Shadows of Doubt

Oh how much I want to like this game... It has so much potential. A very solid premise, setting, systems but it is wasted on the utter jank that is the gameplay. I understand that this game uses procedural generation but it breaks immersion every couple minutes. Emails are always the same, letters are always the same, murders are (almost) always the same, every conversation goes the same way, side jobs and murder cases constantly bug out and you get stuck with them, they can be insanely difficult like "find someone who has size 9 shoes" or "beat up this 45 year old person with a large build" when everyone looks the fuckin same. Sometimes you do get lost in the world when the game works but it very rarely does and every time it just pulls you straight out with a giant slap in the face. Unless this game gets some major overhauls, better premade cities (for those who want a more polished experience) and greater variety, I would wait for a giant sale or skip this one.

I do recommend, but devs, please, for the love of god, dont abandon the game, it has pottential and a lot of issues you could easily fix.

its sad to say due to bugs after 70 hours played this is currently unplayable. i cant make a new game without the game being insanely bugged. not playing with any mods either

Cautious recommend. There's no other game quite like this, generating murder mysteries on the fly, but the limitations of the game engine and performance issues prevent me from giving it a full-fledged endorsement. The murder mystery aspects are great -- killers will stalk their targets, hang around their workplaces, follow them to places where they eat. Sometimes there'll be blackmail or jealousy involved, every kind of excuse to kill other citizens. The problem is that the aforementioned engine limitations make this a frustrating affair: you'll find emails and dairy entries that depict things that happen days in the past, but the game only preserves fingerprints and camera footage for around 24 hours before they're automatically deleted. If you see about a meeting that happened on Tuesday and the murder happened on Friday, you're out of luck. Similarly, cameras are everywhere, but they'll only trigger when people are facing the camera. If you've got a camera that's facing a doorway at the end of a hallway, you won't catch movement going into the doorway since it'll only be the backs of characters' heads. This can make trying to piece together who's following who extremely problematic. This would normally be enough to still let it slide, given that 90% of the murders are committed between people who know each other. The biggest problem is that sometimes you'll have serial killers like snipers who just take up a perch and shoot people they've been stalking. Due to the aforementioned surveillance footage problem, this means you're entirely dependent upon finding where the sniper had fired from. The bullet hole generation often makes no sense whatsoever, so it's pure luck whether you actually get a shooter who decides to obey the laws of physics and doesn't shoot through entire buildings to hit their target. This may all be fixed in QoL changes, but at the time of writing it's a fun time with extremely frustrating caveats.

I used to love playing this game, and I came back to it recently. I have no idea what they've done but the updates have made this practically unplayable. The AI feels a lot more janky, the game is riddled with bugs, and the rain causes insane FPS drops (I'm talking like 5 FPS). It rains a LOT in this game, and removing rain detail does not seem to help. This game is conceptually great, has amazing atmosphere and world-building, and it's a lot of fun. But I find it baffling that this update was released in its current state. You only need to play for like 5 minutes before your game comes grinding to a halt because the raindrops make your detective have a seizure.

The game is unfortunately not optimized, so please be mindful when getting it, i still play with low setting and get lags and freezes. I wish the devs could fix it instead of just releasing random updates.

Too many bugs within 1 hour of gameplay including not being able to interact with citizens (so I failed my first job) and characters straight up phasing through buildings. Also first case is in a purple zone which I am not allowed into and its too far to crawl through the vents without dying of hypothermia. also also, the controls are kind of bad

This game has absolutely consumed me. It's absolute crack for an ADD IT supporter like me.

Games gets boring, simple and repetitive after a few hours. This game should never have been fully released it can use a lot more content.

