The Case of the Golden Idol
The Case of the Golden Idol
Game
Game2024
The Rise of the Golden Idol
Developer Color Gray Games
The Rise of the Golden Idol is a 2024 puzzle video game developed by Color Gray Games and published by Playstack for PC and console and Netflix Games for mobile platforms. It is the sequel to the 2022 game The Case of the Golden Idol. The game received generally positive reviews. Four downloadable expansions were released over 2025: The Sins of New Wells, The Lemurian Phoenix, The Age of Restraint, and The Curse of… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
369 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Nov 4, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
86
LovedLoved
192 positive · 32 negative
95% range 81–90%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 192 | 32 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 55 | 1 | 61 |
| Mastodon * | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| Lemmy * | 2 | 0 | 10 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
2,635 of 2,777 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
86% recommend · 184 yes, 30 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 214 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (3,867 of 4,180 positive).
Some reviewers praise the art style and music as unique and atmospheric. [1][2][3] A few players criticize the story as convoluted or less engaging than the first game. [4][5][6]
Liked
Representative posts
- [4]
I loved the original game and the Spider of Lanka DLC, but unfortunately The Rise of Golden Idol suffers from the same flaws as the Lemurian Vampire DLC. This series is no longer about elegant logic puzzles. It’s instead a convoluted and poorly written game of Mad Libs, requiring conjecture and word swapping to ‘solve’. I abandoned it on realising how tedious I was finding the garden scenario (I was playing offline …
- [15]
Even more of a banger than the first. If you intend to play it, no need to know anything else. It's a rare occurrence that a detective game has a great mystery at its core that isn't also easy to solve. The clues are often subtle, some useless, some are there to throw you off, it often leads you to wrong assumptions without you realizing. You start with seemingly random and unrelated scenes. It feels great when you …
- [16]
Recommended, but I think Case of the Golden Idol had a better story and puzzles. There is more to investigate in this game, but not all the scenes felt equal or as important as each other in terms of the story, with some being very straightforward and lacking in intrigue (beyond the first few which I'd expect to be like that to teach you how the game works). I didn't feel that the complexity of the cases increased …
- [17]
An absolute masterpiece. I learned my lesson with the last game and gritted my way through the entire game + DLCs, without resorting to hints or guides, and that was an incredibly good decision. It's just such a beautiful and elegantly designed work of art. Half of the joy comes from solving the puzzles themselves, and the other half comes from noticing the raw craft and intelligence of the designers in arranging …
- [1]
This is a soft recommendation from me. After blazing through both games in a short amount of time, my ultimate feeling is that the dev's previous game, The Case of the Golden Idol, was a better and more polished experience. If you're interested in this style of game, play Case first. I enjoyed Rise too, but there were a lot more stumbling points. The art style, music and overall vibes of this game are wonderful. I …
Summarised from 34 of the 332 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 12, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Players who liked The Rise of the Golden Idol talk about unique and atmospheric art style and music; those who didn't talk about story is less interesting and more convoluted than the original. Which matters more to you?
Critics, per Wikipedia
The Rise of the Golden Idol received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic, with the game receiving praise for its complex puzzle design, detective gameplay, and narrative. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received "mighty" approval, being recommended by 92% of critics.
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 369 · most liked firstNext week marks the release of The Rise of the Golden Idol, the sequel to one of the finest mystery games ever made. I spoke to the Latvian brothers behind the series about making the game, teaming up with Netflix, and their astonishing DLC attach rate: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...
neutral · AI labelView post →Hi Bluesky! I'm Will/Kini. By day, I design mysteries for Color Gray and The Rise of the Golden Idol. By night, I'm the indie dev behind Signal & Echo. Currently working on a new thinky game, which I'll announce soon. If you love detective/deduction/thinky games, please consider following! 💙
neutral · AI labelView post →Very much enjoying the puzzle game “The Rise of the Golden Idol”; and especially fond of whatever Gaeilgoir/GAA fan on the development team, slyly suggested the sport played in the fictional country be called “Peil”.
