Shadows of Doubt

In theory this is a great game - in theory.

 

The theory is that you have a consistent, closed-off city with a limited number of citizens, who all have consistent randomly generated biographies, schedules, partners and so on. In this world, randomly generated crimes happen. You can solve those by finding proof like finger prints or incriminating, letters, objects and so on.

 

In practice, however, this doesn't work quite right. First: murders are exceedingly rare and only happen every few hours of gameplay - if at all. In my 18 hours of gameplay I had three.

So most of the time you are doing minor detective work: Exposing cheating spouses, getting revenge on people, sabotage, vandalism. You can also help people finding lost items, but I never found a single one and it's no fun.

 

The problem is, that the "random" in "randomly generated" doesn't quit work. After you have played some missions - let's say two - you'll notice distinct patterns. Like everyone having a note with their computer password in their nightstand. Or that people in most cases are connected through their work places. These patterns ruin the immerson and make many tasks rather mundane. On the other hand, you spend a lot of time waiting around for people to walk somewhere.

 

For example: The first murder case I sloved by collecting many clues at the crime scene, analyzing the victims e-mail conversation, asking neighbours about what they saw, comparing their descriptions of a possible suspect with people that met with the victim and so, and so on

The second murder I solved by finding the unknown finger prints at the crime scene and breaking into the victim's work site to find out which of her collegues did it.

 

It also becomes clear that clues aren't "generated" by the crime taking place, but they are placed at key points by the algorythm. You won't ever find a unfaithful husband in his mistress' apartment. You can't follow them to see who they meet up with. A murderer was never really at the victims apartment and has no need for an alibi either. Mailboxes seem to have random fingerprints of the inhabitants of an apartment complex on them.

 

The problem is that you notice all this all the time - because you are litterally looking for these things. The game constantly breaks the immersion of you solving a "real" crime by making you hunt for carefully placed breadcrumbs. There are different ways of solving each case, but only because of redundant clues being placed. If you get too creative and try to avoid the patterns, you quickly hit a wall.

 

All in all, it's a great concept of a game, but it does not work.