As much as I want to say that I like this game, I genuinely get so bored and frustrated playing it due to two main issues: First, the game is a buggy/unpolished mess that constantly makes solving and completing cases/side jobs impossible, tedious, or extremely difficult to solve. This can be for several different reasons like world generation issues, NPC behavior/AI issues, inexplicable conditions being generated, etc. Bugs and glitches can be bearable in a lot of games and most of the ones in this game aren't actually all that bad, but when it happens nearly every case or side job, it can get extremely boring or frustrating wasting your time just to find out that a case/side job is simply not able to be completed and you have to abandon it and wait for the next one. Why would I play a game where not only do I have to wait for each case to pop up but I also have to gamble if the next case actually works properly? Secondly, a lot of the "wacky, random, world generation" is boring and repetitive after about 10 hours of playing the game. This could just be a me problem, as I've purposefully created multiple saves and worlds over the past year or so that I've owned this game, which could make me numb to the "randomness" of the world generation.... Just to give a bit of context for people who have never played the game before: NPCS all have individual names, jobs, schedules, "hobbies" (I.E. a prop in their apartment), etc. This kind of world generation makes it so that eventually, a generated world can have multiple different connections between all of its citizens, businesses, past events, etc. But all of the NPCs have the same dialogue options with the same responses. The only unique dialogue you will find is the tutorial mission which has its own intended pre-generated world it takes place in. Otherwise its the same dialogue options with the same responses, in the same interiors (with different generated names), over and over, case after case. The world is supposed to feel alive with the random generation but it falls through, hard. If you want the city to work and make sense logistically, I recommend using one of the pre-generated worlds because they have a bit more polish and the familiar setting can actually feel intuitive after a couple of saves/cases. Once the pre-generated worlds get stale/predictable, then you can mess around with the world generation and actually understand what all of these negative reviews are saying when referring to the buggy nightmare that is this game. *OR* you could just save your money.

You need to solve optimization issue ASAP. I had 200+ fps in Cod Warzone yet I only receive 50max fps in this game. I don't recommend to people buy this game atm, optimization is hella bad.

[h1] Peak detective gaming [/h1] This great game has it's fair share of bugs that can make your experience pretty annoying at times. But if you can overlook those, trust me it's peak. Not just peak in detective games, but it is just an amazing experience. The whole visual style, and theme and world that the game has, it is charming, beautiful and everything you'd expect from a classic detective bust the mysteries game. It is also sandbox, you can do a bunch of things and honestly, sometimes I just love sitting at a diner smoking, and wandering around looking for interesting side hustles. If you really wanted to, you can meta the game and learn how to solve every case with like 3 key points, but it takes the fun out of it. To enjoy the game at it's best, imo it's with roleplaying. Immersing yourself with it and having to figure things out over time and experience. There are cases that are hard, and you need actuall critical thinking, or even better, think who would've done it in real life. It just works. I got retirement, finished the game but I will keep playing. It's just that great.

There exist the bones of a good game here but sadly it persists in an unfinished and buggy state.

Currently, there's no other game that's like this. It's an excellent package, especially for the price it's at. Completely random cases, fun side gigs you can do, and a fairly in-depth city system. Definitely worth a try, especially on sale.

Honestly at first this game looked promising, but this game fucking sucks. it's been in development for years to my knowledge and is still so broken that you can spend in real life hours on a case and due to a bug it simply wont let you finish the fucking case and get rewards. I don't want to play fucking time wasting simulator

This game is HARD but really fun. I enjoy solving crimes with my GF but it does take some thinking.

i recommend this game, but it's a hesitant recommendation the game is really cool, i love how every single person in the city has a schedule. the world is alive. you can spend a load of time in this game just messing around in the world and ruining the days of the people that live in it, instead of doing your job. i would LOVE to be able to say that this makes the world immersive, but unfortunately, i can't. this WOULD make the world immersive if it weren't for the huge amount of bugs and FPS drops that pull you out and slap you in the face. additionally, most conversations with NPCs go the same way. "give me information" [i] "no" [/i] "i'll give you money to give me information" [i] "ok sure" [/i] now, i understand that my issue with the FPS could very well just be a problem for me and my computer. the game does look stunning visually. the voxel graphics look really good with the lighting. despite the lighting looking cool, it can also get wonky and break the immersion. i could never look up at the sky and tell you "yeah its daytime right now" or "yeah its nighttime right now". that's a more picky thing that i don't really care about very much, i would just sometimes notice. 12pm and the sky is dark green. however, past all of these issues, is a enjoyable experience. there were some moments that did make me feel really badass. breaking into buildings and offices, taking out security cameras with hairpins and paperclips, and knocking people "unconscious" with a sword i found in some random persons bathroom. when the detective cases actually work and don't bug out (25% of the time), it feels extremely satisfying to catch and arrest the murderer. i love the thrill that the murderer could be anyone. while trying to solve the case, you've likely walked right past the murderer multiple times. the murderer could be your neighbor. (if you're not homeless, that is.) the murderer could be the guy working the register at the coffee shop. the aura of mystery is strong in this game, but the bugs can ruin the whole thing.

