Shadows of Doubt

I really don't recommend this game. It is very unfinished. The game has a solid and intriguing start, but needed so much work to really be fun or complete. Devs have since abandoned it and suddenly called the unfinished game "1.0".

Skip this game

Very buggy, could be amazing but plz fix oxox. 3/5, 5/5 if it worked bug free.

another game "released" prematurely, how surprising. i hope a more competent developer can run with this concept.

So I played for the most part in Early Access and when the devs dropped their first announcement that the 1.0 Version is almost ready and coming soon I was worried that they're rushing things. I've a good grasp on the game by now and I can tell from my experience that the before/after effect when you compare the two builds is just not there.

While the game can deliver a fun experience for many hours on end you will eventually get to the point where you realize just how limited some of the games features are, most importantly its fundamental gameplay loop. In my ~40 hours of playing I've never made it past social credit level 6 in any of my generated cities, the main reason for that is... there is almost no incentive to ever continue past this point. Of course moving to the meadows is only there to be a literal (in universe) carrot on a stick and the fun stems from solving cases, but if you reach that point in the game you'll realize just how shallow this sandbox gets.
Is that reason enough to not recommend getting the game? I'd say yes if you consider that the initial immersive experience will wear off pretty quickly once you realize just how on-rails everything is. I don't even need to get into how you can brute force solve murders because you will slowly find out for yourself how obvious some of the crime scenes become once you understand some of the fundamental parts of the game.
It becomes less of a murder mystery and more of a "Oh I guess I got there too fast and caught the murderer red handed, again. If only my psychic Detective Powers didn't immediately tell me that there was a disturbance in the force and I should visit this exact location quickly if I want to get this case solved before dinners ready." This was my experience playing the full release and I dropped the game completely after solving 3 cases where the murderer was standing over the body with police officers in the room with them, wondering whodunit. The fact that spouses never seem to be too bothered by watching their partner get murdered also becomes less and less funny each time it happens and the fact that they will fade from existence after the murder has been solved doesn't help with this experience. I once ran into the issue of never being able to solve some cases because the partner of a victim got involved in multiple quests, but were now homeless since they can never go back to their apartment after being part of a murder so they just roam the streets and become as unresponsive as every other NPC.

Don't get me wrong though, this is a fun game, you can really have a grand time following every clue there is to a murder even it it all leads to dead ends, it only makes it more rewarding if a case actually takes you 2 days irl to actually solve if you're on the wrong track. But that really only happens during your initial experience because like I mentioned, there just isn't too much to the game that will have you wanting more once you've clocked in a good amount of hours because you start feeling like you're the only sentient being in the matrix (metaphorically speaking obviously). There is a general lack of interaction with citizens or cops and this limitation really bites the game in the ass when you start to get that feeling of all cases play out the same way. Was it a co-worker or a random guy in the victims address book this time? I can't wait for the grand reveal!

"So what was your motivation for writing these phrases in the victims blood on the wall you psycho? Nothing in particular? You're really just the secretary in this office who has never interacted with the victim before and there's no hard evidence that would make you killing them in the way you did make sense at all? Not even your confession? I guess that makes sense in this part of town. Book 'em boys in blue who I never see actually arresting the victim, I'll just drop this call and oh shit you're coming after me now because there is literally no option to have the police arrest a murderer?? Guess I gotta jump out of the window to escape you with no real consequences, later suckers! I'm grabbing my meager reward for solving this case at city hall real quick and then I'm off to throw food in someones face without any consequences." Fun times.

What I'm alluding to is this overarching lack of feeling like your actions matter at all to the world. The random generation is just too generic and predictable at points and the fact that you can go on a rampage in a hotel with a huge bounty on your head, that'd make anyone move to the Echelon apartments immediately if the got you, but then you step out that front door and suddenly all is forgiven is just too stupid and I can't believe that this is what the final version "was always meant to be like". I'm just extremely disappointed that this is what the peak this game will ever reach looks like seeing as there are no substantial updates planned and there is zero plans to make the game actually run good in the future. It performs largely the same as it did in EA, the only noticeable difference for me was that NPC could get softlocked right after city generation with their paths broken and stuck in place forever. That didn't happen during EA for me as much as it did in 1.0.

There's no shame in admitting that you bit off more than you could chew with this project devs, or even if there were money troubles forcing your hand into releasing the project as is, but the way you keep up this façade of being satisfied with things as they are just feels shameless and really nobody believes it at this point - even if there are die hard fans who go to great lengths to defend you publicly.

A game with a really cool concept, and one that does basically nothing of substance with it.

There's not REALLY an investigation to most of your cases, it really boils down to "bust in place, scan it for fingerprints, and tie it to the single person it could be", and repeat.