positive · AI labelView post →#IGNAwards nominees for Best PC Game of 2024: Animal Well Balatro Satisfactory The Rise of the Golden Idol UFO 50 1000xRESIST Full nominees: bit.ly/3ZLTKky
neutral · AI labelView post →Game featured: The Rise of the Golden Idol store.steampowered.com/app/2716400/...
neutral · AI labelView post →My favorite PAID games on the Play Store (+ user recommendations 💬). 👉*For my **free** games list, please go [here](https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/40095267).* **New list entries - updated June 2026:** - **[Ugly](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pid.ugly) 🌟 🎮 - Puzzle platformer** - **[Lunar Silver Star Story Touch](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.somoga.lunar1android) 🌟 🎮 - Turn-based RPG** - **[Cat Quest…
neutral · AI labelView post →'The Rise of the Golden Idol' Reviews: EuroGamer 4/5 Game Rant 9/10 GamesRadar+ 4.5/5 Digital Trends 4/5 RPG Fan 70 Checkpoint Gaming 9/10 The Indie Informer 8.5/10 OC 84: opencritic.com/game/17640/t... MC PC 82: www.metacritic.com/game/the-ris...
neutral · AI labelView post →The Rise of the Golden Idol designer reveals next game, and it's already got the Idol creators' seal of approval www.eurogamer.net/the-rise-of-...
neutral · AI labelView post →Oh boy, I can't wait until THE RISE OF THE GOLDEN IDOL wins Game of the Year at The Game Awards, at which point the developers will get on stage, activate the trophy (revealing it to be the Golden Idol itself), and accidentally set Geoff Keighly on fire.
neutral · AI labelView post →Really looking forward to going to The Game Awards this year. If we clutch a nomination it would really be the cherry on top to close out the year. Balatro Abiotic Factor The Rise of the Golden Idol Playstack has brought all killer no filler this year.
neutral · AI labelView post →Second up in the list of things we know so far about the new game I'm working on with @mattfrith.bsky.social... It's a DEDUCTION game! Between Signal & Echo and The Rise of the Golden Idol, I've learned a lot about making detective/deduction/thinky games. You can expect plenty of 'aha!' moments.
neutral · AI labelView post →Yesterday was my first game launch at Playstack! eeeeeee ✨ The Rise of the Golden Idol is unlike any game I have played before, if you love brain scrambling puzzles combined with a whacky story, deffo check it out 💜 www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYy1...
positive · AI labelView post →Mind blown for day #267 of #Godot games using #GodotSteam! Today is The Rise of the Golden Idol by Color Gray Games! This dope detective game is back in a sequel set 200 years later in the 70's with the same great art style. Who done it? One way to find out. store.steampowered.com/app/2716400/...
neutral · AI labelView post →"Even though it's not coming out in 2024, I'm still calling it my honorary GOTY, because even in a year with stellar indie games like Balatro, The Rise of the Golden Idol & UFO 50, Blue Prince is the best game I've played. I can't wait for everyone else to play it, too." bit.ly/3BhFlTI #indiegame
neutral · AI labelView post →Lorthy bought The Rise of the Golden Idol and liked it so much that Season Pass was acquired. DLCs were also top notch so Lorthy heartily recommended the game. Everything is correct!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I’m so stoked for The Rise of the Golden Idol tomorrow, I use the first game as a reference on my current project near constantly 😬 Sorry in advance to my teammates
positive · AI labelView post →Acclaimed sleuthing sequel The Rise of the Golden Idol details its first DLC Investigation, arriving next month www.eurogamer.net/the-rise-of-...
neutral · AI labelView post →Three days ago we launched "The Rise of the Golden Idol", the sequel to our first indie detective game and I feel exhausted physically and mentally. However this time I'm recovering quicker. Because, the initial results are amazing and it is harder to tell yourself you got lucky twice in a row.
positive · AI labelView post →The Rise of the Golden Idol won 'Best Aha Moment' at @thinkygames.com's Thinky Awards 2024! So proud to be involved with this game. Congrats to all the other winners!