Words cannot describe how great this game is. Yes, it has it's bugs but the gameplay and features aswell as graphics make up for it.

When I played my first few hours, I would have not recommended this game. That was because I was impatient and not good at the game. I watched some gameplay videos on YouTube and I learnt so much from just one video. As I got better, the game got way more enjoyable. Some cases don't really make sense (there isn't a motive for the killer), but ehh whatever some people are just psychos. You will feel very proud when you successfully and properly solve your first case (and it makes sense). However, the game should not be lacking on the frame rate. I can run RDR2 very well on high graphics, but this game just cannot run well. Sometimes I get 28 FPS and my graphics aren't that high. Also, sometimes things don't render all the way, but that hasn't been a problem for me. Some cases are literally impossible because you don't get enough info on your target, so either I am just dumb or the game is bugged. Overall, I would recommend it when it's on sale.

A really cool concept and tech demo but unfortunately they failed to make it into a full fledged game

Freaking awesome game idea! I haven't played anything like this ever before :D Takes a bit to get used to the gameplay, but after 1-2 hours, its very fun to play. Would be really cool if one day creators could add at least a short story with more lore about the city. And I would love to play even more detailed and reasoned stories in the game. I do get the comments about bugs, and game becoming boring quickly, but for me it didn't ruin the experience at all. Good luck to the creators and looking forward to play more after the updates!

Game still has some bugs but is very fun and addicting to play. Every citizen having their own fully simulated lives where they eat, drink, go to work, socialise, lie, steal, cheat, wander around etc. really makes the city feel alive. Procedurally generated cases always have some unique quirks to them. Because no two cases ever feel the same, it stays hella fun. Some of the side jobs can get really interesting too, but the very hard ones are nearly impossible to solve without brute forcing and checking any person who vaguely matches a description who could be literally anywhere in the city. Jobs that have the sweet spot of being just vague enough, but being doable by following a handful of potential leads are the most fun. One such job was a photography case where I only knew the mark was tall and had long brown hair and that their partner was a site manager. So I broke systematically into every industrial office on the map, looked into employee databases, ran background checks on whoever was the site manager, found out if they had a partner who matched the description, and found my target. It was meticulous, required multiple steps of thinking, and wasn't too obvious or too obscure. Cases like those are what makes this game stand out imo. Some things I've noticed: - passwords to illegal businesses are bugged: I find the graffiti to an illegal arms dealer (i.e. the gun graffiti) with the password "ash", I find the arms dealer, I give them the password. They say it's incorrect. Going in causes a trespassing wrning too. Some people have reported getting told the password they give is treated as wrong but they are allowed in anyway. - arrests in kidnapping cases is bugged: I always like to perform sting operations. I find the kidnapper's profile. I call them up to collect a fake cash drop. I arrest them on the spot. I identify them based on the wallet they are carrying. Despite being in handcuffs, their name being written down in the case resolution form, and me repeatedly choosing the 'you're under arrest' option, the arrest objective never ticks. - Gov database is insanely OP: this is because murder cases are almost always paired with someone the victim knows. If you have a decent description of the killer (from distressed journals and vmails) and you have the address book, you can just cross check everyone on the list. My suggestion here would be to make the gov database a pay per use thing. Like you have to ask a gov worker to do a background check and you have to pay administrative fees per check. It would balance out the game tremendously.

Super crazy sandbox detective game. Once you figure out how everything works the game becomes very trivial, but the journey towards figuring such things out is an amazing experience that's unlike any other!

One of the best noir detective games I've played to date. This game has mastered the dark, dystopian, atmosphere.

In its core its a really fun game and the world feels alive because the world is so dense which makes it quite immersive. But the optimization is none existant i turned everything down and set upscaling to maximum performance (it doesnt make the visuals that bad since its already a pixelated game), one second you have 120 fps and another second you dip to 20 and this happens so frequently so you have to cap the fps to 60 or 30 so that its not that noticable, i have an arc b580 which is roughly equivelant to an rtx 4060. I cant stand any fps below 60 but this is the only game i liked that has poor optimization and thats impressive.

its fun and interesting, but theres no autosave. I solved a case and went for dinner, and i come back and im at the murder scene, aka my last manual save. there is also no "continue" option. if you dont save, the game gets deleted. when you enter the game, there is a continue button but you cannot click it. ive lost so many cases due to this. fix it please.

