Shadows of doubt online6/3/2023 So the killer will always leave fingerprints at the murder scene, so you have at least one clue to start with. Even the city is procedurally generated, so locations are different every time – although players will be able to share seed generation codes so they can see if they can tackle the same mystery their friends have already managed.Īs with any use of procedural generation, Jeffries has had to spend a lot of time working on guidance and failsafes for the game so that each crime players tackle is actually solvable. He pivoted to a first-person perspective, changed the player role from manager to detective, and Shadows of Doubt began to take shape.Įvery playthrough of Shadows of Doubt generates different victims and different killers drawn from a city of simulated citizensįurther adding to the agency, Shadows of Doubt's murder mysteries are not designed by the developer instead, they are procedurally generated and drawn up from the citizens that are simulated across the in-game city. He managed to set up these systems, but a year or so into the project he realised it wasn't quite clicking: "It felt like you should really be in that world, rather than just looking at it," he explains. Central to the project was Jeffries' interest in populating the game's world with citizens that went around living their lives around the player's actions. Work on the game began over six years ago, and the concept was originally for a detective management sim that played from a top-down perspective. While there are no plans at this point for a console port, Jeffries does not rule it out and observes that he and his team are also working on making the game compatible with Steam Deck. Shadows of Doubt is currently in development for PC and due for release next year. The contest, sponsored this year by PR agency Dead Good, highlights the most promising unreleased game by a UK developer. It's the agency, combined with the indie game's scope and ambition, that convinced to select it as the winner of UKIE's UK Game of the Year prize at Gamescom earlier this year. "There are a whole bunch of detective games out there, but a lot of them tell you a story about being a detective" I just wanted a detective game that allowed you to actually be the detective instead of being told a story." It’s the selling point of the game, really. It allows them to choose which one to use. "All these tools combine together to hopefully create a means of meaningful investigation for the player. The telephones, for example: the citizens call each other in-game, so you can trace calls and things like that. "We’ve just tried to build as many different paths to get to the answer as possible. "I wanted to give the player a lot of agency, and that’s about building the tools and avenues for that investigation," Jeffries explains. This in turn will grant you more options when questioning neighbours or other NPCs about what has occurred, enabling you to ask if they have seen a specific person. Most buildings have CCTV cameras so if you find a way into the security room, you can review the footage. Searching the scene of a crime may yield fingerprints or footprints. But while Barlow's game relied on a single character's words to spark ideas within players on how to progress, Jeffries' title is much more typical detective fare. He cites Sam Barlow's Her Story as one of the rare exceptions, as well as one of the inspirations behind Shadows of Doubt. "There are a whole bunch of detective games out there, but I do find a lot of them are telling you the story of being a detective, rather than you actually being the detective," he says. Aside from the arrival of the note, none of the above is scripted or spelled out via in-game text and directions – it's down to players to figure out how to proceed.Ĭole Jeffries, founder of developer ColePowered Games, tells that agency is the primary focus of this title, empowering players to feel like they're truly solving a mystery. This is an example of how a typical playthrough of upcoming detective game Shadows of Doubt might begin. There's no answer when you ring, so you take a short walk to that address. Smith, revealing both their address and phone number. Smith.' You recall seeing a telephone directory on a table and you look up E. By the time you get there, whoever knocked has slipped a note underneath and left. There's a knock at the door of your apartment.
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