neutral · AI labelView post →Finished The Rise of the Golden Idol. It's such an impeccable investigation game. It features the same funny and grotesque art as the predecessor, fresh visual/narrative puzzles, and some new gameplay ideas. Better played as couch co-op. $20 | all platforms | ~10h
positive · AI labelView post →I reviewed The Rise of the Golden Idol from Color Gray Games and @playstack.com on the @toucharcade.bsky.social Patreon. I liked it more than the amazing first game. My review also covers how the interface feels across touch, mouse controls, and a controller: www.patreon.com/posts/toucha...
positive · AI labelView post →Had a blast chatting to @cressup.bsky.social about my work on The Rise of the Golden Idol, deduction games generally, and, of course, our upcoming Golden Idol-like, City of Voices. Thanks so much for having me! Watch the interview at www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P0W...
neutral · AI labelView post →Finished The Rise of the Golden Idol, one of my favorite games of the year. It has one small stumble in Chapter 3, but on the whole a huge evolution from The Case of the Golden Idol. I can't wait for the DLC... excited to continue playing games like this on the side of whatever larger game I'm into.
positive · AI labelView post →The Rise of the Golden Idol reviews are coming in now: www.metacritic.com/game/the-ris... "The Rise of the Golden Idol is a must-play for puzzle fans. Honestly, I’d encourage anyone to give it a go — no need to jump into the original first." - Jill Grodt, The Indie Informer
neutral · AI labelView post →My episode of the Game Engineering Podcast is out! Łukasz and I discuss, among other things, my work on The Rise of the Golden Idol, and the Golden Idol-like I'm making with @mattfrith.bsky.social, City of Voices (steam link in the replies!). www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmjs...
neutral · AI labelView post →[OpenCritic] The Rise of the Golden Idol Reviews (84 Top Critic Average 91% Critics Recommend). -Eurogamer 4 / 5 -Game Rant 9 / 10 -PC Gamer 87 / 100 -GamesRadar+ 4.5 / 5 -Digital Trends 4 / 5 -Slant Magazine 4 / 5 -RPG Fan 70% -Checkpoint Gaming 9 / 10
neutral · AI labelView post →I loved the original game and the Spider of Lanka DLC, but unfortunately The Rise of Golden Idol suffers from the same flaws as the Lemurian Vampire DLC. This series is no longer about elegant logic puzzles. It’s instead a convoluted and poorly written game of Mad Libs, requiring conjecture and word swapping to ‘solve’. I abandoned it on realising how tedious I was finding the garden scenario (I was playing offline so my play time is not accurate). I think this is the end of my time with this…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →took one look at the final scenario of Chapter 4 of the Rise of the Golden Idol and decided to wait until I'm feeling mentally sharper. It seems to be... a lot? I am really enjoying this game.
positive · AI labelView post →Surprising no one, The Rise of the Golden Idol is pretty darn great: www.eurogamer.net/the-rise-of-...
neutral · AI labelView post →I really enjoyed case of the golden Idol but found this one just incredibly dull and frustrating, some scenes are so overly complicated and vague and with a story far less interesting with very little in the way of character to latch onto, I just wasn't having fun at all.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Rolled credits on The Rise of the Golden Idol – what a game! Perfect balance of drama and silliness, with just the right level of difficulty. This is how you do a sequel!
positive · AI labelView post →I would give this game a "maybe," but if I have to choose between recommending it to people or not, I'd lean mostly towards not doing so. The art style is cool, similar to the first game but a bit different. I personally prefer the style of the first one. The music is also nice. Now, about the gameplay: I admit it can be fun, but as a logical puzzle game, it's much worse than the first game and made me feel quite frustrated here and there, and a lot towards the end. At some point, I just…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I’ve posted about this somewhere else too, maybe a different account idk. But for games to play with people that aren’t really “gamers” I actually prefer single player games with light amounts of fast paced action or none at all. The “coop” comes from taking turns with the controller. This works well with puzzle or logic games with generous reaction time requirements (again, or none at all), as well as story based games with light action. A lot of these games also come with natural pauses in…
neutral · AI labelView post →A decent sequel, better than the original in some aspects, worse in others. The UI has some improvements and some bad changes - not having to hunt for individual words is cool, but takes away some of the challenge. Letting you open parts of the answer sheet and order them around seems neat, but ends up being quite unwieldy, making me wish they let me use a second monitor somehow, as that would be ideal. The overarching story stuff is not as good or interesting as in the first game, but it's…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wish someone could bang me with a head so I could enjoy this game again and again. Love the series and Rise with all it's DLCs delivered. Waiting for more Golden Idol stories
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As a mad-lib meets mystery game, The Rise of the Golden Idol is a more polished sequel, but some might not find the story as compelling.🪝 Still, those looking to chew on a new detective series will delight in the Golden Idol series. Full Review: www.rpgfan.com/review/the-r...