When I first picked up Shadows of Doubt, I was genuinely blown away. The detective sandbox concept, the atmosphere, the freedom in solving cases—everything about it felt new and exciting. As a first-time experience, it was honestly amazing. Easily one of my favorite games of that time (2024). But as the game got updated over the months, I started running into issues. Some of the patches and bug fixes ended up breaking my old saves. In those saves, core features like finding murder evidence just stopped working properly. Even when I started a completely new game, things sometimes went sideways after the first case—bugs popping up, logic breaking, suspects acting weird, etc. It’s frustrating because Shadows of Doubt has so much potential. The world it builds and the way it lets you approach cases is unmatched. Right now, the game needs more polish and stability. But despite that, I still recommend it. If you're into immersive detective sims and can put up with a few bugs here and there, this game is 100% worth trying. I really hope the devs keep pushing updates, because with a bit more refinement, this could be a true classic.

An spectacular game in general, amazingly immersive the whole way through. It’ll take some learning in the beginning but after that you'll realize the sheer depth and scope of the mechanics and world the game provides. The only weakness is the combat which is very clunky.

weird game, beautiful idea, better with mods. So gumshoe pull up a chair pour two fingers of whiskey and falsely accuse the neighbor of being the local serial killer only to find out they were assassins.

fun game, can be quite tricky. One problem I'm having is often falling out of the vents when entering an apartment, landing me outside the building, usually placing me in the hospital due to the injuries.

Very fun and intricate game. While there are some bugs and it isn't extremely polished and, obviously, not perfect, it is still a very fun experience. I also like the style of the game and enjoy how complex it is. Definitely recommend, likely the best detective game out right now.

I like I always do the be criminal strat (its fun, but it donty wotrk) fgun gamer

super fun detective game - but has some functionality issues if your computer isn't built for bulkier games. Would rate it 11/10 as it is extremely well designed and the concept of the game is chefs kiss.

The game offers a really interesting concept and the overall vibes/design are fun, however it is really difficult to get going with. Doesn't really explain how to go about things and it feels like you're dumped in the middle without much context of 'how' the world works to be able to complete investigations. Tried to push through to see if user error was a thing, and instead kept getting stuck in vents between apartments (first time I managed to wiggle out of the wall into the corridor, second time I fell into a random apartment, third time after finding the correct apartment the vent was directly beside the fridge and pushed me back into the vent, but unable to get out or crawl out). I also tried decorating my apartment and then got stuck on furniture (even once removed) and unable to interact with anything else. It happened after I'd purchased a computer, had to reload the game and it still charged me but the computer was nowhere to be found (inventory or not)... Really interesting idea but finding it difficult and demotivating to play. Completely understand games having bugs, especially indie games, but if this is the case, I really think a 'release' or 'respawn' button would be a good option to get around that.

A buggy game, but a really novel concept that's executed fairly well. The game isn't that deep, so you'll probably be done with it after "retiring" once or twice, but I fun immersive stealth sim in the mean time

I love this game because it checks so many boxes for me but I constantly have to save and reload because of bugs that pop up randomly. For example, I opened a drawer, saw an employee roster was inside, but it was both invisible and unclickable

Highly interesting and fun game. Lines of investigation track round the generated cities and make you truly explore your surroundings. The game becomes easier as you go due to sync disc upgrades, access to money and the increasing size of information you hold on all the citizens of the city.

