Shadows of Doubt

This game scratched an itch for me I didn't realize I had. The ideas and setup is extremely fun, but it definitely needs more time to get bugs ironed out. My first playthrough of it became such a broken mess to the point where any and all evidence or leads I had would put me at a dead end. I got so frustrated by the amount of cases I'd have to drop because all of my dead leads wasted my time of being able to stay within the time limit before evidence would start to disappear. I looked and researched into the game to find out what I was doing wrong, but every advice I'd find for finding more evidence would fall flat. And it's not very satisfying sitting and making wild guesses until the report tells me my 60th guess was finally the guy. I refunded the game with 25 hrs into it. But it stayed in my brain, because even though it was busted and I was losing crows, I still had that itch to play more. So I gave it another go and reinstalled it. Happy to report that the game worked much better the second time around (albeit not flawlessly, I have had cases become a game of "sitting in front of a computer printing 50+ resident files because I have to find out who this average height male is") and I'm hooked. It still needs some bugs ironed out, I still have issues every now and then. But once the game gets some more work done on it? 100% recommend. I love the atmosphere and worldbuilding they've put into this.

A cool concept ruined by broken mechanics, all that stuff in the description about NPCs having lives is a lie, they just ping between whatever points of interest are near them. They're scheduled to leave work at 1800? Well instead they're just gonna be walking around the office magically entering whatever room you're in all night. NPCs see you through walls, sometimes they walk straight through locked doors, everyone's immediate reaction to you doing anything remotely suspicious is for them (and every other npc in the area) to open fire on you. Every single citizen seems to have a firearm except you, and you cannot use any of the guns you pick up, I don't mind not being able to use guns, especially because you can beat every single combat encounter by stabbing someone once or throwing a chair at them, but I want to play as a detective, not a psychopath. But really, are you playing as a detective? A detective asks people questions, a detective tries to follow the law, in this game your only option is breaking and entering. When trying to question NPCs you have a laughably limited amount of options and they apply to every character in the game, you can't bring up evidence, intimidate or even mention you're investigating a murder. You get your cases from city hall, but have to resort to crime. The description states "play your own way" but in reality there are, and i'm being extremely generous here, two playstyles in the entire game: tedious, janky, broken stealth with NPCs that do instant 180 pivots and somehow always seem to know which room you're in while you point your fingerprint detector at every surface on the planet, or just act like a total psychopath and smash the door down, stab the occupants then search to your heart's content, occasionally re-stabbing them when they wake up from their non-lethal stab to the neck, because that's what detectives do, right? Do not buy, do not play, and if someone gifts you this game they're doing it because they hate you.

Very impressed with the game so far.

Love the concept and the execution.

spawned in homeless