neutral · AI labelView post →The Rise of the Golden Idol - Official Reveal Trailer - The Game Awards 2023. Coming in 2024 It's a point-and-click, detective / mystery game. A sequel to [The Case of the Golden Idol](https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/the-case-of-the-golden-idol-switch/) which I missed but has overwhelmingly positive on Steam.
neutral · AI labelView post →For whatever reason this game didn’t do it for me quite as much as the first game did. A lot of it had to do with the fact that a lot of the mysteries didn’t feel like they had as high of stakes, or were just completely unengaging. In the previous game, each mystery involved a murder. Here, you have to figure out what controversy happened at a TV talent show, or why and the neighbor’s BBQ was ruined. Meh. By the end of the first game I was riveted, and had such a joy solving the extra-large…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Man, what a letdown. After the first game, my expectations were high. The Case of the Golden Idol is easily one of my favorite games ever, so even if the sequel did not quite reach the same level, I expected something solid. I was not prepared for how disappointing this turned out to be. Story Worse. Much worse. It is harder to follow, loosely connected, and most scenarios only make sense in retrospect right at the end. Instead of clever revelations along the way, it feels muddled and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →🔴 Going LIVE on Twitch!!! I'm so excited for today's stream... I had so much fun playing The Case of the Golden Idol last year, and now it's time for THE RISE OF THE GOLDEN IDOL!!! I'm ready to DEDUCE... MWAHAHA www.twitch.tv/LirieLirie #LirieLive #VTuber #Twitch
positive · AI labelView post →THE RISE OF THE GOLDEN IDOL is just as good as the first game. I will say the switch version was so buggy I had to buy it again on PC to finish it but really fun to play through with a friend. long live the Obra-Dinnlike
positive · AI labelView post →Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone's waiting for a Silksong release date. I am too, if for no reason other than Fantasy Critic. I do still expect this game to release this year, given it got age rated in some territories back in February, but if it does release this year, it's strange that it's taken this long to get a release date. Every showcase where Silksong doesn't have a release date is one where people are underwhelmed by any other game shown off. As for games I'm looking forward to release…
neutral · AI labelView post →Even more of a banger than the first. If you intend to play it, no need to know anything else. It's a rare occurrence that a detective game has a great mystery at its core that isn't also easy to solve. The clues are often subtle, some useless, some are there to throw you off, it often leads you to wrong assumptions without you realizing. You start with seemingly random and unrelated scenes. It feels great when you start seeing the connections to everything later. It's better played…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really wanted to like it but in the end I felt like guessing too many blanks, swapping words until they matched. The riddles consisting on 90% blanks just weren't for me. Apart from that, a fun story, and thus a sad thumbs down.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Less of a murder mystery more of a "Who stole my soda" or "Why the person sneezed" type scenarios... Interface became more clunky and bothersome to use.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm going to miss this game, what an incredible journey. I cannot wait to see what else the devs come up with.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I feel like they threw out all the intelligent and meaningful design choices that made Case of the Golden Idol the masterpiece that it was. The new UI has a ton of unnecessary clutter, the new UX is annoying to navigate, there's a lot of "hand-holding" and back-patting whenever you do something successfully (feels really infantilizing), the writing feels more elementary and has less plot momentum, and the soundtrack feels a lot more stale. The pixel art style in the previous version was…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The base game for Rise is not as good as the Case. The scenarios tend to be shorter, and you often have to jump between scenarios to find clues or info, and there's a bit of a delay in doing that. It ends up being very bothersome. The plot is also... all over the place? It's less murder mystery and more Scooby Doo mystery... or Three Stooges comedy... The DLC for this is much better, it still does the jumping around thing, but the plot is much tighter.