A sequel to The Case of the Golden Idol, one of the finest, most intricately surprising games of 2022, The Rise of the Golden Idol is set 300 years later, in the 1970s, and features a series of cases involving cold war anxieties, dubious sects, bribe-riddled cops and that same ancient, spooked artefact. It’s another deeply satisfying sleuth puzzler in which you investigate a series of tableaux – usually, although not always, scenes of recent murder where the body can be seen, still stiffening – and work to identify the characters and what might have occurred in the moments that preceded the crime.

Once again, your powers of observation, deduction and reasoning are exercised by collecting nouns and phrases from within the scene. Everything from name badges and scrawled notes to work schedules can be clicked on to fill a pool of words from which, eventually, you must compose your report. When ready, you must select your chosen words and fill in the blanks in a pre-written verdict that, if slotted correctly, explains precisely what occurred. This suspect. That murder weapon. This motive. It’s Cluedo-like in texture, but with endless added layers of complication and subtlety.

To begin with, each scene is straightforward, with relatively few characters and an obvious logic and timeline of events. Soon, however, the chapters scale in difficulty, and you’ll need to take notes to keep abreast of names, places and events. Each murder also forms part of a broader, overarching storyline, and the way the designers slot these story beats together is thrilling. For anyone who enjoyed Murdle, the bestselling puzzle book of last Christmas, The Rise of the Golden Idol will be a revelation; it shows just how far video games can push the detective-themed logic puzzle. And while this would be a brilliantly poised thriller had it been written as a novel, transposed to an interactive medium, where we play an active role in unpicking the knots of its mystery, it represents a new high-water mark in genre fiction.