PC Shadows of Doubt - Early Access - Procedurally Generated Immersive Detective Sim

[Brian]

 

Shadows Of Doubt (Early Access) Review - Neon Noir Detective

WWW.GAMESHUB.COM

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Even in its early access state, Shadows of Doubt reaches some ambitious highs for both procedural generation and the immersive sim genre.

 

Early Access Review: Shadows of Doubt – Destructoid

WWW.DESTRUCTOID.COM

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Shadows of Doubt is a procedural, sandbox detective game. Currently in Early Access, Destructoid looks at how the game is shaping up.

 

The procedurally generated serial killer in Shadows Of Doubt is too smart for me

WWW.ROCKPAPERSHOTGUN.COM

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Shadows Of Doubt's procedurally generated serial killer is too smart for me

 

Looks great. I will buy it but won’t play until it’s out of Early Access. 

[stepee]

I enjoyed what I played of the demo but yeah I’ll wait for it to be out of early access to give it a real go.

[TwinIon]

I decided to give this one a shot and it's pretty nifty, though I don't quite think the depth is there to justify the premise. It's close, and the bones are solid, but once you figure out how things work it can quickly become both simple and repetitive. The biggest thing that keeps it from seeming like something I'd pour too many more hours into is a lack of motives. Everything is about physical evidence, either found or given.

 

With murders, everything needs to be found. You case the scene until you find some piece of evidence that connects to the killer (often it's been a note left by the killer, sometimes it's the murder weapon) and then you find connections to the deceased, mostly place of work, but it could be somewhere they've been recently. So far most of the killers I've had to track down were co-workers. I don't know if it's just because I solve the murder cases so quick, but they don't seem to happen all that often. I think there might even be some bug in murders being reported, because I had a save that I played on for hours without any additional murders, even though I had them turned on.

 

There a bunch of other types of jobs you can take on as well, but they generally involve the same core problem, which is to identify a person given a limited number of things about them. With murders it's usually fingerprints, but with other cases it can be anything. That's both kinda fun, but it can also lead to some really terrible cases. I had one where the only piece of info I had on them was fingerprints and the building they worked in, which happened to be 18 stories tall and house any number of businesses, each with their own security. I bailed on that job. I've had a number where the only info involved their name, which usually means going through the city directory and sorting out everyone whose name starts with an N or whatever.

 

The ones I enjoyed the most involved a narrower location than a whole building. They're usually pretty quick, and each location has its challenges. Maybe the air ducts can get you where you need to go, maybe you need to disable the security system, maybe bribe someone for access. I think there are enough mechanics here that with some more refinement and motives added the game could be really good. The stealth isn't exactly top tier, but it's good enough.

 

Once I got the hang of it I could knock out cases out pretty quick. That also ended up making the game pretty easy. I'd take a case, usually an arrest, find the perp, rob them before turning them in, and be pretty well off. I nearly got to the max "social rank" on one save, but the lack of murders made me move on and try new ones. I was dissapointed to find that difficulty doesn't seem to affect how hard it is to solve cases, and while a bigger city is cool, it quickly makes any case where a name is your primary clue a nightmare. Also, load times become terrible.

 

I ran into some bugs, but not really anything I'd consider game breaking. A few instances of phasing through walls or crashes during load. I've had a few people not show up to start a new case, but I don't know if that's something I screwed up or a bug. I could probably double this post length with a list a bunch of oddities that I encountered, but I feel like it was largely par for the course in procedural games.

 

Overall, if this game appeals to you I think it's worth a go even in the current state. I genuinely had a good time for a dozen hours, and I'll probably put in a few more before shelving it hoping for a nice update.

 

I'd love for the devs to put together a real campaign, with a complicated murder mystery to solve while other jobs and crimes are generated around you. Right now you can already go through everyone's email, but I've never found a single use for it. Same goes for address books. I think they've put in some groundwork for more complicated and interesting cases, but just haven't quite gotten there.

 

Anyways, thanks @Brian for this post. I rarely jump on these little indie games, but this one is cool, even if it's not quite there yet.

[TwinIon]

Put in a couple more hours and yeah, I think the thing this game needs most is some kind of ambiguity as to the murders. There's never anything that points to multiple suspects, it's always one piece of physical evidence that can conclusively be tied to only one person. It would be great if you could find a note that leads towards one person and fingerprint that leads towards another, and that's where motive might come into play to separate them. I also wish murder weapons could be tied more directly to a crime scene. I've recovered most of them, but usually it's that the murderer has a gun sitting on their kitchen table. With stabbings you don't find blood on a knife or anything, which is kinda annoying when you go to the murderer's home and find they have a knife in every other drawer.

 

Also, I did run into a weird bug where my game seems to be confused, possibly because of connections to other crimes. The end result was that there was conflicting information, with all the official info on the victim saying they lived in a location clearly inhabited by other people, which meant I couldn't really go find any clues in their home. Not a terrible deal breaker, but the first instance I've seen of the procedural generation messing up. It could make a cool mechanic if some of the official records were unreliable, but I'm pretty sure it's unintended in my save.

 

Anyways, nifty game, worth a few hours in it's current state, but has potential to be something awesome if they can flush out some of the ideas and add some depth to the actual mysteries.

[stepee]

Hopefully it’s in a more advanced stage by winter because this has lazy rainy afternoon written all over it.