The whole game is really repetitive and isn't as deep as you would initially expect. There's a lot of stuff that exists, that you never get to interact with. Why am I going to talk to the NPCs, if there's no way to build rapport?

You can't ask around for clues, you can't think outside the box for your answers, it's the same cut and dry approach every time.

Not to mention how easy and useless it is to make money. You can, with just a little effort, steal tons of diamonds for money with no issue. Then, you learn your upgrades are useless and you don't even really need them.

The concept and UI is awesome, and the little details can be fun, but it definitely is lacking.

Great idea for a game. The idea is truly a gem. Unfortunately the implementation of the game has so many rough edges that makes the gem crooked and unusable.
Ever since I played Sid Meier's Covert Action many years ago, I wonder why this game loop of acquiring evidence, analyzing it, and planning next steps in a procedural generated story is so underrepresented.
Shadows of Doubt is a great idea for reviving this kind of loop in games.
However the difference is that Covert Action felt like a finished product, whereas Shadows of Doubt mechanics feel unbalanced and unpolished to the point where it is really hard to have fun playing the game.
This game cannot be recommended as a finished product in the current state.

This game is awesome for the first 12 hours, then you realize how much isn't actually there and slowly stop playing it.

Most of the time I have on the game was me running around for hours only to be meet by a dead end every single time. A camera right outside the scene of the crime? Well go ahead and watch the footag- Oh wait, almost every single crime happens on the floor that has no way to access the cameras. Well, maybe we can ask the neighbors if they saw anything!- Wait, every person in town hates you and won't even tell you their name unless you slide them a $100 bill? Well fine I guess I'll pay and ask if they've seen anything- Wait, I don't even get the option to pay them for information about the brutal stabbing that happened in the literal next apartment over? Well, maybe I can scan the prints that the killer left behind and track down every single person the victim has ever interacted with since their conception, surely it was one of them? No. The answer is no.

The gameplay gets whittled down further and further until you no longer feel like a detective, but a mad schizophrenic who breaks into homes and businesses on a massive scale all while stealing everything that isn't screwed to the floor and beating people unconscious before they can shoot you to death with their state-issued AR's, all just to chase a killer who has never existed. And for that, I give the game a 10/10.

the main issue with this game is that the main draw, being the murder cases, is just the same thing over and over again
its fun at first, but after about 3 cases solved it just becomes boring because you're not doing anything new
i guess you cou;d spice up the gameplay by going for the optional cases, but when the main draw of your game has very obvious flaws in regards to player retention somethiongs gone wrong
the murderer variety just feels cosmetic because, yeah, they look different, youre still solving them the same, and theres very minor differences between them
it has good stuff going for it, but the main problem is that the main thing it sets out to do, its a very one and done kinda feeling

Good game, but it is far from finished, and it seems like the dev team has given up on adding anything substantial. If they add steam workshop support I may change my review

Cool concept, but it's incredibly unfinished.

For one, the polish just isn't there at all. The general movement and world and stuff (dunno the word) just don't feel immersive and smooth, even for an indie game. The lighting is also atrocious, I understand it's a part of the vibe, but it's just bad design. If there's something in the corner, that corner should never be pitch black, end of story. And small objects like the paperclips in the tutorial are really hard to spot too, 2/3 of the tutorial ones I had to rely on the hint that showed up to point me to them. It's absolutely possible to make an effectively lit environment without taking away from the ambiance.

And I get that it's an indie game and all, but the depth is sorely lacking, an immersive sim seriously shouldn't be like this at all. You can't even kill people. I mean, I get that it's a game about solving murders not committing them, but stabbing someone out of necessity and them suddenly getting back up like nothing happened a few minutes later- that isn't very immersive. Lock picking is incredibly disappointing too, you use it for way too many things (including sabotaging security cameras, which makes zero sense), and the mechanic is literally just watching a progress bar as it depletes your lock pick count.

While it is a very cool concept I can't recommend it because it is too janky and honestly bare in its current state. Shouldn't of been fully released when it was.

What kills it for me is the social aspect. None of the NPCs feel real at all, they all say the same basic lines and its like talking to a brick wall, you can't reason/bargain/pick their brains or anything. No one's gonna try and give you any resistance, no one's gonna try to help you on your journey. It very quickly reminds you that you are just a player in sandbox despite all the people.

As well, there is a limited number of types of murders which makes finishing the game boring and repetitive. Once you've completed a specific murder type you already know what to expect, as nothing really changes between those murders expect the names of the people involved (of which there's never more than the murderer and murdered). And accessing information is easy as the info is almost handed to you in most cases, and when you get the information it is always a mad-libbed email or letter or whatnot. The complete lack of nuance feels very restricting, like you are on rails the whole time and can't explore motives or anything else.

