The Case of the Golden Idol

The Case of the Golden Idol is a masterpiece of the detective genre. It avoids the common 'pixel hunting' of most point-and-click games and instead focuses entirely on logical deduction. The game presents you with frozen scenes of gruesome deaths, and you have to identify every person and motive by collecting nouns and verbs from the environment.

The art style is grotesque and weirdly beautiful, fitting the dark, 18th-century conspiracy perfectly. What’s most impressive is how the game respects your intelligence; it never gives you the answer. When you finally click the names and events into place and the game confirms your theory is correct, the 'aha!' moment is more satisfying than almost any other puzzle game I've played. This is a must-play for fans of Return of the Obra Dinn.