Shadows of Doubt Review

Its a very nice detective game. However, I wouldn't know because I spent all my time breaking down random doors and stealing sh#t out of trashcans to sell it.

Have to say a great detective game, yes there are a few annoying elements such as the enforcers not letting you into the crime scene until you hit Social Level 6 - but otherwise a wonderfully immersive game

takes forever to load, too glitchy -- very frustrating

A detective game that does everything in its power to stop you from being a detective. So many barriers from uncooperative police, security systems, random psycho citizens wanting to beat you up or shoot you for the crime of just stepping into their apartment building. Do yourself a favor. If you want to get to the actual investigation, give up on the idea of being a pacifist. Go down to your local weapon store, pick up a sword, and use it to beat the absolute shit out of anyone that gets in your way with extreme prejudice. There is no other way to play this janky ass game.

Has a ton of potential but let's not kid ourselves, this game is downright unfinished. I'm sure there's a core of something magical buried way deep down. It's not worth it.Watch the trailer videos. Notice they do not show more than a few seconds of gameplay at a time. You are being sold an unbelievable amount of jank. Procedural generation is not a substitute for actual game design.

Honestly, I'll sit down and learn this game and I'm sure I'll enjoy it but here's the truth of the matter: - You start off as a homeless "Detective" that is no allowed to investigate the murder cases you are assigned - Because of this, you need to stealth and break into crime scenes - All of your detective work begins after lengthy sessions of just trying to locate said crime scene, starting evidence or ANYTHING to go on. - The game, even after the tutorial, explains almost nothing. - You're either being led by the nose or completely lost. I was once given a mission to steal documents from a person and the only clue I was given was which building they lived in and that they have brown eyes. IT DIDNT EVEN TELL ME WHAT IM LOOKING FOR. So, I had to systematically break into every apartment and steal whatever wasnt nailed down (With only 4 inventory slots no less) and basically just waited until the mission tracker updated.The game actually is really solid, but it FORCES you to learn everything online which ultimately ruins exploration. But hell, my choice is: A) Searching every single room of every single building to locate a crime scene, then stealth my way in because the cops literally dont want my help, then fight anyone who sees me (And every single apartment is like Grand Central Station, so you WILL be seen), all so that I can click until done.OR, B) I can have the whole game spoiled by simply looking up how to interact with it. Awesome.I think with just some minor tweaks, this game could be amazing. But as is, its a great game built under a pile of wasted potential.

Game is absolutely fantastic- any fans of grey hat espionage will love this.

Awesome game!

Shadows of Doubt is fascinating when you play for the first time. The game has a convincing film noir / cyberpunk scenario and the open world with hundreds of characters that all have homes, work places, friends, love affairs and some individual traits is impressing. Everything seems to be possible. Everyone can be a murderer. Following the threads and finding clues and coincidences is amazing.After playing some time however, you will notice the limits of the game. There is a limited set of job you can choose from. Clues (i.e. notes, documents, V-mails, etc.) repeat themselves. Apartment layouts vary, but the furniture is always the same. For example, you find work contract and birth certificates in a box in the wardrobe and a note with the secret computer PIN in the bedside table (at least in 90% of the cases). The game is still fun at that point but you will develop some routines (or even expoits), how to most effectively search appartments, question people and gather information. One big drawback of the procedural generation is also, that you will never find an interesting motive for crime. You can draw your conclusions but there will never be fascinating stories or stunning plot twists.What should also be mentioned is that the game still suffers from some bugs. Sometimes evidence or contact persons don't appear where they should. In addition, the difficulty of murder cases and other jobs can vary massively, based on which random clues you get to find a person. If the game decides to give you no more than eye color and shoe size of a suspect, you are more or less lost. If you get a phone number or an initial of their name, you are far better off, because these can be found in public records. Also sniper cases where murderer and victim have hardly any connection are a constant pain, especially when clues like bood stains and bullet holes aren't placed as exactly as the developers promised. - These flaws will most likely improve in the future, as the developers already promised some updates.Overall I recommend the game for the moment, when it is on sale. You will certainly have some fun for several hours. The long term motivation will depend on how much the game improves over time.