There isn't really a story worth talking about in any of this, but that's the nature of having a procedurally generated world. You can't mold your own story as a detective, your notoriety means nothing apart from being a number that goes up. I would hope that one day it will be possible to experience a story where you can interact with different characters and change how everyone sees you based on your actions but this game must already be such a complex game to program that I doubt there's room for that.

And just as an aside because I mentioned it at the start, this game is kinda janky. Never is it really anything game breaking but it is enough to cause frustrations (like bad collisions, clumsy AI, etc.)

All that being said, it did capture me for most of my first playthrough. It is not something I will be returning to, not for a while at least. The technology is a great look at what could be possible but right now it isn't sufficient enough to be captivating for most people.

I've had my eye on this game for awhile, and now that's out of early access I thought I would finally give it a try. I'm huge immersive sim fan and the premise sounds very cool, but ultimately I came away disappointed. The minute to minute gameplay is actually pretty boring. And while there are immersive sim elements... I don't think I would call this a full immersive sim. Procedural generation has the potential to be great, but unfortunately it just feels repetitive in this game.

It's still an incredibly cool concept, and I think the developer has accomplished a lot. However, it feels more like a proof of concept or a really polished demo instead of a fully fledged released title.

I can't believe after spending 550+ hours on this game I never written a review on it... Without a doubt (lol) one of the best detective sandbox games in existence. It's one of my favorite games of all time, it was like it was made for me. Shadows of Doubt deserves more attention honestly, it's a hidden gem. You can do anything you want, be any detective you like to be. It's great for role-playing and exploring. Every citizen has their own unique lives you can investigate. The possibilities are endless in this game.

For a small team, they put a lot of love and detail into the game. Sure, it has its bugs, but honestly, most are funny rather than annoying or game breaking. SoD has a small, but very helpful and welcoming community, especially in its Discord server. The mods they've created for the game are great to adding more immersion and detail into it, I recommend downloading some!

Ever since a friend of mine first introduced SoD to me when it was still early in EA, I haven't stopped playing. I'm so very happy to have come across this game, my AuDHD has never been happier. Please give this game a try, I promise it's worth it!

I actually enjoyed my time with this and still occasionally fire it up and generate a new city, but ultimately I think I'm more in love with the idea of this game than the execution. An infinite procedural Deus Ex has been kind of a dream game of mine for a long, and Shadows of Doubt kinda gestures at something like that, but falls way short.

I don't think the procedural generation is the main culprit here. A lot of the city gen is genuinely impressive, even with the occasional nonsensically placed furniture and the fact that the cities are kinda too small to pass for cities (even despite the "floating islands" narrative framing). The game is pretty genuinely pretty good at creating cyberpunk noir settings that don't just feel like glorified dungeons.

The murder cases themselves are the first issue. There's only a handful of distinct types, murderers lack palpable motives and there's no dramatic build up or anything like that, aside from them sometimes claiming additional victims if you don't catch them in time. You puzzle out the murderer's identity, arrest them, and everyone just goes on their merry way.

Which brings me to the main issue with Shadows of Doubt: This is nominally an immersive sim, set in a living, breathing world that keeps track of every single NPC's actions and daily schedule. But what's the point of that when nothing you do has any consequences? The game makes a lot of how you're not actually a cop, so you need to sneak past the cops (enforcers) to investigate a crime scene. Ok, fair enough, it adds some tension to the game and forces you to be stealthy. But even if you do get caught, you can usually just beeline out of the building and have the giant bounty you racked up erased in a matter of seconds. Even GTA's wanted level feels more substantial than that.

The same applies to all other NPC interactions. NPCs in this game have the memory of a housefly, and there's no way to build relationships with them, either positive or negative. You can literally beat someone up and steal all their stuff: As soon as they stop pursuing you, you can just walk up to them and talk as if nothing happened. Not that talking to them is particularly interesting, as most dialogs consist of asking someone their name and them replying that it's "none of your business".

Essentially, aside from arresting murderers, buying an apartment and stealing objects (with zero consequences), there are no ways to enact permanent change on this world or interfere with its systems in a meaningful way. You're a tourist, or even less than that, a ghost, in this simulation, which is a bizarre design choice in a genre that's all about player agency.

buggy, runs bad (and i'm playing at 1080p only with specs above recommended), case generation is a mess and hard cases are not hard but unfair (no pieces of evidence at all or unidentifiable evidence, items you're supposed to find do not exist, etc). very easy to cheese a lot of the cases. being pursued by 1 npc will make the whole city pursue you. achievements only update after drinking a cup of coffee. my very first playthrough was on the pre-generated case and city, and the pre-generated quest soft-locked itself less than an hour in.
lacks a lot of mechanics and content. a reputation system would have been great, along with new types of jobs, new identifiable information, new ways to identify information, why not being able to ask npcs about items you find in the wild, etc. devs think this is 1.0 and doesn't deserve the early access title anymore

It's a seriously good game. I have been enthralled for the last three days, trying to solve murders and arrest people. It's well worth the money.

