Shadows of Doubt - detective stealth game set in "fully simulated" sci-fi city - now available on Early Access

[Harthwain]

Let's talk about this alleged lack of rules. Turns out there are a million rules in place you can use to track down suspects, but that's not enough for you. You can already match footprints at a crime scene to a suspect's shoes in their home or on their feet, but that's not enough for you.

You're missing the point. If high heels can belong to a man just as well as to a woman (because apparently the game can't differentiate between genders/sexual orientations), then you could just as well turn all shoes in the game into regular one-size-fit-all brown shoes, since it is apparently pointless to have distinctions between high heels and regular shoes (which is something you wouldn't normally expect from a game that's supposed to be about detective work)?

 

[Zombra]

you could turn all shoes in the game into regular one-size-fit-all brown shoes

Yes, you could. (Well, actually no. Shoe size matters in the game.) But even if you could, so what?

Are you going to suggest next that there should only be one wall texture, because all those other wall textures are too confusing?

 

[Gerrard]

This is a completely irrelevant spergout because if you've entered the home already you can just find the documents that will have the identity, unless that's something that was changed.

 

[Harthwain]

you could turn all shoes in the game into regular brown shoes

Yes, you could. So what?

There is a reason why certain things have meaning. If you remove that, you remove their reason for being. By doing that you are also removing a large part of deduction associated with it. It's a bad thing for a detective game. The problem isn't even in having non-binary as an option (having twists could be beneficial from time to time), but that it completely wrecks the entire structure of the game by not being a rare exemption from the rules. Because it turns out there are no rules so it becomes a procedurally generated mess instead.

 

[JarlFrank]

Oh, so it's no longer about the setting now you've been debunked? OK cool, let's forget about the setting.

Show me one classic noir (novel, film, short story) written before the year 2000 that contains a single "non-binary" character.

I'm waiting.

 

[Zombra]

Oh, so it's no longer about the setting now you've been debunked? OK cool, let's forget about the setting.

Show me one classic noir (novel, film, short story) written before the year 2000 that contains a single "non-binary" character.
I'm waiting.

Oh, so now it's about the setting again? You said the point was the gameplay. Make up your mind.

 

[JarlFrank]

Perhaps it's about both, but it's no use arguing with you because you just keep deflecting.

 

[Lemming42]

Show me one classic noir (novel, film, short story) written before the year 2000 that contains a single "non-binary" character.

I'm waiting.

There are obviously none because the specific subculture didn't exist until recently*, but I don't think this is that big a deal - the game isn't beholden to any previous works of fiction. The dev created the setting, the dev chose to include it, so it inherently "belongs" in the setting, just as much as neon signs and high-rise apartment blocks do. Surely you don't judge a work of fiction by how well it adheres to things that already exist.

It'll probably look a bit embarrassing and old-fashioned/regressive in a decade or two when the cultural mood changes and the next generation of young people look back at their parents' generation with disdain and perceive the whole NB concept as being born of sexism or paradoxical adherence to gender roles or discomfort with organic gender nonconformity or whatever, but it's just a sign of the times and hardly something worth getting too worked up over. If it bothers you that much, just imagine that "non-binary" is actually real in this setting and that like a fifth of the population is somehow biologically hermaphroditic or something.

I think there's crossed wires in this conversation anyway; people are sort of fusing two separate criticisms - one that the game includes a superficial reference to a contemporary cultural label (which I don't think matters at all), and a much weightier criticism that the procgen casts such a wide net and treats all NPCs in such a similar way that it results in the game not including any of the character-specific clues you'd find in most detective and noir stories.

*gender nonconforming characters obviously existed though, if that's what you mean

 

[Zombra]

Perhaps it's about both, but it's no use arguing with you because you just keep deflecting.

lol, look who's talking.

If I go to the effort to show you an androgynous character from a 20th century novel, you'll just say it's "not classic enough" or "well that's not the point".

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

Oh for fuck's sake, this game has massive potential and I love playing as a detective and figuring out cases, but it has sadly been infected with the woke virus.