Feels half finished

If you’ve ever wanted to be a detective, lawyer, and nosy neighbor all at once, Shadow of Doubt has you covered.The best thing about this game? Hands down, indirectly, the investigation system. Sneaking into apartments, digging through evidences, and catching bad people never gets old. You’ll feel like a true detective… until you accidentally accuse the wrong person and you get killed.It’s part mystery, part dark humor, and part “how did I get myself into this?” The randomly generated stuff (replayability), clever writing and unexpected twists make it worth sticking around for a long time

I believe this game has the potential to be one of the best thriller/spy/detective sandbox games of all time. It's massive size and it subtle complexity is something I didn't expect. It's not without it's flaws, in fact I could list a plethora of minor and moderate headaches I've had, as well as some picky critiques, but instead I want to applaud the developers and espouse my genuine enjoyment while diving into the role of private dick in a blocky, dystopian metropolis. 7.9/10 *'s. I'd love to see more.

great game! ignore the hate reviews about the game crashing and just play the game, if you dont save then it sounds like a skill issue... to developers: dont give up and continue creating your universe!

So far my initial impressions is that I WISH MORE GAMES were like this! The ENTIRE world is open world... every alley, every room of every building! There's even subtle mini games. Still trying to fig out how to shoot someone in the face, but overall looks chill. First couple hours of exploration and returning a lost pipe to a dude after stalking him outside his apt 10/10!

its amazing

Very good, it can get a little confusing but it's kinda fun to just wander around the city, the visuals are really unique!

HMM. Yes much quite

A beautiful game that has many bugs because of its nature of being randomly generatedThis is a amazing expirience and a wet dream for those who love detective and investigations, if you are worried about bugs ruining the expirience as the other reviews say, I think it only depends in how much you hate bugs. For exemple:I just did an entire investigation just to find out that the iten I needed to steal was one that I think I had already messes around with, and since I didn't remeber what I had done to it the mission was pretty much unsolvable, maybe it was a bug or my fault, maybe the item fell under the map or something but I can't say for sure.Sometimes npcs fall through the stairs, wich I found funny.Sometimes npcs get stuck in loops of cheking stuff you opend, turned on and threw on the ground and sometimes their pathing goes inside the walls and they are unable to continue their rotine because of this so it can be problematic for gameplay but still sometimes its just another thing to solve as you need to manipulate the game in your favor.Because of the random generated open world of the game, sometimes there are buildings that have weird rooms, some of them can get you stuck in very very niche cases but I got a restaurant called "Cockroach burgers" so I am not complaing.And to finished I must say that you can't shoot guns in the game, wich was not explained, so don't waste your inventory slots picking a gun and their ammo.Overall this is a very ambitious game and I think it has succeded in almost everything.

5/10I don't mind the graphics but the user interface and keybindings are pretty terrible. The game is unoptimized and laggy, especially when trying to pin or sort evidence while zoomed out. The slow pace of the game wouldn't be so bad if not for the random events that pop up, which can mean dropping a mystery you're an hour invested in. Evidence disappears over time, so returning to the cheaper cases later may not even be possible. The tutorial story is somewhat engaging but it ends quickly and the game itself can be quite boring. This game has way too many options presented at creation which makes it feel like a sandbox (lazy attempt to make the player do the creative design). Fluidity of motion and world-interaction is not well designed and requires crouching to select items or jumping to access ventilation ducts at chest level. During my short playtime with this game I encountered a bug where I stood infront of a door so that a worker couldn't leave the office which triggered the security system and killed several npcs in the hallway outside the office room. I will probably return to this game later when I'm bored but as a buy-now-play-now game I would not recommend. In a lot of ways it reminds me of the jankiness of rimworld or maybe a game so cheap you couldn't find it on a demo disc in the 90s.

