Call of the Golden Valley detected on Steam

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Investigative small-town Australian deduction mystery available now for Windows and Mac

If the thought of a missing person in the Australian outback conjures up visions mainly of Crocodile Dundee, then put that notion to rest as it looks a lot different in Call of the Golden Valley, the newly released debut adventure from Melbourne-based developer O'Saurus Studios.

Players control a young woman named Danielle, an "American tourist travelling to an old town in the Australian countryside to visit her friend Marisa." However, when she arrives at the farm in the "High Country of Victoria" where Marisa was supposed to be studying to be a veterinarian, Danielle not only finds no sign of her friend, she uncovers clues to suggest that Marisa had been less than truthful about her stay Down Under. Even more worrying is the news that many others have also "recently vanished without a trace from this seemingly harmless small country town." In order to find her friend and ideally the other missing persons as well, Danielle must now scour the internet for clues, solve puzzles across a variety of environments, interrogate the "quirky locals" to find out what they know, and use her "powers of deduction to unravel the mystery and unlock the conspiracy behind [a] century-old poem."

Described as a "true crime-like mystery game," Call of the Golden Valley is heavily inspired by the Nancy Drew games but the developers like to think of it more as a blend of "Firewatch meets The Roottrees Are Dead." But Australian! Set in and around the sleepy and "charming but eerie" remote town of Phillipston, the game is a free-roaming, first-person 3D adventure that introduces players to authentic "undulating rugged mountains, towering eucalyptus trees, infamous wildlife, and quick-witted, fully voiced banter-loving local characters." Fortunately, as a visitor to these parts, you have access to a handy "Aussie Slang for the Foreign Traveler" brochure to help make sense of it all. It's not all fieldwork and fun accents, though, as the gameplay promises to combine both "good old-fashioned detective tricks with the modern art of internet stalking." As you "follow the crumbs and get lost in the theories surrounding this mystery," you'll use your deduction board to make connections, link observations, and ultimately "make the final logical leaps" yourself to decide whether this is all just "a series of unrelated misadventures ... or something more sinister."

If you've got what it takes to solve a genuine Aussie mystery filled with wombats and kangaroos, then don't be a bludger and crack on as Call of the Golden Valley has now launched on Steam for Windows and Mac. If you'd rather test it out first, you can do that as well through the playable demo also available to download.