Non-binary is an option in character creation, and a few NPCs can have that made-up gender too. This muddies up your detective work and absolutely doesn't fit into the setting, which is 1990s tech combined with classic noir aesthetics. Figuring out who suspects are by their appearance is part of the gameplay, that includes appearance and clothing.

When it comes to clothing... I found the apartment of a culprit with two pairs of high heels in there. Scanned the fingerprints on both, they belong to different people. I guess she's a lesbian living with another woman then? Or a female friend is currently visiting and took her shoes off?
Haha no, one of the pairs belonged to her husband. Items of clothing say nothing about the owner's sex. Men can have high heels, women can have boots. This game has items of clothing that are clearly gender-coded in the real world, but aren't in the game. This is supposed to be a detective game where you gather clues in order to find out the identity of people you investigate. Muddying things up like that is actively detrimental to the core fucking gameplay.

I haven't seen it in my game yet but someone on the Steam forum says that even items like birth control pills aren't exclusively owned by women, lol. What a joke. Why have an item like this, that can give you clues about the character's identity, not actually give you clues about the character's identity?

It's a fun game overall but this really sours the experience.

Have you never heard of crossdressing before? In regards to the high heels thing anyway.

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

Oh, so it's no longer about the setting now you've been debunked? OK cool, let's forget about the setting.

Show me one classic noir (novel, film, short story) written before the year 2000 that contains a single "non-binary" character.

I'm waiting.

Cthulhu in some noir cthulhu mythos novel.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

There is a reason why certain things have meaning. If you remove that, you remove their reason for being. By doing that you are also removing a large part of deduction associated with it. It's a bad thing for a detective game.

fake clues/red herrings.

 

[Harthwain]

Are you going to suggest next that there should only be one wall texture, because all those other wall textures are too confusing?

That's called false equivalence fallacy. Something different is happening: you have two different wall textures, but their purpose is cosmetic rather than gameplay-relevant (let's say one is a normal wall, the other is a "cracked" wall showing structural weakness you can break through to open a path or find some hidden stash of loot).

fake clues/red herrings.

I mentioned that:

The problem isn't even in having non-binary as an option (having twists could be beneficial from time to time), but that it completely wrecks the entire structure of the game by not being a rare exemption from the rules.

 

[Zombra]

That's called false equivalence fallacy. Something different is happening: you have two different wall textures, but their purpose is cosmetic rather than gameplay-relevant (let's say one is a normal wall, the other is a "cracked" wall showing structural weakness you can break through to open a path or find some hidden stash of loot).

Eh, it's really not. Walls are a thing in the game, and walls have a substantial impact on gameplay, and some walls look different from others even though they are mechanically indistinguishable. Shoes are a thing in the game, and shoes have a substantial impact on gameplay, and some shoes look different from others even though they are mechanically indistinguishable. Sure, you can say it would be nice if shoes had greater mechanical variety - and you can say the same thing about walls. (What if some walls were thin enough to listen through? What if sophisticated hitboxes made it harder to navigate some areas than others? What if the angles of walls made game spaces more interesting, or encouraged concealed areas?) But to suggest that it is "actively detrimental" for anything in the game to not be modeled with the maximum imaginable amount of detail and mechanical differentiation is silly. Shoe style could have been a rigidly gender-enforced trackable datum in the game, yes. They could have had 400 different shoe styles associated with different subcultures. They chose to implement shoe sizes as the measurable data points with shoes, and that is enough; yes, even if some shoes look cosmetically different from others.

If you complain about this, you have to complain about a lot of other things, yet somehow ONLY the thing relating to old timey gender expectations is making people upset.

 

[Harthwain]

Shoes are a thing in the game, and shoes have a substantial impact on gameplay, and some shoes look different from others even though they are mechanically indistinguishable. [...] But to suggest that it is "actively detrimental" for anything in the game to not be modeled with the maximum imaginable amount of detail and mechanical differentiation is silly.