I really, really wanted to love this, but sadly, I found myself spending more time trying to outsmart the limitations of the game than the criminals within it.

For example: a kidnapping case came over the wire. The game pinged me an address, and told me to take a look at the ransom note that the kidnapper left there. I was excited! Right away, I wanted to talk to the person who had found the ransom note. When was the last time they saw the victim? Had they spoken to the kidnapper? Did they have any leads?

The address is an apartment belonging to the missing victim (Ellie) and her wife. I arrive, but there's a roadblock already: the apartment is in an "echelon," meaning the building's security system considers me a trespasser by virtue of walking up to Ellie's front door. I knock anyway. Ellie's wife answers, but because security has already tagged me as a trespasser, Ellie’s wife is hostile. She will only say things like "what are you doing here?" and "get out." I can't get a word in edgewise.

Okay, an annoying setback, but I guess that's on me for ignoring the rules. I reload my save file. This time, I camp out in the stairwell until Ellie's wife leaves for her morning commute. No security issues this time, so I can actually have a conversation with her. My dialogue options are limited, but I try to work with what I have. "Have you seen anything strange?" I ask. She replies, "now that you mention it, I saw someone who looked angry, last night at the restaurant."

…Huh? Isn't your wife missing? Aren't you worried about her? Isn't the kidnapper going to hurt her soon, unless we act quickly? I'm trying to rescue her! Help me to help you!

Okay, I guess I'll have to do this without her help. I reload my save file. I wait for Ellie's wife to leave, break into her apartment, and read the ransom note myself. “Leave $4,000 in a briefcase in the hotel basement," says the kidnapper. Got it.

I go to the hotel and follow the kidnapper's instructions, making sure that the hotel's security cameras have a clear view of the briefcase. I park myself at a computer, watching the live camera feed, waiting for the kidnapper to take the bait. Our perp eventually shows up, grabs the briefcase, and runs off with it. Luckily the security footage is crystal clear and I can spot the kidnapper's face. Gotcha! I tab over to the footage archive, to log the recording as evidence, and scrub through every second of film available. But there's nothing there besides blank, unusable footage. What? But I just saw the kidnapper's face on the video! Plain as day!

I reload my save file. This time, I follow the kidnapper on foot. They lead me right to their hideout, an unsettling basement dungeon. I spring into action and heroically handcuff the perp. Then I find Ellie chained up in the next room. I unshackle her and breathe a sigh of relief. Case closed! Victim saved, bad guy in cuffs… all in a day's work for this hard-boiled detective!

I fill out the paperwork to close the case, but the game won't let me file it. "What's the full name of the perpetrator?" it asks. What? I mean… I dunno, they don't have ID on them, and they won't tell me their name, but does it really matter? Their fingerprints are all over this homemade prison, and I caught them red-handed trying to bludgeon an innocent person. Why can't we get Ellie to safety first, and figure out who this maniac is once they’re behind bars?

Nope, can’t close the case without the perp’s name. Okay, fine, let me ask Ellie if she recognizes her kidnapper. But not only does Ellie refuse to speak to me, the only thing she’s capable of doing is running around in circles, screaming, "don't talk to me!" …Okay, she's been through a lot, I guess she's not in the right headspace to trust a stranger. Fine, let’s at least open the door so she can go back home to her indifferent wife. Nope, she won't exit her prison. She just wants to run around and scream in it? Alright. I guess we all process trauma differently.

I reload my save file. I spam the "talk to person" button on Ellie until the game lets me, y'know, ask the kidnapping victim for her side of the story. "Do you know this person?" I ask, re: the kidnapper. Ellie can only say, "they're in the room right now,” again and again. Great observation. You’re right, pal, they are indeed in the room right now. And? Do you recognize them or not? I literally cannot rescue you until I know the name of your captor! We talk a little longer. She won't tell me her name, whether she's "seen anything suspicious," or any useful details that I can follow up on.

I reload my save file. Maybe the cops should take it from here. I call 911 from the closest payphone I can find, at a restaurant across the street. The cops show up, guns blazing — at the restaurant, where I called. They patrol around the diner like their lives depend on it. I have no means of talking to them, so I can’t alert them to the insane situation unfolding in the basement across the street. They point their service weapons at me in confusion.