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't recommend this game. I played "The Case of the Golden idol" and I liked it. The deductions were clever and interesting, but still challenging. With "The Rise of the Golden idol" it's just frustrating. It pretty often feels like wild guessing and without logic. Soemtimes it's more about assumptions than precise deductions. In addition you are jumping so often between the present and the past that it's getting really annoying. Even within chapters you are jumping back & forth frequently…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A shortlist of "single-player" puzzle games I've played as couch co-op: Blue Prince Lorelei and the Laser Eyes The Talos Principle 2 The Sexy Brutale The Rise of the Golden Idol Return of the Obra Dinn The Witness Viewfinder Storyteller
neutral · AI labelView post →For me Balatro really is video game of the year, but my other favourites of 2024 are Arctic Eggs - The Rise of the Golden Idol - Arco - Judero
positive · AI labelView post →The Rise of the Golden Idol scratches a very specific puzzle-solving itch and provides plenty of ‘Eureka!’ moments. Read @playitforward.bsky.social' thoughts on the puzzle game: butwhytho.net/2024/11/the-...
neutral · AI labelView post →Loved the first game, which carried me through 4 sections of this one before I started realizing that opening the game filled me with a sense of boredom and dread. I'm in mid-late game and I'm doing the umpteenth filler story beat and have no sense of tension towards a finale. This in addition to the excruciating long load times it takes to switch among scenarios as you need bits of information from different ones. I don't mind being patient with puzzle games and their difficulty (eg…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Recommended, but I think Case of the Golden Idol had a better story and puzzles. There is more to investigate in this game, but not all the scenes felt equal or as important as each other in terms of the story, with some being very straightforward and lacking in intrigue (beyond the first few which I'd expect to be like that to teach you how the game works). I didn't feel that the complexity of the cases increased as much as the first game's did towards the end, and I didn't feel like the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This review contains no spoilers! I'm giving this game a no, but understand it's a 51% negative, 49% positive. I agonised quite a while over whether to give a Yes because the game IS good, or a No because it's disappointing. In short: Play The Case of the Golden Idol. No really, I don't have anything more to add to that. Play Case and if you loved it so much that you'd want to play a less satisfying version of it that suffers from increased scope, look at Rise again. Gameplay considerations:…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Happy Friday! This week’s game and book recap features my favorite genre lately: detective mysteries 🔍 The Rise of The Golden Idol + The Moving Finger are both short yet thrilling work that filled my craving for a good head-scratching puzzle. #indiegamedev #riseofthegoldenidol #agathachristie
positive · AI labelView post →This is a soft recommendation from me. After blazing through both games in a short amount of time, my ultimate feeling is that the dev's previous game, The Case of the Golden Idol, was a better and more polished experience. If you're interested in this style of game, play Case first. I enjoyed Rise too, but there were a lot more stumbling points. The art style, music and overall vibes of this game are wonderful. I really enjoy how the setting is similar enough to the real world (circa 1970s)…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a bit harder than the original, since the jumping around the timeline and bigger character roster requires a bit more focus, but it's extremely worth the investment, they don't miss. DLCs are also amazing, and easier to focus on one by one.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have The Case of the Golden Idol and The Rise of the Golden Idol on my Steam wishlist already. Might as well add this upcoming game as well from one of the folks who contributed to that series! #gaming #videogames
neutral · AI labelView post →This weekend only, as part of the 'Hits You Missed' Steam Fest by @fellowtraveller.games, The Rise of the Golden Idol is on sale with 10% off! With the first DLC just around the corner, if you or someone you know haven't already picked up and played the game now is a perfect time to grab a deal.
neutral · AI labelView post →
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