Shadows of Doubt
Shadows of Doubt V 33.17 Patch Notes.
- Fixed: Movement axis miscalculation resulting in slow movement with high fps
- Fixed: Error with pinning surveillance shot to your case board that could cause problems on loading in the game
- Fixed: Changed controller detection to trigger on ‘button up’ to avoid input methods with buttons that constantly register as ‘down’
- Fixed: If you used the ‘move all items to storage’ button when editing your apartment, it would destroy air vents, leaving them impossible to navigate
- Fixed: An error that made the game not able to save properly in rare scenarios
- Fixed: An error that made cancelled objectives not be able to reappear/reactivate, resulting in some problems handing-in cases
- Fixed: An error that resulting in a faulty load of a save game (possibly also resulting in getting stuck in décor mode)
- Fixed: Error caused when the game tried to exit the placement of furniture if the inventory was full
- Fixed: You had to press the menu button twice to return to the game from the main menu
- Fixed: Colliders were not properly disabled on placement of some décor items, resulting in glitchy physics interactions with the player
- Fixed: The player could not place a storage box in décor mode properly
- Fixed: Re-rendered font atlases to capture missing characters
- Fixed: Microwave door sound
- Tweaks made to AI: Some citizens were fleeing slightly too readily (including enforcers)
- Improved 35mm camera sounds
- Improved sync disk install complete sound
Shadows of Doubt V 33.16 Patch Notes.
- Fixed: Passing time while on a bench/chair could result in the player clipping through the rear wall when they got up.
- Fixed: The Player could cancel 'world interactions' on things they shouldn't (buying windows, city directory, etc.) resulting in being able to access them at any time.
- Fixed: If the player used the inspect button in the inventory panel, the player could no longer zoom in the case board or map.
- Fixed: In the call logs display, it was possible for one entry to be covered up by another.
- Fixed: Scrolling in the call logs display would not work as intended.
- Fixed: Call logs not displaying calls correctly, or duplicating them.
- Fixed: The tooltips for navigating floors in the map.
- Fixed: Many shop items used when decorating were spawned upside down and priced strangely.
- Fixed: In the Dead of Night a bug that caused the game to not load in properly if you searched the phone router after the note writer is killed.
- Fixed: The player was able to walk out of their apartment with the décor edit mode window still open and edit other locations.
- Improvements to map and case board zooming behaviour
- Removed automatic pausing of the game.
33.15
- Fixed: Error in loading game after you had upgraded your inventory
- Fixed: You would drop items in upgraded additional inventory slots after loading a game
- Fixed: Problems with disappearing/invisible custom string links
- Fixed: Inconsistent movement speed relative to performance (movement should also be smoother)
- Fixed: Disposing of things with the ‘model citizen’ upgrade sync disk was broken and caused all trash items to break
- Fixed: It was possible to take fall damage and break a leg while navigating a vent
- Fixed: Sometimes the player could not ask the staff about a side job (especially at City Hall)
- Fixed: Made blind hitboxes smaller in case they block other pieces of evidence from being interacted with
- Fixed: Rare occurrence where a hidden briefcase didn’t load in visually
- Fixed: Sometimes accessing the ‘Security’ or ‘Surveillance’ app (or in some places taking a photo) could cause a freeze/crash
- Fixed: Telephone numbers could not be input from text links properly
An incredible 48 hours - thank you, detectives!
We hope you’re enjoying your time in the city, and hopefully you’ve already managed to bring some criminals to justice. Since launch we’ve been reading all of your comments, taking on board your feedback, and are already hard at work on investigating some of the most common issues.
We're rolling out our latest patch today to deal with some of the issues some of you have been experiencing since launch, including issues related to movement speed, the inventory, saves and air vents. We'll have the full patch notes live today, so please do take a look at what's been fixed.
I would love for you to share any feedback you have on the Steam forums or over on our Discord, and thank you again for playing the game. This is just the beginning of the journey for Shadows of Doubt, and I’m really excited to share more details on the upcoming content soon. If you haven’t already, please do check out the roadmap for some information on what to expect during Early Access, and happy sleuthing!
Shadows of Doubt Available Now!
This is an early access release so I won’t speak as if this is the end of the journey. We’re expecting bugs but I’ve managed to cover a decent amount of ground this last week in regards to more fixes; you can see an updated changelog here if you want to see specifics.
With this in mind, we would absolutely love for you to go and leave a Steam review for Shadows of Doubt! Steam reviews really influencer how far and wide a game goes, and could impact on how much we are able to achieve during the Early Access run for Shadows of Doubt, so please do remember to leave one!
We’re also really keen on listening to your feedback and improving the game over the course of early access. In the spirit of that I’m pleased to share with you our planned roadmap!