new: The more I play this game the more frustrating it gets. A lot of systems don't function because of how the game is made. One little grain of sand can completely brick you and good luck finding it without spending a full day teaching yourself how this game's backend works. Then now that you understand it, you're disillusioned. The dev seems to prioritize emergent behavior rather than being willing to abstract things. So passing time happens like 3x faster than just watching paint dry. So if you're sleeping for 9 hours, you're gonna run out of paint. Reviewing your case data during this window pauses time. So you pretty much have to just stare at the black screen or else time won't move. That's just a small gripe. The biggest gripe is how fucking impossible it is to get a city that actually functions! I've made five cities and every single time I've needed to open up notepad to dig in the world and save data to resolve an impasse. It's insane. I will say though, you've heard of spaghetti-code? Well buckle up. This is what I would call rice-code. By all logic this should be excellent. But it just doesn't work. Idk. When it does, it's great. But the success rate is something like 30% and it's only a matter of time before you lose. I've never even retired on a save because I have to keep abandoning cities when the game breaks. And here I always thought I just lacked the stomach for detective work. Turns out I suck at it too. But this game is a lot of fun for the detective stuff. Alternatively, you can be a thief, or a thug, or you could even be beholden to the evil mega-corp again and sell soda while you arrest people on their behalf. Who cares what they did, these jobs are $$$. You want to play a pacifist detective? You got it. Loose cannon detective? Go do it. Violent burglar? Don't let your dreams be dreams. Sneak Thief? JUST DO IT! A street rat? Idk why but go for it. Hell you can even just walk around and beg for change while homeless. There are no rules! Oh wait, yeah there are. You can't defend yourself from a mugging or everyone will draw guns on you. You can't use a gun yourself because the devs said so. You can't go to the police station, that's a terroist attack. new closing: Honestly, dude. I wanted to love this game and I gave it an insane amount of time. But I wouldn't even say I got my money's worth out of this because literally 70% of my playtime has been troubleshooting, generating maps, and cross referencing data from world/save files. You might say "well, Jimmy. That's actually still 30 hours." and I would say "here's my wig guy, knock yourself out."

It runs like butty cheeks for a game made out of pixels, can't recommend it in it's current state

So good! My only suggestion would be to expand the variety of cases that come up; having procedurally generated plotlines instead of just the geography and names of things would be insane and would make the game so much better.

Great game, sometimes the cases bug out but i love it

Game is unplayable, the performance is so bad that this game is basically useless. I really loved the game when I first played it and the performance wasn't absolute crap. Do not waste your money.

everytime i play this game i like to pretend im mark walhberg in a comedy detective show struggling to push my fat lard through a vent, falling out and nearly breaking my back on the floor, then search the place for beer before i begin my investigation. 10/10

Got beat up by some lady with a shotgun while waiting for a suspect to arrive, 10/10 would recommend, put me into incredible medical debt.

Played it for multiple hours wasn't able to solve a single case however I was able to consume drugs and alcohol 10/10 game.

[h1]Profoundly dogshit optimisation[h1] This game cannot provide a smooth experience even on top-level GPU's (tested on RTX 2080 and 4090 separately). You would expect the voxel-like graphics to (hopefully) keep the game optimised, but in truth I believe the issue is due to light baking being totally non-existent within the scope of a fully generated map, a hurdle which I can appreciate. However, if that is the case, then why not add an option to disable this shitty lighting and shaders to begin with? This game won't just lag or slow down - it will geniuelly freeze for half-a-second every time you even think of holding the shift key outside; As if the game literally has to come to a momentary stop to think "Uuuh... where the fuck do I put the lights now?". In truth, I might be very wrong. Both about the piss-stained optimisation and about the origin of why the game actively chooses to freeze on good hardware. Despite this it ruins a lot of the experience I can have with a game. It is very unique with how much it allows you to do, and it is cool. Add sex and I might call it peak.

That's cold, throwing my office chair out the window. Just picked my chair up and threw it out the window.

· Picked up a job specifically asking for a discreet individual to recover a stolen item and destroy it · I accepted due to the large reward and personal upgrade it would give me · Go to a drop zone where I found a brief case, inside was only a phone number and the letter a for their initial · Screw it. I look through the phone book · There are 23 Individuals with the first initial · I mark down their addresses and call the number, the thief picks up which tells me they are home · I go to my first address and bust down the door after nobody answered · Lights were on but thought nothing of it so I started searching the kitchen for some sort of identification · The inhabitant opened a door, the bathroom door, to find me like a deer in head lights · A fight ensues that escalates out into the hallway of the apartment to where an alarm was set and i knocked the tenant to the floor blood and teeth everywhere · With sirens blaring i haul the unconscious body of this unlucky lass to her apartment and id her as my thief. · Just my luck. 10/10

I've always wanted to rob someone, beat them up and then report them to the police. 10/10