Said gadgets serve a practical use, as you’re encouraged to hack security cameras that may otherwise trigger alarms, and there’s a handheld scanner that can read fingerprints. You can spend money on various things in the world gadgets, upgrades, and even your own apartment.” “The amount depends on which questions you’ve answered correctly and the difficulty of the case. “You earn money from cases,” Jefferies says. Despite this, ColePowered has found ways to offer guidance and a sense of progression. Shadows of Doubt makes a point of guiding you through its voxelated city in the early hours with a scripted section that explains the mechanics, but after that you’re off the leash. It makes you laugh when you realise how bad a detective you are, or feel accomplished if you’re actually effective!”Ĭole acknowledges that with freedom comes a greater risk of people becoming frustrated or lost. It makes you feel like a detective rather than playing along as one. There’s a lot that’s exciting about that freedom. “There’s a moment where you arrive at a crime scene and realise that the game isn’t pushing you towards any clues or anything it’s truly up to you to find what’s there and decide when you’re done. “The biggest appeal is complete player agency,” continues Jefferies. Plus, with every player’s set of clues and killer identity always being different, no online walkthrough or strategy guide will help. Not every piece of information or item you find will be useful for tracking down the killer, but it all adds to the feeling that you’re chasing leads on your own terms instead of being led along.
Tracking down the killer in Shadows of Doubt works much as you’d expect, via the gathering of evidence, interviewing strangers for hints, and using stealth tactics to break into key areas. “Pivoting to that early in the project gave it a stronger direction, and made sure the simulation was front and centre to the experience,” says Jefferies.
#Shadows of doubt even serial#
“The core of the concept was always the living world let’s simulate this really cool little city and have things play out according to the AI by having one of them be a serial killer, then it’s your job as player to react to what it throws at you.”Ĭole and his team quickly discovered, however, that the top-down view divorced you from a lot of the simulated goings-on, and so opted for a first-person perspective to let players live among the citizens of the world itself. “ Shadows actually started life as a top-down detective management game,” explains lead developer Cole Jefferies.
#Shadows of doubt even how to#
The studio already perfected the art of cityscape building (of a sorts) in 2015’s Concrete Jungle, but giving players a whole randomised world to roam comes with a more complex level of design challenges – not least how to present it. Creating a simulated sci-fi noir city – especially one populated by NPCs with their own routines, explorable apartment blocks, and other secrets – is a tall task, and it’s one ColePowered has been hard at work on for almost seven years now.
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