shadows of doubt is a procedural detective simulator but wait it's actually good

[@BonnieFluff]

I played a bit of it. It's super cool. I think some sort of villain mode for it may work even better than a Detective. Stalking your prey, learning their patterns, trying to not leave clues.

[@Timbo360]

I think it’d be a cool idea to implement that idea, but it take it a step further: what if you could do a playthrough as a villain, doing crimes from larceny to murder, and then taking all the data from your playthrough, and making a unique scenario for others to play and figure out who you were.

[@thehumerus]

@@Timbo360 That sounds like a great idea!

[@gonfreecs1335]

@@Timbo360 Oh my god that is such a excellent idea. And there could be a kind of scoreboard with the most legendary unresolved cases or FINALLY resolved cases.

[@aa898246]

THIS WOULD BE AMAZING

[@gazzy9136]

Yes, officer. This potential serial-killer right here is fantasying over being a psychopathic murderer stalking his victims.

[@TheDeadmanTT]

Brave of you to assume I'm smart and can read.

[@Trash2277]

A lot of games always gave me the feel of ‘why am I doing this objective aside from the fact it is an objective’. This game really makes me feel like I am the one who solved it through my own thoughts and ideas. It’s so simple but it just works for me and I’m loving it

[@Zack_Wester]

This. and the thing whit the fingerprints is that its a great way to apply evidence presure but I see so many player getting a bit stuck on it and just use that. I solved cases where the start of my evidence run was the fact that the killer called the victim before hand (traced the call) usded the CCTV to find who made the call (the problem is that something as simple as I watching a CCTV and person A was in the shot I dont know if Person A used the phone or not I hope later the game have some better we need more then just a finger print (like we need two pieces of evidence). right now you can go okey X murdered Y at Ultra Tax office. problem is Both X and Y works there yet the player can Nail X for Y murder by nothing more then that the player found X finger prints at Ultra Tax.

[@skele56]

Holy shit, another living, breathing person who has played Heat Signature!

[@Poirot633]

Absolutely incredible game!

[@VideoGamesAreBad]

There are dozens of us!

[@Fraserhansen]

Astonishingly underrated

[@Nex_Addo]

Criminally unknown. More people must know of the glory of space defenestration.

[@lhrosts7082]

Amazing game, I love the moments when you're faced with a nigh unwinnable situation, and then just creatively bullshit your way out of it, which makes you feel like the smartest person alive.

[@ZerkUWU]

Hii, good video! I would say that it was missing a firm conclusion like talking more about the idea of a procedurally generated environment with people with connections and all instead of what other videogames do (that is generally just a procedurally generated map with fixed enemies like Hades). Tysm for the content!

[@demoworldplayer]

You know, games are getting cooler and cooler. Someone just made a mod for Skyrim, making the NPCs actual AI that you can write anything to, and they will respond with a simulated voice that *DOESN'T* sound robotic. Highly recommend checking it out, dude. It's called Inworld AI.

[@noobstalker1]

Holy shit I thought that was going to be coming but if just modders could do it can’t wait for developers to join in

[@demoworldplayer]

@@noobstalker1 yes, future of gaming is exciting. Have you checked Inworld AI skyrim?

[@Chariot_Rider]

Procedural generation is such a fascinating topic and I’ve been interested in it for ages. It’s such a neat way of setting up a systemic approach to a world, and that can result in a lot of truly surprising moments. You mentioned that you were curious in seeing other games that challenge convention, and I recommend checking out Fidel Dungeon Rescue. It’s another really interesting roguelike that has a bit of an odd mixture of genres. It’s a roguelike puzzle game, which is really unique because puzzles games are typically extremely curated, with designers making specific choices about what the solutions are, so throwing that genre into a roguelike that’s procedurally generated, it’s certainly a unique genre blend, and while I don’t think it’s perfect, overall it’s a neat little roguelike that does things that I haven’t really seen before

[@CAVEDATA]

Totally agree. Its the best imsim ive ever played. Best “rooms” in games. Best verticality in games. Truly incredible. And yea, imagine what they could expand/add.

[@BinaryJoe]

I agree with all you've said, but i think the potential is all there. Means and motive are all in the game, they just need to factor it in as a value and add dialogue. Searching through documents gives you health information, co-workers, financial info and authoritative connections; its all there, just need to be put into action.

[@noahkoelwyn7961]

I love hear signature so much, it makes me so happy when someone mentions it

[@Valopias]

I gotta say, the atmosphere is one of the best parts of this game. I've grown really fond of the life sim aspects and I can't wait for future updates!

[@Kidge.6081]

Well thank you sir. It's not every day I learn a new word. Diegesis is a narrative storytelling style wherein the narrator describes an interior world including actions of its inhabitants

[@pchurch692]

Great video, will have to check this out.