Sorry, but considering this is a detective game, it is reasonable to expect this kind of mechanical differentiation if someone already made an effort to model such detail as different shoes. In Westerado: Double Barreled you find clues to get the accurate description of your family's killer. This includes pretty much every detail of clothing from pants up.

If you complain about this, you have to complain about a lot of other things, yet somehow ONLY the thing relating to old timey gender expectations is making people upset.

I am always up to complain about deductive games not being deductive enough (I am talking about you, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments!). If this is what makes people upset it is perhaps because it is a glaring issue so it is natural to be a focusing point. My personal pet peeve is when the so-called detective games don't allow you to make a mistake or limt you to a certain set of answers, without taking player's deduction capabilities into account. It really cheapens the whole experience. And this is also the reason why The Consuming Shadow remains one of the best deduction games of all time for me (as well as one of the best psychological horrors).

 

[Talby]

Shoes are a thing in the game, and shoes have a substantial impact on gameplay, and some shoes look different from others even though they are mechanically indistinguishable. [...] But to suggest that it is "actively detrimental" for anything in the game to not be modeled with the maximum imaginable amount of detail and mechanical differentiation is silly.

Sorry, but considering this is a detective game, it is reasonable to expect this kind of mechanical differentiation if someone already made an effort to model such detail as different shoes. In Westerado: Double Barreled you find clues to get the accurate description of your family's killer. This includes pretty much every detail of clothing from pants up.

If you complain about this, you have to complain about a lot of other things, yet somehow ONLY the thing relating to old timey gender expectations is making people upset.

I am always up to complain about deductive games not being deductive enough (I am talking about you, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments!). If this is what makes people upset it is perhaps because it is a glaring issue so it is natural to be a focusing point. My personal pet peeve is when the so-called detective games don't allow you to make a mistake or limt you to a certain set of answers, without taking player's deduction capabilities into account. It really cheapens the whole experience. And this is also the reason why The Consuming Shadow remains one of the best deduction games of all time for me (as well as one of the best psychological horrors).

Thanks for the recommendation, I just got "The Consuming Shadow" off Steam and you're right, it's excellent.

 

[Zombra]

I am always up to complain about deductive games not being deductive enough (I am talking about you, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments!). If this is what makes people upset it is perhaps because it is a glaring issue so it is natural to be a focusing point. My personal pet peeve is when the so-called detective games don't allow you to make a mistake or limt you to a certain set of answers, without taking player's deduction capabilities into account. It really cheapens the whole experience. And this is also the reason why The Consuming Shadow remains one of the best deduction games of all time for me (as well as one of the best psychological horrors).

Have you actually played Shadows of Doubt at all? Honest question, it's not clear from your conversation. There are SO many ways to get to the truth and yes, the game absolutely lets you be wrong. I bet if you played it you really, really wouldn't get in a twist about shoe styles; probably would not notice them at all if a transphobic didn't scream and cry about them. The game is early access and there are plenty of little flaws to quibble about, but again, JF's "actively detrimental" complaint which started this whole conversation was and remains sheerest stupidity.

 

[Harthwain]

Have you actually played Shadows of Doubt at all? Honest question, it's not clear from your conversation. There are SO many ways to get to the truth and yes, the game absolutely lets you be wrong.

I didn't. I have a policy to wait with playing games until after they leave Early Access. I want to avoid getting burned out. I did watch a bunch of videos.

But judging by that question I can already see you're missing the point. It is not about how many ways you can get to the truth. It is about the game not treating clues like they have deeper meaning than the generic "scan item X to get Y clue". The object itself should be a clue as well. While a generic shoe is not much of a clue, high heels are one hell of a clue, regardless if we are talking about women, trans, crossdressers or what non-binary stands for. Finding unusual objects with no links as to how they made their way there is just bad. This can be excused when it comes to really generic items, but birth control pills are not really generic items (and this is another example peope talk about on Steam).

I bet if you played it you really, really wouldn't get in a twist about shoe styles; probably would not notice them at all if a transphobic didn't scream and cry about them.