I reload my save file. In a fit of brilliance (desperation), I ask the kidnapper "do you know this person?" and click on a picture of their own face. "That's me!" the kidnapper squeals with glee. The game, in its confusion, then proceeds to just… tell me the kidnapper's full name. Okay, I didn't mean to cheese this, but at least now I can file the case report. Finally. Case closed. But then the game tells me that I missed out on extra reward money, because I didn't arrest the perp. What? But… I did! I left them handcuffed in their own basement prison! One google search later: “you have to tell the perp that you're arresting them,” says the internet. Sorry, what? The game doesn't consider someone officially “arrested,” unless you say it out loud?

I reload my save file. I tell the kidnapper that they're under arrest ("for suspicion of murder," because there’s no dialogue option to say "for kidnapping," but whatever), and I turn in the case a second time. Again, the game asserts that I failed to arrest the culprit. Who was, as ever, 100% in handcuffs and incapacitated.

That's when I gave up. Because I tried to meet the game on its own terms, knowing that this title is still in development and knowing that there are a lot of moving pieces under the hood. But since the game is sophisticated enough to juggle as much as it does, I don't think it's asking too much for details like these to be tidied up.

The game wanted me to approach its mysteries like a real detective would, and I did. I tried to talk to the wife of a missing person, a key witness in my investigation, but the game prioritized barebones NPC behavior instead. When I found a way to talk to her anyway, the game didn’t feed her any dialogue that was useful (or even special). Later, I set a trap for a criminal, they sprung it, and it was all caught on video — but the game gave me no means of recovering the footage.

Even when I foiled a kidnapping, despite all these setbacks, the game then essentially said “that’s not good enough.” I couldn’t rescue the victim because she didn’t want to be rescued. I couldn’t call the case closed because I didn’t have the kidnapper’s full name. I couldn’t obtain the kidnapper’s full name because the victim wouldn’t tell me basic details about what happened to her. Worst of all, even in victory, I couldn’t get credit for making the arrest that I undeniably made.

Headaches like these happen with every case. Every step of the way, it feels like I’m negotiating with the game to even acknowledge that I’m trying to play it. It’s a real shame. There is so much promise in the game’s mechanics, and in its deeply ambitious systems of procedural generation. It’s staggering how many intricate details the game can juggle at any given moment! So overall, Shadows of Doubt can (and hopefully will) be dazzling someday, but it just isn’t there yet.

Sometimes the game feels buggy as heck. But I keep on coming back to play it. The thrill of investigation seem to keep on pulling me back. Makes one feel like a hardboiled private eye in a gritty noir piece. Extremely addicting.

Game is far from ready

I like this game in concept, but there are still am absurd number of issues that should have been worked out before they called it a full release.
Side missions are frequently broken - example, mission is locate person living in this building based on hair color and the fact they're depressed. Found the people with blond hair living in that building, tried to determine if any were on antidepressants, couldn't find that for either, attempt arrest on both, wrong both times.
Conversation system doesn't work for people who live or work outside - I needed to find a homeless resident. Every homeless person I asked about them could only tell me "they're my neighbor, we're living together right now". Another example was trying to find a street vendor, but everyone I asked about them told me they worked at their home address, even though their schedule showed that not to be the case.
I really hope this game improves, but with the state it's in I can't recommend anyone spend their money on it.

This game looked to me like a great game to spend so time on, unfortunately it is really laggy and the quests often don't spawn necessary clues. Wait a few years until this game is finished to buy it.

Collecting evidence to find culprits while ransacking every building you enter is fun! You can either play it stealthy and time your entrances, sabotage security cameras, and hide in cabinets and under beds, or you can just bash the door down, club any witnesses over the head to knock them out, take what you need and make a break for it.

Decorating your own apartment is also very nice. Finding SyncDisks to upgrade your character isn't something I expected from this game, though it makes breaking and entering even more fun! Vandalism is great- you can smash windows and voxels fly everywhere, especially if you throw a plate or snack jar.

It's an amazing, if really janky, foundation for a fantastic imsim noir detective game. The problem is the devs forgot to develop anything past the proof of concept stage.

Procedurally generated cases sound cool until you realize 70% of your cases are borderline impossible without extremely tedious trial and error "investigating" that boils down to grabbing a list of 20 names and painstakingly finding each person to find their fingerprint. Once I come across one of these cases (every time I play the game) I just want to turn the game off and do something else. I just don't have the patience to waste 30 minutes just to MAYBE find the person I'm looking for, especially not for side gigs.

It's cool for the first 5-10 hours then once the veneer wears off and the slop content pattern becomes clear it becomes extremely boring and frustrating.

Disappointing. Honestly probably one of the few games that would actually really benefit from AI implementation.