[@elchewbacco]

One of the best games I've ever played

[@VZed]

This is definitely a game that I've had my eye on since I heard about it, but this is the first time I've seen it dived into in any real way. Looks so fascinating.

[@trioadhitiyawan9912]

I want to love this game, but right now the bugs that makes some of the side jobs cannot be completed is really stunting my enjoyment. Like, I just wasting 2 hours looking for stolen item only to bug out when I tried to bring it to the mailbox. It said the objective is complete, but I don't get check mark on the case so it cannot go resolved in anyway. Nevertheless, I still keeping a tab for it, because this game has so much potential.

[@MagnaDroid1]

You know I could totally see fans of Papers Please really enjoying this game

[@TheGerkuman]

The fact that it has the bones of the generative mystery solving right means that not only is it going to be engaging to play as is, but they can build on top of it to give that extra emotional heft. The Social Class thing definitely seems like it's going to affect everything in an interesting way when it drops as class is a strong motive.

[@rustyfisher2081]

What do you mean by extra emotional heft?

[@TheGerkuman]

@@rustyfisher2081 heft means weight, and in this context, importance or significance. Right now the cases aren't going to be emotionally affecting, but they may have this effect later down the line once more meat is added on top of the metaphorical bones.

[@rustyfisher2081]

@@TheGerkuman i get the emotional significance part, but I was a bit confused on how they would accomplish it. But i guess if they do add a system with families and motives it would definitely have more emotions in the cases

[@SHADOMEGA7569]

I would say that shadows of doubt is a good content game. Ive seen other youtubers document their experiences into an edited summary of the case they did. Its fun to do illegal actions and get away with it. Yeah the game gas its share of bugs but its also early access, like you said they only direcrion this game can go is up

[@onetwo-in4mh]

This game is incredible, if this game blows up like minecraft I can only imagine how cool the updates will be.

[@shortbreadhead]

The satisfaction comes from figuring it out, it's a personal satisfaction. I doubt detectives go to work hoping for an exciting case to get through the day, it's about solving them.

[@minihalkoja590]

This game scratches the itch that L.A Noire left me with. It really does hit different when you follow the trail without anything telling you to do so.

[@chelseyfreeman7689]

Try Paincreek Killings

[@DangerDurians]

Oooh, this game looks right up my alley

[@davidchandler5432]

I loved Heat Signature and MGS V, so I liked seeing Shadows of Doubt compared to those. I'm not sure why Heat Signature didn't seem to catch on, I thought it was gonna be a nice lil' indie hit when it came out. I had never played another Metal Gear game (except for the port of the original on the NES when I was a little kid), so I had no clue what was going on in the story of MGS V, but those interconnecting systems and all the mechanics you could play with was a lotta fun for me. It felt very thought out and was so fun to mess around with, even if the game wasn't really "finished" as far as the story goes. For Shadows of Doubt, I tried out the demo the other month and I've been following it since I heard of it a few months ago, but I think I won't be jumping in for at least a few more patches. I've wanted someone to make a game like this though, with the procedural city where you can go into every building and room and the game generates mysteries to solve. I'm sure some mysteries will suck, but some will work with the game's interconnecting mechanics to make something truly unique and special (in theory). It seems like people are already liking the initial Early Access version, but I just don't wanna mess with it until it's further along.

[@TheRauzKindred]

Weirdly motive does come into play, even if there is no mechanic importance to it, which makes sense with the dystopian setting. I've had at least two interesting ones, the first interesting one was a lady who was trying to climb the corporate ladder in her office workplace, and not from working hard but from manipulation, 'flirting' as the game puts it, and downright blackmail. When her boss opted to send her a stern email about how she needs to do better on her work ethic, and she took that final step over the ledge to murder after this one person was threatening her progress of climbing the corporate ladder, her only other kill was a loose end coworker who she blackmailed into being her accomplice, several poorly disposed of handwritten letters, emails, and other pieces of evidence allowed me to piece this story together. Weirdest part of it, I'm not stretching any of this, this was legit the story I got from multiple pieces of evidence I collected through the course of play for this murder mystery. A sternly worded fax/email from the first victim to the culprit, several complaints of the culprit flirting with them from coworkers in emails and notes, a few pleading cries of mercy from other coworkers to not go through with whatever dirt she had on them, and a few notes and emails in the second victim's home as well as the actual culprit's apartment of the 2nd victim being blackmailed to help the culprit multiple times, complete with one diary entry from the culprit *gloating* about how she killed her boss and how much he ticked her off when he was just being honest about her poor work ethic. This game has that same potential as Dwarf Fortress, where the more the devs work on the performance, bug crushing, and coding, the more stories like this will become more easily found. Sure, the in game corporate enforcers don't care about motive and only about evidence and results, but you can choose to care about that and find connections if you dig deep enough. Which helps when every NPC has wants and needs, even if their personality is two-dimensional, it's enough to glean information and some form of logic from their actions

[@edisontrent618]

That's a really neat part of these procedural type games that is pretty much required for to me get into them (such as with Heat Signature). I do wish that there was also the choice of "find evidence, decide you agree with the murderer's reasoning, destroy what evidence you found and let the person know they need to escape" kind of thing to go along with all the backstory stuff though.