You focus way too much on "THIS IS TRANSPHOBIC!" and not enough on what implication it has when items aren't classified well enough. If you don't see the inherent difference between high heels and standard boots and what it can mean in varying context, then I don't know what to say. To me finding a skirt in a man's wardrobe when he lives alone can have a bunch of meanings. Same goes for finding a man's shirt in a woman's wardrobe (although obviously there are less ways to interpret that particular occurrence). Disregarding that because you can just "scan it" is not a mark of a good detective or a good detective game.

The game is early access and there are plenty of little flaws to quibble about, but again, JF's "actively detrimental" complaint which started this whole conversation was and remains sheerest stupidity.

Eh, I don't quite agree. To me, as I said before, it looks like the game is quite a mess due to being procedurally generated and items not being properly organized, but excusing this is not a proper stance either. The proper way of doing it is by making it make sense.

 

[Zombra]

You focus not enough on what implication it has when items aren't classified well enough.

I understand all that, I promise; and I understand that you have a very specific vision of how clues should work. What I need you to understand is that Shadows of Doubt is a procedural simulation, not an adventure game. In an adventure game, when you find the one pair of High Heels you go, "Ah ha! The High Heels! This has very specific implications." In this game, it's more like you are looking around, finding a ton of stuff, seeing a field of a thousand suspects, and deciding what is important and what isn't. In this game, shoe styles are not that important and there is not a huge narrative reason for the color of someone's shirt. (Please don't be disappointed that there are many shirt colors in the game, but they usually don't mean anything either.) A pair of shoes may mean something, or it may not - and most of the time it's probably not. Instead of dwelling on each piece of possible evidence as some huge revelation pregnant with meaning in a single linear path towards finishing the adventure, if something doesn't seem relevant you keep looking around to find other, more substantial ways to locate or identify a suspect.

Again, yes shoe styles COULD be implemented in such a way as to be central to the gameplay loop, but in this case they just weren't, and it's completely okay. It's important to recognize that not everything imaginable can be implemented in a one man project, and shoe style (so far) just didn't make the cut.

It's also important to recognize that while some psychological profile stuff is in the game, it is not as deep and full of implications as you seem to be hoping for. Your expectation of "this man is a transvestite, therefore that means he had lesbian parents, and lesbians always teach kids that murder is good, therefore he is the murderer" or whatever you're hoping to see is not going to happen here. The systems here are limited to stuff more on the level of "this guy likes plants, therefore his apartment has lots of plants".

I reiterate that when actually playing the game you will find that there are so many avenues and angles of investigation to explore, I honestly doubt the design of clues will upset you once you get into the flow. In an RPG that didn't bother to add rock throwing to the combat system, one quickly adapts and forgets about it even if it the art shows rocks on the ground - because the other available weapons are just as fun. Of course, you'll remember this conversation which will trigger disappointment in this one thing not being implemented; but I honestly believe that if your attention wasn't drawn to it here, it's unlikely you would have noticed it at all.

 

[JarlFrank]

but I honestly believe that if your attention wasn't drawn to it here, it's unlikely you would have noticed it at all.

I wouldn't have noticed either if the game didn't explicitly draw attention to having a wonky treatment of sex and gender by having "non-binary" as an option in character creation.

It kills your immersion right there on the first screen you see when you start a new game.

 

[Harthwain]

I understand all that, I promise; and I understand that you have a very specific vision of how clues should work. What I need you to understand is that Shadows of Doubt is a procedural simulation, not an adventure game.

You say that as if a procedural simulation doesn't follow any rules. I may not be a techno-mage, but I know for a fact that this is not true.

Again, yes shoe styles COULD be implemented in such a way as to be central to the gameplay loop, but in this case they just weren't, and it's completely okay. It's important to recognize that not everything imaginable can be implemented in a one man project, and shoe style (so far) just didn't make the cut.