Phenomenal! Absolutely phenomenal! I feel so immersed when I play this. So many details. You have to figure out cases yourself, combined with home entry anxiety. Excellent game. Don't allow the voxel graphics set you back. Highly recommended!

I love this game so much!!!! Thank you for crafting this Gem Colepowered and Fireshine Games. I ask two things of you: 1. Internal polish and bug fixes that prevent impossible events from occuring. 2. More Scripted Cases, maybe even a dlc or two?? I would happily pay another 15 bucks if you granted more world generation and crafted cases.

Pretty fun and relaxing game if you are able to maintain stealth. There is a lot to learn and interact with! Once you lose stealth the game becomes a hectic scramble to escape and survive. Of course you can fight your way out of situations, but you will gain notoriety and lose potential leads if you return to where the slaughter took place.

Game is nothing like I expected. Super let down.

if you can excuse the obvious jank and sometimes annoying glitches you will have a technically infinite playground of investigating murders. In reality, you will likely see most the game has to offer after 20-25 hours and it will just be a somewhat different version of what youve experienced from then on, it lacks variety with only like 3 crimes, murder, kidnapping and like different flavor murder with a sniper. They say they will update and fix the game but im not sure if that will completely cover the complaints. Get it on discount and you can have quite some fun fucking around and robbing people (its the best moneymaker trust me).

My biggest other problem is the pop-in for objects and such which can be really annoying for walking around, seems its not the best optimized, i mean my laptop aint the best and i need to run a lower res so i dont lag (but with the voxels its really not that bad) but it still wont run smoothly even on much lower settings, also theres really not that many graphics setting to tune to maybe make it better.

You can certainly have quite a bit of fun with this, just dont expect too much and do not expect it to always work as intended.

Only changing this review when the devs wake up and make the game as great as it can be and fulfill the promises made to the community

Another early access game in a rough state with a great hook to draw in players and promises of more to come, only to be rushed out to release and abandoned. As cool as this game looks, I can promise you that the allure will wear off very quickly. Buyer beware.

I only recommend this because of the unique game-play it offers. Definitely pick it up once it’s on sale because even with the game officially reaching a 1.0 release I do not feel the state of the game reflects this. First off performance is all over the place, frame drops are common with the biggest culprits being smoke, rain, and the hotel building. Also be aware you will also face many bugs ranging from minor to annoying. For example if you try to defend yourself from getting robbed and a bystander sees you attack the robber somehow the bystander will aggro onto you. With this being the state of the full release I can’t shake the feeling that this was rushed out of early access.

However if this game peaks your interest don’t let this deter you from giving this game a try. The best moments of the game by far are your first few hours as you learn the ropes and discover the tools of the trade. You will absolutely get into shenanigans such as breaking into an apartment and knocking out the residents only to realize ‘whoops wrong room.’ You will get caught sneaking around the crime scene all because you started smelling like crap from searching the trash. Your first few cases will rock you to your core and you’ll develop virtual impostor syndrome. And after hours of struggling on your first case, that hit of satisfaction when you finally do catch the killer really does feel earned.

But once you solve your 3rd or 4th case the game-play cracks begin to show. The most obvious being the cases get repetitive because there are only a handful of types in the game. The only difference between cases is the motive and once you have solved enough of a certain case, knowing how to find the killer becomes predictable. Killers don’t hide their tracks so you don’t often need to change your approach once you know the most efficient ways of tracking down the killer. The only curve ball the games does have is the sniper case which throws a wrench in your routine and forces you to change your approach. Suddenly there is no calling card and you’re going to have to work harder to get a fingerprint. Sadly with the 1.0 release there is not much case variety and after completing my first world (retiring to the fields) I felt like I have seen everything on offer. I do hope mods can someday bring some much needed variety.

It's fun for a couple of playthroughs. Devs did the whole early access thing where they released what they had and pushed further updates off to a sequel that we'll have to pay for again. If you're not bothered by that you'll find a good 20 or 30 hours of gameplay here. Putting together everything to solve your first couple of cases is IMMENSELY satisfying, but it becomes formulaic.

So, tentative recommend. Kinda meh on the devs and their choices, but that feeling of putting all your evidence together and submitting it that first few times was one of my favorite gaming moments in 2024.

Great game!
Or better to say - great idea
Cause even now it's unfortunately still buggy as hell
You literally can't finish cases cause of bugs.
"Steal teh envelope with ecret docs" - done "Throw it away into the sea" - done. Quest still says " THROW IT INTO THE SEA". After some googling - "Known issue, game does not register when you throw the envelope", Nice

"Find a person and take a picture" - spending lots of time looking for the person like a good stalker. Taking picture "picture taken". Leaving the building "Take a picture!". And not registering like 5 of my pictures.