Fun, needs co-op / multiplayer - solving cases with ur best memer would be amazing. Being able to collect and coordinate information on cases would be 10/10 sammiches.

the game itself is a super fun idea. i love love detective and puzzle games, and this was exactly what i wanted.but it's such a buggy mess that it really isn't enjoyable. i had to restart the tutorial because an id card wouldn't even load in, and whenever i moved on in the case, there was always something either missing or glitched out (ex: npcs not reacting when i was trespassing)not to mention the frame drops. so many frame drops.like i said at the beginning, this style of game is exactly what i was looking for. but the bugs just ruin the experience. if the performance and technical stuff would be fixed, this game would be even better.

Game is so fun, and solving crimes with friends in even better. id love to see a multiplayer !

I haven't played many hours of it yet, but I got insanely hooked to it just from it's idea/gameplay nature~! Proudly my first Steam game to buy & to play.

I had fun until all the cases not only stopped making sense but also left me the distinct impression they were bugged out. Like when I'm asked to go throw food at a guy, but the only clue I'm given of their identity is that they have blue eyes and a mustache. Just seems like the sort of thing a person nursing such a petty grudge would have more info on. Another example is when all I'm given on a suspect is their finger print and a building, only to scan every single door on 15 floors and finding zero matches. There are some cases where you're not even given that much.It's buggy. Very buggy. Aside from the tutorial mission, I've only gotten one murder case, even after waiting days. And then there was one time a guy ran into me and then I'm suddenly five feet away falling through a closed door into an elevator shaft. And then there was the time I walked up to a lady asking me to investigate a cheating spouse only for her to suddenly pull a knife and having me suddenly fail the case.HOWEVER, when the game functions well and has the cases really put together, finding all the clues and making connections between them makes me feel really smart. If they can fix the bugs, and make the cases more functional later on, then I can feel more confident in my thumbs-up. It had real potential, more than you can say of most any procedurally-generated game. I can at least give it a 7/10

d

Loving the immersive gameplay so far, but you should look into some bugs in the player's apartment. It'd be nice to where you place your Items like how you place your furniture (the one where a highlight is shown on where to place it).

It's a good game. It walks the line between a little goofy and too serious perfectly. The game also sets a beautiful atmosphere. It can be buggy but my biggest issue with the game is the music choice. Turn off the music, throw on some jazz noir, and enjoy.

This is such a fun sandbox game, I was fully addicted to it for like 3 days straight.

I solved my first case while searching a suspect's apartment, and walking in on the actual killer murdering the person I was investigating while my back was turned. Politely walked up behind him, cuffed him, and submitted everything he had on him as evidence for the first murder.10/10 Truly the Definitive Sherlock Holmes Simulator of all time.

This has become a bit of a comfort game for me. Running around the dark, rainy city, solving crimes, failing to solve crimes, breaking into apartments and clubbing people over the head because you're tired of asking for their fingerprints. I spent hours looting homes and businesses to decorate my penthouse apartment. It's pretty.

very detective

Have played 4 hours none stop, pretty much loving it. Only problem? First game forgot to save, oh well ill guess I'll redo everything again. Second time I literally just can't progress the game any further from one guy getting killed, to another women to who got killed a day after him, and I literally have nothing to go off of to actually find the killer. Guess I am retrying with a third gameplay atp.

Fun for a while. There is too much jank and too many hidden mechanics to make it consistently a great experience, but it is a really interesting game that requires a lot of open-ended problem solving, which is unique. I enjoyed it up until I started running into cases that couldn't be solved due to some thing that had gone wrong I either didn't know or didn't understand.

good

arguably one of the best detective sims ive ever played. but seriously lacking content due to the procedurally generated nature of the game. needs a lot more work if its going to feel like a full game.

