the majority of puzzles. i also wish each scenario were more visually dynamic or exciting to look at, as most felt somewhat pared down and unmemorable

on a similar note, i think Case's stylistic decisions / ui are more polished and cohesive than Rise. while the movable pop-outs and disable switch are nice, navigating these and the new giant word list and the static scenario pop-outs can be overwhelming and clunky

i had hoped they'd lean more into the "dystopian 70's corporate america" aesthetic to inform the game's atmosphere and design. recurring characters lacked in the eccentric personality and charm that were so captivating in Case. aside from one or two key moments (eg. the auction or warehouse scenario), i don't think Rise reached quite the same freakishly eerie tone either which was a bummer

i do like that Rise forces you to flip back and forth between completed scenarios to piece together the overarching story, but even 7 seconds of load time when swapping scenarios dozens of times gets annoying

with Case setting such a high bar, it's hard not to compare the two. nevertheless, i still enjoyed Rise as a standalone game and will happily pay money for future installments in the franchise

If this is the first you're hearing of the Golden Idol, do yourself a favour and play The Case first. Not because you need the knowledge per se, the game really is a standalone sequel and the events of the first game are merely referenced, no. I just think that the way your thinking skills are used in this one is a natural expansion of how that happened in The Case. This one's hard to explain, but I'm sure you'll agree with me once you notice it.

It's like this. They took the essence of what made the first game great, amplified it somehow and injected into a fresh, different setting. The result? I guarantee you will have trouble putting it down once you start. The only reason I didn't beat it in one sitting was because it was 2:30 AM and... well, you get the idea.

From now on I'll write as if you haven't played the first one.

The game itself is a collection of bizarre, seemingly random scenes where something happens. Usually someone dies, but not always; the game expects you to construct a coherent explanation what really occurred here. A guy fell during a barbecue, but why? A woman is crying in the garden, but why?

There is a red-eyed corpse in the hallway, but why?

The mysteries are non-trivial and impossible to figure out at a mere glance. Instead, the game expects you to inspect all the evidence, and then slowly but surely fill little sub-puzzles. What is this person's name? What does this symbol mean? In what order did these events occur? Oh, and guessing generally won't work, there's far too many combinations; you will, however, be told that you got a section right.

The cases themselves might seem random at times. A hippie protest, a talent show, a bird enclosure; of course, they're anything but. Every few cases you're presented with a 'meta-case' of sorts, where you're supposed to figure out the bigger picture. A single, seemingly irrelevant piece of evidence can be a huge revelator in those.

The game respects your intelligence. To progress, you have to pay attention, there won't be a waifu attendant to remind you that you've seen this particular object a few cases before. It's quite refreshing. No flashbacks, no "I have a feeling this is very important!"; just a ridiculous question that you're supposed to nonchalantly answer. And answer it you will, once your brain attunes to the right frequency.

And if you won't, well, there's a hint system.

I'd say that the difficulty is lovely. Most cases just flow, while keeping your brain very engaged. I got many puzzles right on my first try; but unlike most detective games, here I was somehow able to "intuit" the right solution, without necessarily being able to track my reasoning. These moments felt pretty amazing.

That said, usually there is more than one "path" of reasoning that can take you to the right conclusion. There are also red herrings, but even these usually contain something to show you that yeah, this ain't it, chief. Think again.

I got stuck two times in total. Once I couldn't progress because of a grammatical mistake - the order of phrases was wrong, the game is quite picky about this stuff. And the second time was the very final question of the game, a certain person's identity. To get past this one, I did the ol' Sherlock Shuffle: slow, meticulous elimination of all impossibilities based on careful reexamination of all evidence.

I had to bring up Disco Elysium. It's the 70s, and look at the vibrant, painted art style!

Anyway, yes. It's good. Very, very good. Better than the first. I really can't think of any shortcomings. Okay, maybe the soundtrack to the bird case hurt my ears a little, but I'm pretty sure it's intentional.

So, should you get it? I don't know, should you? You tell me. Just make sure you don't have any meatspace obligations for the next 13 hours before launching it...

Curator page

Great like the first game, but with better art and better overarching story. A couple of puzzles were annoyingly specific, but overall I had a blast. The ending is also surprisingly touching and serious compared to the series's overall whimsical tone.

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.