We’re excited to be adding new content and improvements to the game, and the current plan is a six month early access period consisting of three major content updates spread out at roughly one every two months. The first will be themed ‘Cheats & Liars’ and be with you over the summer. I’ll share more news about that closer the time, but for now the priority is the launch. Have fun!
Follow the Twitter to stay up to date with everything Shadows of Doubt and join the Discord to get involved with the community and give feedback
Shadows of Doubt DevBlog #33: Launch Hype and What to Expect
Before that day arrives, for the sake of clarity with our awesome community, as well as prospective players who may be reading this, I want to give an overview on exactly what you can expect from this initial version.
Those of you who played the demo over NextFest, or watched others stream it should have a pretty good idea already: It's an open-world detective game that drops you into a living, breathing city. Player agency is the name of the game; you can investigate cases how you see fit using a variety of different avenues. The game features an initial starting case that is more scripted than the rest of the game to teach you the fundamentals; the length of which can range from about an hour to a couple of hours, and from there it pretty much lets you loose in the city.
Procedurally generated murders will happen, and you have the opportunity to track down the killers for rewards, or you can take on side cases that will ramp up in difficulty over time... Or you don't have to do any of that; you can go around breaking into people's apartments and generally being a bit of a menace if you so choose!
There's a variety of player upgrades available; these will ask you to make a decision on how best to spec your player. You can also purchase an apartment and customize it to how you see fit with dozens and dozens of options. The ultimate aim of the game is retirement from the city, and you can do this by earning enough social credit from jobs.
Lots of the above is tied to the city you play in, and this can be generated before you start. Each city will feature different citizens and locations, so all of the cases above (including the introductory case) will change based on this. The density of Shadows of Doubt's cities and creating living worlds populated by citizens each with their own lives and routines has always been our ambition. One crucial difference between this and your typical open-world game, for example, is that every single room is explorable. See a light on in a skyscraper? That means you can go there and somebody is home.
Your end goal for each city playthrough will always be to become a renowned private detective and retire, but because Shadows of Doubt is an open-world, sandbox game, it's hard to put a figure on what you should expect from that in terms of playtime. In playtests, we have found some players becoming engrossed in the game world and playing a city for dozens of hours, while others can hit their retirement after around 10 hours. The playtime is ultimately driven by each individual - and of course, you always have the option to start again in a completely new city. To clarify, please don't expect multiple questlines and story arcs that you might find in AAA open-world RPGs. This is an immersive sim driven by AI and systems, and the overall playtime is ultimately driven by your decisions and engagement with the game world.
Getting to discover and explore your unique city, before generating a new one and starting afresh with different citizens, layouts and cases (and if you'd like to experiment with new playstyles - different detective builds as well) is important to the overall experience, and we really hope you'll want to play through again with different cities.
There has been some good progress on squishing bugs, (in fact you can read the change log for the game since the NextFest demo right here). Even so, it's worth being upfront with the fact that this is an early access launch, and as detailed in the previous dev blog we are expecting bugs and various bits and bobs to need some TLC. You'll hear more about what new content you can expect pretty soon also; but I can tell you it's going to be a combination of improvements and brand-new stuff.
We also have a bit to go in getting the game’s performance running to the standard that we would like for the final release; I'd recommend at least a GTX 1060 for 1080p at present. Screen resolution in particular is a big performance factor in the game's current state. Performance optimisations are a particular focus for us once the early access period begins, so we hope to bring you more news there soon.
As with any early access title, if you're truly not okay with potentially experiencing the above, I would advise waiting until our '1.0', ie non-early access launch. That said, we're very eager to improve the game with feedback from the folks who do.
I think that about sums it up, and gives a good idea on what you can expect on Monday. See you on the other side detectives!
Discord
Shadows of Doubt is Part of London Games Festival Steam Event
London is one of the most diverse spaces for games and interactive entertainment in the UK, and the London Games Festival is one of the biggest celebrations of video games of the year. Fireshine Games, is proud to be hosting the London Games Festival Steam Event this year, which is running from today until the 9th of April.
There are so many incredible games being developed in or published by studios in London, and we are very happy to be part of this exciting festival, celebrating the successes of our industry peers! We hope you take advantage of discounts available and browse the other upcoming games as well!
You can browse the event here: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/FireshineGames/sale/londongamesfest2023
Twitter: https://twitter.com/detectivesim
Discord: https://discord.gg/shadows
Shadows of Doubt DevBlog #32: Release Date Announce and Early Access Thinking
Yes, as some of you have suspected by now (pun intended), we’re going to be releasing the game via Steam Early Access on… April 24th!
I can’t believe I finally get to say it! Shadows of Doubt will be in your hands in just a few short weeks, and I couldn’t be more excited for everyone to step into the role of detective and explore the city streets very soon.