The game is super fun, very addictive, I would recommend it - BUT, and I cannot stress this enough, the game is VERY BUGGY. The premise is amazing and so is the gameplay when it works as envisioned, but be prepared for things to break in strange unintentional ways, eg: missing or incorrect evidence, camera footage simply just not being there, NPC's getting stuck, YOU getting stuck, save often for the list goes on... Get it while on sale.

"Like icarus with real wings decided to not fly too close to the sun" its still really good. its better than froggames sherlock holmes but if sherlock holmes games are a 70/100. this game is a 71 and decided "we can settle with that". There is literally nothing like it in the market as of writing. Procedurally generated situations, the NPCS kill in real time, Murder cases only spawn when reported. you can cross reference as much as youd like.Its not limited by things developers never thought of adding like in Sherlock Holmes : Chapter 1 "Gilded Cage" asking Paul's Doctor for his alibi or asking Arthur's workers for his. in this game you can literally point a person's wherebouts with pinpoint accuracy. Footprints, Fingerprints, photo evidence, time when residence was called. If youre lucky you can actually catch perps at the scene of the crime DOING the crime.but thats about it. no more new updates, no more new ways to link a suspect, no more types of murders or type of crime. Its a game with so much potential you look at the ceiling there will be clouds on that shit. My copium is with them deciding to work on Shadows of Doubt 2 instead like a rework of a sequel so they have more control on what to add or what to do. Its so cheap too, i wouldve bought it for 20 - 30 usd.TLDR : My only complaints are that : I want more from it, Its too dark (visually i mean a brightness slider would help), No multiplayer (im okay with this tho) and its too cheap (Inexpensive)

