The Case of the Golden Idol
BANGER · Narrative · 2022
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
BUY IT.
A BANGER at $8.99, at or past its typical seasonal cut of 40%. The Autumn Sale runs to Oct 8.
- Length
- 6.1h
- Value
- $1.47/hr
- Reviews
- 98% positive
Buy now or wait
The Autumn Sale is on until Oct 8. It is 50% off today.
Discounted in each of its last 8 seasonal sales on record.
- Typical seasonal cut
- 40% ($10.79)
- Deepest seasonal cut
- 55% ($8.09)
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
Watch this gameOne alert when it is worth buying.
Minimum on the Steam store: 4 GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 3000, 2 GB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
A new kind of detective game that allows you to think and investigate freely. Discover clues surrounding 12 strange and gruesome deaths and build your own theory. Pick your suspect, deduce the motive, unmask the awful truth.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
The value story
March 2026 is where it bottomed out, at $8.09. 30 discounts in the 4 years on record. They run about 35 percent off, roughly 6 weeks apart. Today's $8.99 at 50 percent off still sits 11 percent above the floor, so a deeper cut exists in its history.
Take the discount away and it is a 72. With it, 85.
On value it sits in the top 1 percent of its genre. It is pricier than 84 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 99 percent. Among the games closest to it, The Rise of the Golden Idol ($13.99, scores 78) and Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer ($19.99, scores 70) both come in lower.
Of the 523 Steam-purchase reviews this site sampled, 6 come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written October 2022 to September 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 83 percent of the 197 reviews written there were positive, against 98 percent overall, and those are 2 percent of everything written about it.
It carries Valve's Deck Verified rating and runs 6.1 hours, about as long as a handheld game wants to be.
The drop-off
94% start to 28% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
51 players online when we last checked, on Oct 1, 16:46 UTC.
Player counts from the Steam Web API.
What players say
I've been a massive fan of puzzle games for over 20 years. This game scratched an itch that I didn't even know I had.
Excellent storytelling. Rich Lore (Conspiracies!) Challenging but highly rewarding to figure things out. A MUST PLAY if you are a fan of detective stories and games.
Steam reviews, mixed to match its Steam ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
The Case of the Golden Idol scores 85/100 on the BANG Score (a BANGER) as of Oct 2, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/1677770/the-case-of-the-golden-idolReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 19, price as of Oct 1.
A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.