But of course, elephant in the room, why Early Access? As many of you know, Shadows of Doubt has been in development for many years, and so we didn’t take the decision to launch into Early Access lightly. Being open and transparent, we’ve had a lot of serious discussions about how and when to launch the game. The game is in a very advanced state of development - while there are plans for new content and further optimisations, the game is functionally complete with a full suite of features, cases, content and a complete Sandbox Mode, beyond what you may usually expect from an Early Access title. Both myself and the publisher are confident in the overall quality, breadth of content and playability of Shadows of Doubt’s Early Access release.
However, there are some key things that launching in Early Access allows for, not least of which being more content. It was always a goal of mine to develop post-release content for the game, but launching into Early Access means I can bring that new content directly into the pre-1.0 roadmap, meaning there’ll now be even more for players to discover in the initial base game when the full version launches (and Early Access players will of course get this content for free as it’s added to the game). As a bonus, it also means that we get more critical and constructive feedback from players who are passionate about the game during active development, which is really useful for further improving the overall experience.
Secondly, it helps me respond to bugs and unusual edge case issues that, given the massive scope of the game and nature of its systems, I fully expect to be unearthed for the first time at launch. Speak to any developer and they will always tell you that a game is never finished, but with the breadth and (often unpredictable!) nature of Shadows of Doubt’s layers of AI, it’s particularly true. To speak openly and honestly with you, it makes me so much more comfortable knowing that I’ll be able to identify any of these unusual issues and react to them during Early Access, rather than have players discover them in what is considered to be a ‘final’ release. I hope that makes sense.
Also for the purpose of expectations, I wanted to let you know that the game doesn’t currently feature a story thread of missions beyond those featured in the demo. The purpose of ‘The Dead of Night’ case you may have played in the demo is to teach the player the mechanics within a scripted mission, before letting them off the leash for the game’s core immersive, non-scripted, sandbox experience. Early on into development, we found that asking AI citizens to behave nicely with heavily-scripted sequences did not benefit the overall game, especially when all they really want to do is live out their lives dynamically (no matter how long they ultimately lived for…), and leaning more heavily into a sandbox experience driven by the AI itself is where the game shines. That said, there may be an opportunity to expand on more bespoke narrative-based missions during the course of the Early Access roadmap, depending on your feedback. There is still progression, of course - over the course of the game you’ll take on new cases to earn cash, find new gadgets and equipment, customise your apartment, and unlock new upgrades for your character to become a better detective. And I’d definitely encourage you to experiment with different cities - the Early Access release lets you generate bigger cities than the demo allowed, and they really can make a difference to how you approach situations, depending on what you get!
Shadows of Doubt really has been a dream project of mine to make, and it’s my goal to make it the best possible game it can be for everyone who plays it. Stay tuned for more info about our Early Access updates that we’re currently working towards and, when the game launches next month, we’d love to invite you to share ideas of what you’d like to see too.
So, April 24th! I can’t wait, and if you haven’t already, please do consider wishlisting the game to be notified the moment it’s available! It really does help small developers like us. I’ve also set up a poll to find out the kind of things folks are most excited about during Early Access (see below). You can select up to 3 answers, and your choices could help us prioritise if there’s something that particularly resonates.
https://strawpoll.com/polls/ajnEOO96NZW
Thank you again, detectives! See you again soon.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/detectivesim
Discord: https://discord.gg/shadows
Thank you all for playing the demo again!
Another great investigation has now concluded. We hope you had a great time sleuthing the streets of Shadows of Doubt but don't worry, your services will be needed again soon I am sure!
Thanks again for all the feedback and bug reports as it all helps us shape the game into the best it can be!
Keep your eyes peeled for more news soon about our launch plans...
For more news on Shadows of Doubt keep an eye on our Twitter: @detectivesim
Then for more chat and to give feedback on the game please do join our Discord: https://discord.gg/shadows
The Shadows of Doubt Demo is Coming Back!
We are bringing back the Shadows of Doubt demo for a week starting tomorrow at 5pm GMT and the event for the top Next Fest games should kick off at 7pm GMT!
We are hugely proud to be amongst the most popular games of Next Fest and it is a great opportunity for us to bring the demo back for you all to enjoy again!
So to be clear the demo will be available to play again from the 10th of March at 5pm GMT to the 17th of March at 5pm GMT!
It will be a very similar build to the Next Fest demo with some bug fixes and other issues fixed but we will still have the 90 minute timer in-game!
We're really pleased with the enthusiasm shown for the game and we've collected a huge amount of useful feedback from the recent playtests - which we are continuing to implement as development continues. We'll have more news for you in the not-too-distant future!
Good luck out there detectives!
For more news on Shadows of Doubt keep an eye on our Twitter: @detectivesim
Then for more chat and to give feedback on the game please do join our Discord: https://discord.gg/shadows