combat sucks but the rest is good

This game is amazing. Yes, it has bugs. Yes, sometimes the controls make me want to start smoking again in real life and not just in-game. But hear me out. I finished the tutorial first, so then of course I proceeded with a 'real' game. My first case ever, I call it: The Blonde Stalker/Sniper. Her first victim, a young girl from the 5th floor. I get to the crime scene, investigate. I find no relevant prints, no shoe marks, just some emails. She was being stalked by a blonde woman, whom she thought in the beginning was some sort of new mysterious fan or something. I start investigating the neighbors from the building, looking for an average-height blonde. I find a couple. But I still have no evidence. The next day comes. Another woman is shot. Same story, she was being stalked, she was trying to get help from the police force but no one was helping her until it was too late. So, of course, it's my job to make some justice for this young girl. I investigate again, no prints, nothing. I keep searching the neighbors. I check the security room, watch camera footage constantly. I even check the phone logs. No new leads. I'm going crazy. I take some side cases until the next murder, to make some easy money, a public humiliation there, a cheating husband here, anything that gets me from living on the streets into a nice, warm apartment. Then another murder, another woman stalked, tried to ask for help, no one helped, and she ended up dead. Still no leads. I start smoking and drinking. Every minute that passes feels like agony. Am I really a detective or just a fraud? Should I just keep taking dishonest jobs instead of helping people? Then the fourth murder happens. It's in a bathroom. Now I notice a bullet hole through the bathroom window. And another one on the floor. Now things click. I couldn't find any prints because the murderer never took one step into the murder scene. The stalker was a sniper! I calculated the trajectory (wrongly, might I add) and went on to the next building. I needed to find the security room, get the files for the tenants. But I found no security room. I did find in the basement an illegal gunsmith, so then it clicked, from there our stalker got her weapon (a rifle). I was thrilled, I started verifying each tenant room, even had some false positives until I realized I was checking apartments from where our shooter could not have taken her shot. I checked each one of the tenants, found their identities, observed their online behavior, looked in every corner of their homes, checked, double-checked, triple-checked. Some women fit our profile, but some characteristics were wrong (apartment position, height and/or hair color). My board was getting bigger and bigger with possible suspects. I knocked out old women, young ones, wives and husbands, anything to get closer to my serial killer. I was getting crazier and crazier by the hour. Smoking was not helping anymore. I started taking painkillers to help with the dread, just enough of them until I was numb. Then the fifth woman was murdered. Again, I found the bullet hole in our victim's apartment window. But this time I could not find the floor bullet hole. It got me thinking, what if I was wrong this whole time, what if the building right in front was not our shooter's building but the one right next to it. The trajectory kind of made sense. So I went to the next building. I found an apartment that matched our possible bullet trajectory, just to realize it was my own apartment (true story). At that point I realized that the painkillers, the alcohol, and smoking were getting out of control. I needed to get a grip on reality again. I started investigating my neighbors. I even found a great suspect, blonde, average height, she even had deer rifle ammo. My own neighbor from upstairs? After all this time? Could it be? But I found no weapon, and to try and shoot from her windows and actually kill her prey would have taken some crazy military background, which she did not appear to have. She was just a restaurant worker. I left her on the suspects board. Time was passing, the next murder was getting closer and closer. I went back to the murder scenes, tried calculating the angles and bullet trajectories again. And now it finally made sense, I realized that I was wrong all this time. It could not have been my building. The only possible solution was the building in front of the one with the dead people. And now I was 100 percent sure that the bullets could have come only from the left side of the building, somewhere between apartments 3-5. I knew that in 5 there was just an old woman living there, muscular, shorter build, so a no-go. So I just had to check again floors 3 and 4. Three possible apartments on floor 3 and one on 4. I went in the building and was going up to the third floor and et voila, a blonde woman, pretty young, with an average build was just passing by. I looked at her, unknown person. How come unknown, I triple-checked each apartment, who was she? I put a tracker on her and tried to follow her. She did not like the tracker part, so I had to run, hide and wait. Then I checked my map and followed her to her apartment. 401. 401? I was here, 100 percent. I knock on the door. Everything makes sense in my head. The apartment was positioned on the left side of the building, her body type and hair color, but somehow I missed her. She opens the door. I waste no time, I get my Katana out and start bashing her. She uncovers a rifle and starts shooting. Lucky for me, I was trained by drunk samurais back in the day and my 3 hits knock her down. I look at her lying body amazed. It's her, after all this time, I finally meet my serial killer. All the lives she took, why? I close the door, search her, get her prints. I retrieve her rifle and any other dangerous objects in her possession. Then I cuff her well, she's not escaping me this time. I even lock the apartment door and put a wedge underneath it, just to make sure that her victims get the revenge they deserve. But now I'm curious, how did I miss her? I investigate the apartment. I stop by and watch from her windows. Yes, I think, it all makes sense. I can feel myself taking her identity, looking at my prey day and night, just waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Anyway, I find out that I actually investigated this apartment, only her husband was home alone. He worked in IT, I can't remember what exactly. I remember getting the documents, seeing that he and his wife lived here but in his safe I found 2 chip upgrades and I remember leaving faster, excited to upgrade my inventory slots already. I dismissed his wife, as back then, I thought that this was the wrong side of the building for the sniper to shoot out. How wrong I was. And how I rushed this. If I was more patient, less intoxicated, I could have saved at least one soul. I ask her why she murdered all those innocent women, what she was thinking. She looks at me and grins: If they didn't want to get shot they should have closed their curtains. I'm speechless. I just look at her for a while. Eh anyway, I do this to get to Eden or whatever that place is called, people die every day and that's life. I proceed to punch the serial killer a couple of times, I finish writing my investigation conclusions and go to the city hall to finally get paid, I need a new soda machine in my apartment. While going to the city hall, I slip once or twice because it's raining outside and apparently I'm very slippery, or maybe just drunk. I don't know anymore. --- Everything I wrote above actually happened, some crazy things I did not even mention, as the story was already long. So yeah, this game is great. I did not expect this, as for ~10 hours I actually thought my mission was bugged or something until I got to the 4th murder. Can it get more polished? Yes. But is it worth it in its current state? Hell yeah, it's worth it. Back to our cases lads, they ain't gonna solve themselves, amirite?

I love everything about this game except for the actual cases.