But the game itself is fantastic. Might be a bit confusing and challenging at the beginning, but give yourself some time to understand it. Can't recommend it atm, though. Cause the bug dencity (and serious bug, not like flying-coffee-cup glitches, which are also present here) ruined all the experience for me
Waiting for fixews, dear devs!

It's a fun game with a lot of potential that never made it out of early access. The latest patch note about the game essentially being finished and them rather putting new features left me with a "Wait, that's it?" kind of feeling. I expected a solid 2025 roadmap with a lot more big features and reworks to come and possibly 2026 as well depending on what they would manage to add.

Right now it's a highly unfinished product. It can be fun, but I'd wait for a price atleast around 10$.

I think, for me, the undertone of the game expressed a rich and provocative gameplay experience. I was genuinely impressed by the seedy noir vibe brushed over pixelized graphics. It felt something like peering over a precipice into a dark world of possibilities. But after playing for a while and looking past the aesthetics, I found a set of simple, albeit intriguing, "proof of concepts" cobbled together. It struck me as a great framework for something incredible, so I decided to shelf it for a while, giving it time to fill out and mature.

After about six months, I returned, expecting the gameplay mechanics to have gelled into something resembling emergent gameplay. Instead, I was surprised to find that early access had ended, and 1.0 was being celebrated—at least by the development team. I knew it hadn’t been enough time. Scouring the patch notes, I realized there were nowhere near enough changes to the fundamentals. Instead, I mostly saw "FIXED" statements repeated. The game was still far from what the designer—clearly a creative visionary—had envisioned.

I work in software design, so I recognize the kind of "IT lingo" used to make it sound like a lot is being done when, in reality, not much is. Unfortunately, the last dev update had that flavor, especially the line about "...solving around -15 issues per patch." An "issue" could mean anything—it could be as trivial as a misspelled word in some flavor text. Furthermore, when a developer talks about how adding big things would break the core systems, it’s essentially an admission that the code has become difficult to modify due to poor structural organization. This is, sadly, a common problem.

I know a lot of gamers will disagree with me, and that’s their right. Some evaluate a game’s success with a straightforward formula: does the amount of entertainment you received outweigh the money you spent? If yes, then shut up and be grateful. But I don’t see it like that. For me, when a project starts off artistically beautiful and has the potential to become groundbreaking, it’s disappointing when it falls short. That’s the basis on which a project should be judged—not whether I got my money’s worth, but whether the project achieved what it set out to do. I’d feel the same way even if I’d paid nothing for the game.

I’m not directing criticism at the developers personally, because I have no idea if the failure was due to negligence. They may have run up against a wall after doing their absolute best. However, the project still ultimately failed to live up to its potential. The developers probably feel this disparity even more than the gamers.

All this is to say, I’m sad to see it not become what it should have. It’s a good game, but it won’t leave the mark on gaming history that I thought it would.

The Dev said in their recent, cryptic devpost that they won't be adding any major content to this game anymore.

I love this game and it has insane potential, but it seems like the Dev won't be able to realize it.

Sadly way too unfinished and broken to be enjoyable.

Do i recommend this game? Yes*.

I like analogies, so let's say games are sandwiches. Some games, like Journey or To the Moon, offer a single specific type of sandwich, but it's a really good type of sandwich. Games like Minecraft or The Sims have a buffet of options, but you've got to put the sandwich together yourself. Shadows of Doubt is closer to the buffet option, but it's got a very limited selection of ingredients. You can make some good sandwiches here, if you like the ingredients on offer, but if you don't you're probably going to walk away pretty hungry.

It's pretty repetitive, and none of the mechanics go particularly deep. If you like crafting your own story, and the repetition and the simplicity of the gameplay don't impinge on your enjoyment, it's a solid choice, though i might recommend waiting for a sale. If you're looking for a detective game to sink your teeth into, this is probably a bad fit for you.

I'm having fun, but i'm also hoping some good modders will come along and add some substance to the setting. This could very easily be the kind of game that's a ton of fun with mods, and not really worth playing without.

Quick Review for the Steam Awards

This game is much more than just an excellent detective game, it's actually sort of a survival game, you need to drink, eat and you are able to acquire apartments and climb your way out of the low city while doing your detective work.

Now, the main game is also stellar, there is no hand holding, it rewards creativity, there's multiple ways of finding your objectives and the player has a lot of agency. It's a must buy.

I like game. Me catch the criminal. Needs more work but me like.

It's an interesting concept for a game. It's fun to explore possibilities.
But expectations of it being someone's dream project crashed into an early "full" release.
Don't expect too much out of this one.

I tried so hard to like this game. The idea was so cool, and plenty of people all over the internet have heaped praise onto it. I've seen so many positive reviews. Originally, I tried an early access version of the game, and wasn't impressed, but I was comfortable chalking that up to the fact that the game wasn't finished. The game is now in full release, and yet the same underlying design flaws keep me from really being able to love, or even like this game.