[@TheRauzKindred]

@@edisontrent618 With it being a tiny dev team who are doing this out of passion and are being very interactive and proactive with the community, who knows, we might get a future update with something like that. Definitely post that suggestion on steam, the devs do check there often for inspiration and feedback. I know their current goal is stability, optimization, and bug stomping of course, but they did tease their next content drop they desired after the game is more stable was called the "Cheats & Liars" update so who knows.

[@followingtheroe1952]

The comparison of the mystery of the case vs the experience of the setting is what Twin Peaks was all about

[@bw000m]

emergent storytelling my beloved…

[@vvhoknows6958]

This looks really interesting!

[@umadbroimatroll7918]

Not playing the tutorial for a review is really bad thing to do. I agree it's the right thing to do with this game, and I also did it. However you missed a few other leads that the tutorial shows such as phone call tracking and more. Unless you did know but didbt mention in the review, which again is not the best as you criticized the lack of evidence past fingerprints and boot size, there was one case I did which the cadaver was named jesus, I saw written in lipstick a heart with "jesus + A forever" looking at the pc I saw he matched on dove with someone that had a first name A, however it only gives the first name and so I had to ask around around and eventually found where they worked, and that's how I found the suspect, no prints or anything else. It definitely feels amazing when it works, though that case was a but buggy due to the cadaver being stuck in a wall and unable to examine so I didnt end up finding the weapon but ut was a success overall.

[@DarkAlkaiser]

Speaking of Mystery Machine, how long before some epic modder makes this a scooby doo simulator?

[@isaacc1230]

If you review something try doing the tutorial. Also there are like 3 unsecure gov computers on the first floor. The two lobby ones and the first room on the right.

[@nullpoint3346]

[Shadows of Doubt] (whether intentionally or accidentally) exploits RNG and player imperfection to simulate the _real world struggle_ of tracking down killers. *Not* the drama of televised mystery programs.

[@hiimharvey4191]

one thing i don’t like is, all of the computers they say the same exact same thing, there’s not enough variety at all. when i read the 5th email in a row from different people saying the same exact thing it is off putting. more variety will make the game a lot better.

[@michaellegge7414]

Great another awesome game on pc only 😞

[@vincer7824]

This game looks like it’s right up my alley. Question, how do you know if you’ve got the right person or not after you’ve arrested them? Like is there a pass or fail state to any particular case?

[@VideoGamesAreBad]

The game will let you know if you've passed or failed (there's a cash penalty), at which point you can have another go. Eventually, the killer may strike again.

[@vincer7824]

@@VideoGamesAreBad Hey thanks. Just found your channel and really enjoyed the video. Subbed and looking forward to your next video.

[@Shamino1]

The tutorial is short, fun, amazing. This is a very ambitious game as you admit, and very complex in its systems, and yet you tell people to skip the tutorial? What the fuck?

[@tritoner1221]

0:20 Dwarf Fortress IS 3D

[@edisontrent618]

I believe he was talking about interactively, where even with 3D visual mods for DF it's still isometric 2.5D and just 2D without those.

[@tritoner1221]

@@edisontrent618 What are you on about? Have you never even played DF? Graphics-wise, vanilla DF is a 2D ASCII game, but ever since version 0.27, which added the z axis, mechanically it is one of the first voxel games ever.

[@flyingderpfish1337]

​​@@edisontrent618ou are right somewhat it's technically 3d because of the z axis but you can only see a slice at a time. There's a cool tool called armok vision which allows you to view your fort in 3d though and it's worth playing around with.

[@Enriqueguiones]

The controls and interface of this game are absolutely terrible. Trying to do anything with an X-Box controller is an impossible endeavor, but things are marginally better when using the mouse and keyboard. Navigating through the menus is a pain, and interacting with the world is much more difficult than it should be. It makes everything unplayable for me. The "performance patches" are OK, Iguess, considering that whole thing looks like minecraft, but what it's REALLY needed it's a radical change in the control scheme and some QoL improvements.

[@teguh.hofstee]

I'm tired of GPT and the lack of ethics underpinning generative AI, but I do hope in the future they can be used as tools to enhance things like dialogue given a procedurally generated character profile to bring more life into a game like this (and yes, I am aware of the Sims-like example that attempts this).

[@mandyogilvie686]

559 like

[@geoffdb8118]

Awesome concept, but the forced minecraft-style art design is not landing with me

[@Swat_Dennis]

This game is what I wished for… Graphics “suck” but the systems are amazing