Call of the Golden Valley

I want to preface that I enjoyed the game, it has a lot of charm. However this is a game where I wish I could give a neutral or sideway thumb as there are a few issues holding this game back. Positives -The setting, and framing of the story is great. There is great setup here, and the mystery gripped me throughout the game. -Small town Australian charm! -Full voice acting, and the actress for the main character did an excellent job. -Educational content. Wanna learn about Australian wildlife? Neutral -Can't pet the wombat. Probably for the best. Negatives -This is a small indie game so while it comes with the territory, this is a buggy game! Thankfully most issues were solved by saving and reloading, but the jank is strong with this one. -The game is really short. While I missed a few achievements, I managed to beat this game in 6 hours. And that is with a bit of lost progress from bugs. I really liked this game, and I am interested in seeing where the devs go from here.

I enjoyed this game :) I have really wanted a game of this genre set in the Aussie outback that would also teach me some things, and this has done that. For years I've looked but all the games like this have been set anywhere *but* Australia, so I really appreciate a home grown team developing this one. The mystery is intriguing, the clues are just the right type of challenging, and I think I even learned how to use a compass! Thanks so much to the developers for finally making something the market has been missing. I can't wait for more like this.

im not gonna refund or anything in hopes future updates fix the issues im about to outline, i want to support this game but it is currently unplayable even on a high end gaming PC using the quote "potato" settings. the primary issue is lag, movement is stuttery and unresponsive at times, even the first bus cutscene lags somehow. this is despite the low graphics of the game as a whole and the vast empty space i experienced before getting sick of the lag and giving up playing at all. also in my minimal play time i ran into the bane of my existence: an invisible wall, and not even a "stop you going outside the world" one it was blocking a toilet looking area at spawn, why not just put a door, or put the barrier in the doorway instead of blocking off an entire strip? i hope it improves, again i want to support this, not just because small dev team but cuz theres not many aussie centric games for us aussies to enjoy

I rarely give negative reviews and almost never to indie games, but Call of the Golden Valley, though well-intentioned, is quite bad. The voice acting is fine. The central mystery is passable, though nothing special. Everything else is very cheap. Cheap graphics. Small, cheap non-interactive locations. Cheap sound mixing. This is incredibly overpriced at $26 Canadian. Ludicrously overpriced. Honestly, it seems like something that should be a free title. Maybe a student's first game. I enjoy supporting indie devs, but this is just disapointing trash. I kept waiting for it to improve or blossom into a gripping, low-fi mystery title. It did not. I was constantly dissatisfied and legitimately wish that I had refunded it before it was too late. Buy beware. I honestly cannot picture anyone really enjoying Call of the Golden Valley. Sorry, but this ain't it.

Honestly not great. I play a lot of mystery and puzzle games and this one was both handholdy and railroady. Choices seemingly do not matter--at least not substantially.

I'm really excited to keep playing this game. I've been following the development of Call of the Golden Valley for a long time now and it's living up to expectations! The writing and attention to detail are excellent, and the Australian setting is basically a main character. This game feels like it's trying to communicate a deep love of the area to the player while still being unsettling enough to be compelling. That's a hard line to walk and I think the game does a great job. Plus, I love the conspiracy theory wall.

A thoroughly whelming experience. It was a short detective game about finding your missing friend. Had some neat puzzling, some decent investigating. Even the setting and story seemed promising. The story was ultimately disappointing, [spoiler] it set up some possibly dangerous antagonists and the promise of finding lost gold, which unfortunately didn't lead anywhere [/spoiler]. I suppose the actual conclusion is more realistic if a tad optimistic, but I'd have prefered a some more excitement. Furthermore the experience was quite short, the UI and graphics only serviceable at best and there was an annoying bug that locked the controls twice during my playthrough. I was impressed with the voice acting, but I ultimately wouldn't recommend this game. Not at full price at least.

This is a delightful point and click mystery game that's riddled with history and tales of Australia while peppering in some unique gameplay and puzzles to solve the mystery of a friend who's suddenly gone missing. In addition to teh quaint game, the developer is highly attentive and if a bug or feature is impacting game quality of life, the dev will patch fixes and improvements. Don't say naur to O'Saurus's little adventure to a small town in Victoria.

I've been very impatiently waiting for this game to be available for months and let me say...it was worth the wait. From the story line to the graphics, I thoroughly enjoyed this game, I only have 1 complaint... I wish it was longer! I will definitely be restarting this game at some point and playing it again. I can't wait for future updates! I came across a couple of minor bugs but the devs were so fast with fixing these that I really have nothing to complain about. I look forward to the story progressing!

Game lacks polish. There a several bugs and performance issues. Seems like it was rushed to release.