But... we are talking about things that were implemented to begin with. It is even more peculiar considering the game originally had just male and female orientation and you can see traces of it in the game. Here:

Spoiler

The whole non-binary thing was a new and surprising addition. It's quite ironic that basic things "just didn't make the cut" yet something like making a non-trivial part of the in-game population non-binary did. And even that wouldn't have been a problem if not for the lack of consistency.

It's also important to recognize that while some psychological profile stuff is in the game, it is not as deep and full of implications as you seem to be hoping for. [...] The systems here are limited to stuff more on the level of "this guy likes plants, therefore his apartment has lots of plants".

You contradict yourself. First you say it is a procedural simulation and it is not possible to implement certain characteristics for clues because they didn't make the cut, only to say that it is possible to attach something like a psychological profile that some guy likes plants so he has plants in his apartment. Why then is this too complex for the game to procedurally generate other objects in the apartment as well?

 

[SharkClub]

It's quite ironic that basic things "just didn't make the cut" yet something like making a non-trivial part of the in-game population non-binary did.

A commentary on gaming as a whole.

 

[Zombra]

I wouldn't have noticed either if the game didn't explicitly draw attention to having a wonky treatment of sex and gender by having "non-binary" as an option in character creation.

So the gameplay impact doesn't matter to you after all, it's all about the culture wars. Good to know

 

[Zombra]

You say that as if a procedural simulation doesn't follow any rules. I may not be a techno-mage, but I know for a fact that this is not true.

Of course there are rules. There are a zillion rules in the game, which you will appreciate when you play it. Just not every rule imaginable.

But... we are talking about things that were implemented to begin with.

I'm not sure what you're referring to here. What was implemented to begin with? The existence of objects? You're suggesting that something was taken out?

The whole non-binary thing was a new and surprising addition. It's quite ironic that basic things "just didn't make the cut" yet something like making a non-trivial part of the in-game population non-binary did. And even that wouldn't have been a problem if not for the lack of consistency.

Again, not sure what you're talking about. What inconsistency?

You contradict yourself. First you say it is a procedural simulation and it is not possible to implement certain characteristics for clues because they didn't make the cut, only to say that it is possible to attach something like a psychological profile that some guy likes plants so he has plants in his apartment. Why then is this too complex for the game to procedurally generate other objects in the apartment as well?

Yet again, not sure what you're talking about. Objects in apartments are indeed procedurally generated. Everything you see is procedurally generated.

 

[Lemming42]

What's interesting about procgen is that it naturally lends itself to interesting societal norms for fictional settings the less restraints you put on it. Like all those quests in Daggerfall where some young man at a bar would be like "please, rescue my dear sweet lover, who has been kidnapped!" and you'd think it's an Alan-a-Dale situation and this young bard's lover is a waifish princess, only to arrive at the dungeon and find out the lover was a huge burly middle-aged Breton man with a beard the size of Diana Ross' afro and biceps the size of Latvia. But he'd still say some shit like "oh thank you, I was so scared!! Please, escort me back to my love, he must be missing me greatly!"

And this is unremarked upon (because the game doesn't actually "know" it's happening, it's just selected random sprites, sexes and names for the questgiver and the lover), leading to the game managing to portray High Rock/Hammerfell as being both entirely unprejudiced toward homosexuality and also having unusual, un-Earth-like gender norms, all without even trying. Same with things like the Thieves' Guild quests where you'd meet typically "masculine" archetypes like gruff, tough-talking, highly respected crime bosses, and there was about a 50% chance they'd be a woman. There's probably some interesting ways for game devs to lean into it and end up with settings that feel totally culturally distinct from real life in thought-provoking ways.

I think if the nonbinary thing in SoD can be accused of anything, it's putting a modern-day label (one which will perhaps be retroactively viewed as somewhat backwards-thinking in the near future) into a world where that label would seem to have no meaning whatsoever since, largely thanks to procgen, the society in the game doesn't appear to have any concrete concept of gender to start with. But again I don't think it's ultimately that big a deal in this case, the game is mostly about crawling around in air vents and collecting evidence, the setting's virtually a placeholder, it's not the main focus.