Rise of the Golden Idol continues the mysterious saga of the Idol and the tragic figures tied to its destructive yet life-giving properties. While it’s an enjoyable sequel, it falls short of surpassing the qualities of its predecessor.

The cases this time are generally smaller in scope. While some scenes cover more distance or span longer periods, the mysteries themselves feel more compact and easier to digest. There are over 20 cases in Rise, but unlike the original where each case felt exceptional, the quality here is more uneven.

I found the cases interesting and generally well-done, but the narrative feels scattered. The first game tightly focused on the Idol, the Cloudsley family, and Lazarus Hearst, creating a cohesive and gripping story. In contrast, Rise time-jumps and loosely follows the Idol and its fragments through various characters. Unfortunately, several cases spend too much time piecing together inconsequential timelines or events that don’t significantly advance the overarching plot. Instead, they mostly explain what’s happening in the scene. The hook this time is that seemingly minor details in individual cases often play a role in solving the overarching storyboard mysteries that connect the five chapters. However, the main narrative doesn’t come into focus until the last few cases.

While I enjoyed Rise’s story, it feels lighter, less tragic, and less sinister than the original. The Case of the Golden Idol exuded a dark, occult vibe with an ever-present sense of dread, making each scene feel macabre and impactful. In contrast, Rise feels more like a group of bumbling characters stumbling through the Idol’s power. No single character truly stands out as memorable.

The biggest improvements are in the gameplay. In the first game, you mainly collected words to fill out ad-lib-style statements that reconstructed the events in each scene. Rise expands on this by introducing more visual elements, like collecting fingerprints or arranging portraits to establish hierarchies. Each case is broken into multiple sections, such as identifying names, piecing together how events unfolded, and determining key story points. Additionally, overarching storyboards link the 4-5 cases within each chapter, and you can work on these throughout or between cases. These additions mix up the format while staying true to the original mechanics.

The art is beautiful once again, moving from the darker, Baroque-inspired style of the first game to a more colorful, softer palette with pseudo-3D visuals and animations. While the original’s visuals are more distinctive and memorable, Rise creates gorgeous, tableau-like storyboards that give each level a unique feel. The music is also good, blending synth, orchestral, and tribal influences to bring the scenes to life. That said, I missed the distinct vibes of Kyle Misko’s soundtrack from the first game, which added so much to its atmosphere. Even so, Rise’s music still does a good job overall.

Rise of the Golden Idol is a worthy follow-up with improved gameplay mechanics and beautiful art. However, it lacks some of the charm, storytelling depth, and musical impact that made the original so great. It’s a solid step forward in many ways, but it doesn’t move the series’ lore forward much or fully capture the magic of its predecessor.

On the whole, this is a great game, even if it does suffer a little when compared to its predecessor.

Taken as its own experience, The Rise of the Golden Idol is an extremely compelling game. The art style is unique; each character has a certain 'fugliness' to them, but their designs are varied and memorable. The UI does an admirable job of organizing a lot of information in a limited amount of screen space, and the tools available to get them out of the way when needed shows a clear dedication to making the UX as frictionless as possible. The story itself is very good, and the way in which the story is communicated through the puzzles is very emblematic of Color Gray Games.

My biggest criticism is that the story and puzzles never quite reach the height of complexity that we saw in The Case of the Golden Idol. Rise has its moments, to be sure, but even its biggest puzzles don't quite match up to the absolutely sprawling conundrums seen in its predecessor. Rise also tends to be much more tame in some ways; one of the major themes of Case was the death that surrounded the titular idol, but without getting into spoilers, we see relatively little of that kind of spectacle in Rise.

If you enjoyed The Case of the Golden Idol, I wholeheartedly recommend The Rise of the Golden Idol. If you're expecting Rise to be bigger and better than Case in every way, you may be disappointed—but then, I think "Case of the Golden Idol, But More So" isn't what Color Gray set out to make, and I like what we got.

I actually liked Rise more than the first game, which I think puts me in the minority to a lot of reviews, even the positive ones, and I really enjoyed the first game. I think the first game has some really high highs, but I felt like this one was a more consistent experience all the way through, even if it doesn't reach the same difficulty or complexity of a few cases in the first game.

