A Golden Wake

Developed and published by Grundislav Games, A Golden Wake is a narrative-driven point-and-click adventure that transports players to the sun-soaked yet unpredictable landscape of Florida during the 1920s. Rather than leaning on fantasy or science fiction, the game builds its identity around real historical events, offering a fictional story woven into the rapid expansion of Coral Gables and the booming real estate market that transformed Miami. Players step into the role of Alfie Banks, an ambitious salesman determined to seize every opportunity that the land boom presents. What begins as a story of professional ambition gradually evolves into a deeper exploration of greed, corruption, loyalty, and the devastating consequences of economic collapse, making the adventure feel both personal and historically meaningful. The game's strongest feature is its storytelling, which skillfully combines authentic historical inspiration with engaging character development. Alfie's rise through the competitive world of property sales introduces him to influential businessmen, politicians, developers, and criminals whose interests often overlap in morally questionable ways. As fortunes are made …

One of the best point and click adventures I've ever played. I enjoyed every minute with it. The story really surprised and gripped me until the end and with the limited options available during each chapter I never felt stuck enough to be annoyed. Can heartily recommend it!

A Golden Wake was a simple point-and-click story in an interesting setting. The puzzles weren't the best, with a lot of straightforward object combinations using things gathered within the same scene and some more complicated ones that weren't intuitive. I didn't like the conversation puzzles because there didn't seem to be any reason why one set of choices worked and another didn't. What I did like was the 1920s Miami setting and the lead character's frustrations at getting started in his business ventures. The voice acting was good and the music was funky. I appreciated the effort to get some history lessons in there too. All in all, I played it to the end and was satisfied, but it's not on my list of favourites. I played the whole thing bug free on a docked, desktop Steamdeck, which is better than the "unsupported" rating it shows on the store page.

https://youtu.be/BvhTfFekPBM With a less explored setting and protagonist, it's a surprising refreshing adventure game setup.

An enjoyable and funny adventure game. Clever puzzles, witty dialouge and a pleasing art style pull you in to the world of the 1920's and Alfie's desire to make it big in the world of selling land and properties.

Pros: -I liked the mini-games and persuasion gameplay in addition to the standard point-and-click puzzles -Gameplay is easy and straightforward but still clever. -Very funny at times with the ludicrous twists and deaths. Cons: -The main character is severely unlikable. The typical rule-boy people-pleaser. -The twist where he becomes part of the mob came out of absolutely nowhere. He had very weak motivation for joining. I get that he wanted to make a name for himself, but people don't join the mob unless they are desperate or extorted. So he just joined because he was greedy for recognition, which I couldn't empathize with at all. -It felt rudimentary for the majority of the gameplay (go here, do this thing, take care of this, go here...) -Save from the very start with the inciting incident, I didn't have basically anything to look forward to seeing or doing, and because I didn't really care about the main character, there wasn't anything to pull me in.