izigame.me

The time has entered a momentary loop, leaving all things indefinitely suspended in short animation cycles that liven up the scenes. From this paradox, blooms a dark mystery, and you get to revel in every minute detail of it, relying on wits to reconstruct sequences of events and discard red herrings. At that, you are compelled to traverse locations, rummage in everyone's possessions, and even take peeks at their last uttered phrase or thought. Explore crime scenes of rapidly rising complexity (not an empty threat), collect and compare facts, then use them to fill out the forms, tracing the course of an overarching conspiracy involving recurring suspects. Pixel by pixel. Speaking of which, the game boasts one hilariously fugly art style that made everyone look like a crazy drunkard, including animals. I found it charming!
But don't let the goofy appearances and beautiful contemplative music deceive you. Golden Idol is a chill detective game, yet its cases will make you sweat. Frankly, I'm a lousy detective. When I investigate, each clue shatters my foggy mind into pieces, and the jumbled mosaic of a bigger picture refuses to interlock. Struggling to hold the slipping facts together, I obsessively fiddle with all available evidence, repeatedly shuffling it back and forth, until I learn everything by heart. Only then, the answers come to me in my sleep or on the toilet, so I have to either get up to write them down or keep pinching a loaf while muttering "remember the fork, remember the fork". I think these games aren't for me, yet they're my kind of fun! A sort of ego-lifting for my brain. On the bright side, I can occasionally crap out a Rust-Cohle-flavoured rant, so I guess I'd be only half bad at this job.
It's all fine and dandy, but can't I just brute-force the forms, you ask? Sure, if you hate fun. Although, as an impatient manchild, I can relate. It's a self-solving problem in practice. The number of variables grows the deeper you go, so you'll need some general comprehension to even start guessing. The game doesn't pull punches, but it's kind enough to tell you if you made less than three mistakes in a form. It isn't an exploit but a mechanic that allows you to slightly cheese it instead of getting stuck or resorting to hints. When you need those, make use of a solid hint system that makes you pick a topic like a motive or a particular set of clues and solve a little conundrum to get but a nudge in the right direction. I confess to using it *cough* several times and it felt better than breaking immersion by relying on external sources.
In hindsight, I must say there are always plenty of subtle guiding elements in any given puzzle to help bring you to the right conclusion. If you pay attention and don't hesitate to sometimes scrap your developments and start over altogether. Don't be a scatterbrain, don't be lazy and you will have yourself a rewarding playthrough. Or be a scatterbrain, be lazy and use the cryptic yet generous hint system. It pays off in both cases. The whole story is worth the hassle and the blissful sensation of clarity upon shutting a case is like no other. Golden Idol is intriguing, clever, uniquely stylised and doesn't take you for a baby while still making sure not to overwhelm or lead you too far astray. It's a definite must-play for every seasoned virtual detective and a smooth gateway for people applying for that comically morbid job.
My curator Big Bad Mutuh