There are always those games where your friends say "oh, the good part comes after X hours". All of the hours I've spent playing this game were spent waiting for the good part, trying so hard to make progress, and yet floating along finding myself utterly unfulfilled. I'm sure it's very rewarding to solve a case all on your own, but it takes far too long without enough incremental dopamine hits along the way for my taste. I understand not holding the player's hand, but the buggy, procedurally-generated nature of this game means you'll always be wondering if the game simply screwed something up.

Just a really big disappointment all around.

After tirelessly tracking down a killer and planning to arrest them when they got home, they just went and killed another person, I should've stopped em, RIP random person :( you'll always be missed just not by me

A lot of people complain the game isn't done and are angry it got published which is fair, but for the price the amount of time you can spend in this game enjoying it is 100% worth it

Gameplay is fun but after a while you start to notice that random elements are quite repeating itself.

I've yet to experience any of the game-breaking bugs other reviews mention. However, I will say that the game's optimization could use a lot of work. Otherwise, it's a good way to pass the time.

I want to recommend this game. I really do. The concept is really good. It's just that the execution is horrible.

The good:
a proc-gen detective game. Could be lots of replayability.

The bad:
nullifying the good, there's no replayability if crap doesn't work.
too many bugs. key pieces of evidence just not showing up, i.e:
on the tutorial case, it tells you to search the apartment for a photo ID, but there is nothing in the whole apartment.
"steal the envelope" job: find the person, search them, search their apt, job, all known contacts, never find anything.
etc etc.
esp recently, the map doesn't load properly (no building, just ghost doors hovering in nothingness.
the citizen conversations are so... something... that it rarely does any good to talk to them unless you pretty much already know the answers. Like everyone you talk to has seen the person you're asking about in different places, so no one's info is useful any more.
the algorithms are wonky. Why is a tall heavy male wearing size 7 high heels?

The ugly:
maybe just my personal preference, but the voxel art is ugly. Doesn't feel like it has any usefulness or utility so becomes only a novelty. I'm not against voxels... I get their use in minecraft, etc. But having a weird 3d voxel person that's not simple enough to be a minecraft style series of blocks but not detailed enough to have recognizable features just gets in the way if identifying potential targets without having to drill down into evidence details. "I'm staring right at her/him with long-but-maybe-short hair that's maybe-grey-maybe-blond... so I have to inspect them and pull up an evidence sheet to be sure." Immersion-breaking at best.

This is a negative review I really hate to write, because the developers were so close to greatness. But a dropped pass is still 0 yards no matter how awesome the play was designed to be.

Despite the ton of bugs and optimization issues, the game is very refreshing and fun. The real problem is it's shallowness, but with enough time the devs could fix that and more, considering the game's crazy potential.

Instead they just dropped the game.

Idea is great. There's some excellent work, but it lacks polish. And that's the issue. The 1.0 isn't what it should be, and that's a shame

I love the gameplay of this game so much that I can work through all of the other issues, of which their are a lot.

The good:
The gameplay - automated cases generated throughout the city with interesting cases that can only be solved by intense old-school sleuthing.

The bad:
Super buggy - the first time I played I fell through the floor and couldn't get out of the wall. Doesn't usually crash on me, but I often glitch through stuff even now.

The art takes some getting used to - it's a choice, that's for sure.

Solving cases - depending on the clue that's left and how familiar you are with the city, it can be very hard to solve certain cases. I've absolutely rage quit and come back a week later to solve it.

Despite all of those issues I do recommend it. There is not a single other game like this out right now. If you love solving mysteries I think you'll love it as much as I do.

This game had so much potential, was really excited to see it develop. But I echo all the other reviews, this is underbaked, and with no new roadmap from the developers, this feels like a game that could've been really industry changing, but alas has been left to the wayside. I want to emphasise there is a really spectacular game here, and real fun is to be had, it just wasn't ready for 1.0

This game is the epitome of great concept, horrible execution. The NPC's make up the whole world, you'd think the devs would spend a lot of time to make them memorable and unique. You can literally stare at them through their open front door... that YOU opened. They instantly forget who you are even after finding you in their home and shooting and you. People always talk about buggy releases but really, it is impossible to avoid all the popping in of objects, rooms not loading even if you are in the same apartment. And fine all that I will accept, but when mission objects don't even spawn or when, in my scenario, I pick up the secret document and it doesn't check it off the list, seemingly being the wrong secret document? That is when I really start to lose faith in this game. And yes, like others have said, it runs like ass and you can see all the shit the devs tried to do to bandaid fix it.