The set pieces were really impressive (the movie theater and especially the apartment complex did a really good job at introducing and giving a lot of personality and intrigue to even these one-off characters. I kind of wish some of them, especially in the apartment complex, had a little more focus haha) and I thought piecing together the greater chapter narratives was also a really smart decision because of how many conflicting players and parties there are in this game. I found the visuals in this one a little bit easier to make sense of at times than the visuals in the first game, although I think I prefer the first game's on an artistic level, and I found the huge list of words and the general UI of this game a little unwieldy at first, but the ability to move different windows around was really helpful in some of the later stages and something I wish the first game had.

In terms of deduction and puzzle design, I think both games are generally on the same level of quality across the board, but the difficulty varies. The easiest cases in the sequel felt more difficult (or at least more complex) than the easiest cases in the first game, but the first game's hardest cases (and especially those in the DLC) are more difficult than anything in this game. That's not to say I didn't struggle with this one; some of the end-of-chapter narratives in particular were not easy and required a bit of thinking about the puzzles when the game was closed to figure them out. I didn't find any of the puzzles unfair or poorly designed; I think both base games do a good job with the phrasing of events in a way that does not leave much room for misinterpretation.

A lot of people are not as fond of the overarching narrative as they are of the first game's, but that was one of my favorite parts. I think a lot of it comes down to what exactly you enjoyed about the first game; some main characters in this game are wackier and more off-the-wall than the first, and their actions are less motivated by the presence of the idol than they are in the first game. If you really enjoyed the different timelines and the centering around the idol of the first game, this one's narrative may not click with you, but I appreciated the attempt at something different and I actually was more impacted by the finale reveal in this game than I was in the first game's.

I can see why some people aren't as hooked by this one. I think the setting and premise of the first game is a big reason for why it was such a hit for people. The timeline of this game is a lot easier to follow but the motivations are more spread-out, there are a lot more parties competing for control (unlike the first game, which was driven by one person in particular), the characters lean wackier, and the setting itself is less moody and ominous than the first game's. For me, none of those were dealbreakers to begin with, and I'm in it for the deduction and puzzle aspect first and foremost, so I appreciated the attempts at trying new things and found myself really enjoying what this game was going for.

In any case, it's still a very well-put-together game and both games are incredibly unique and fun. I'm looking forward to the DLC for this one.

This game is a triumph of modern storytelling. The way that you absorb and process the narrative of these games is unlike anything else i've ever experienced.

what makes these games great is that you're presented with a deluge of information all at once and then it's up to you to organize the facts in front of you, to line the pieces up such that an unbroken narrative is created from which you can read the story. some new factoids come as bombshell revelations that force you to reorder your entire understanding of the larger context. I LOVE IT

what's so exciting about this format? so much of the gameplay happens in your head that the experience is entirely personalized and happens completely at your own pace. rather than watching a movie that will be finished in 90 minutes whether you're watching it or not, the golden idol games respond intuitively to the player's ability to understand their narrative just by virtue of their narrative structure. it's like a massage for your brain.

i waited until i finished the first chapter to write the review so i could confidently say: this is the one. i didn't even quit the game to write this, i'm just gonna alt-tab right back in and keep playing. you'll have to pry me away.

While not without merit, Rise is certainly a step down from its predecessor where it matters most: the experience of solving the puzzles. Many puzzles feel forced in to serve a convuluted narrative rather than standing on their own as solid levels to a game. Case of the Golden Idol wasn't perfect, but a narrative first mindset feels like the wrong approach for this series. The joy I got from the first one was from the satisfaction of opening a scenario, having absolutely no idea how to comprehend what I'm seeing, and meticulously combing over the details until the puzzle reveals itself. Many of Rise's scenarios build upon each other a bit too predictably, with so many synonyms among the meager amount of clues that you are bound to be stumped by a minor word mix-up rather than an actual misunderstanding of the scenario.

I do hope for sequels and more content, but I hope the team goes back to basics and focuses on making some really excellent puzzles with a basic narrative rather than a complicated narrative with mediocre puzzles.

The Rise of the Golden Idol is more of what made the first game great but expanded and improved upon! The story is gripping and will have you reassessing what you think is real many times over with all the exciting twists and turns unravelling the new mystery.

If you liked the first game I guarantee you will love this one. If you have not played the first game, don't worry because - although there are callbacks to the lore - this is a standalone story and can be enjoyed with or without prior knowledge.

Overall an excellent puzzle game, among the best available today. Don't miss this one.