During this autumn’s Steam Next Fest taking place from October 1 to October 7, indie studio Color Gray Games will release a demo version of The Case of the Golden Idol. The game is an attempt to offer a true experience of what it must really be like to be a detective, which so far only a few games such as Her Story or Return of Obra Dinn have been able to achieve.

The Case of the Golden Idol is set in the 18th century where you piece together clues and reconstruct the events of mysterious deaths using a unique drag-and-drop evidence mechanic. The game is brought to life combining early 90ies PC point and click adventure game pixel art aesthetics with late 90ies 3D rendered cutscene visuals. The demo version has been praised by already acclaimed authors of deduction games.

Lucas Pope, author of Papers Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, highly recommends the game, saying “Fantastic art, great mysteries, and rewarding, methodical gameplay. Loved every minute of the demo and want more”.

The Case of the Golden Idol is meant for players who enjoy unravelling mysteries at their own pace, without any time restrictions or reaction based gameplay, but also offers very little hand-holding. The players solve each scenario by building theories of what happened there and changing them, once they encounter more evidence, and gradually the scenarios start revealing a larger overarching narrative.

“We want to elicit a bit of nostalgia in those who grew up playing adventure games, but put a new spin on it.”, says Andrejs Klavins, CEO of Color Gray Games.