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Author Topic: Shadows of Doubt: Dark nights in cities that know how to keep their secrets  (Read 2801 times)

Lightning4

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I watched Let's Game It Out play it. Knock on door, wait for civilian to reach door, bust door down into their face, then steal their stuff. Truly the way the game was meant to be played.

It can be even funnier.

You can wait for them to open the door, then slam the door in their face and then bust it down promptly afterward.
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Akura

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*knock knock*

Hi, I'd like to speak to you about our lord and savior, Boot-to-the-Face! Do you have a moment?

*slams door shut*

You do? Excellent.
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AzyWng

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Speaking of combat, idk if people have mentioned this yet, but, while your detective currently cannot shoot guns (a vow to not use them or something), they can throw things.

Guns, knives, wrenches, hammers, buckets, fire extinguishers...

That can make combat considerably easier.
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Kagus

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Snack jars are a personal favorite, as are booze bottles. Alcohol is a sedative, after all! Especially when you get a whole bottle of vodka hurled straight at your head.

Throwing stuff is great and super rewarding. And sure, while Throw-Fu or Yeet Kune Do may not be quite as efficient as just bonking people over the head with a baton or sword/combat knife, it's incredibly satisfying and has become my main method of calming people down when they display signs of being allergic to my presence in their apartments.

I just wish picked up items would auto-equip if your hands are empty when you pick them up... Would make panic-tossing a much smoother experience since you'd be able to just pick up small items and throw them at pursuers, rather than having to finagle with popping in and out of the inventory system.


In other news, the performance updates from the experimental branch were merged into stable yesterday, so you don't have to be in the opt-in beta to enjoy smoother play. ...it's still definitely not perfect, but it's a marked enhancement over previous versions, and the memory leak issue with overpopulated caseboards should now be fixed.

Gabeux

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Saw a video on this and really love it. It actually reminds me of the intent of the Subversion game (the dead/abandoned project from Introversion), but making it in First Person makes it much more fun IMO.
I've also really wanted to see a more open-world game with the Teardown vibe, so this is great.
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nenjin

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Yeah, that's a pretty good comparison.

Man, remember Subversion? :(
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Lightning4

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Also, a nice video for anyone who wants to see some of the game from the perspective of a probable definite psychopath:

https://youtu.be/ckmPfn-KCGg
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Dorsidwarf

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My good run where I learned everything weirdly just stopped having murders after two cases
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Vivalas

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My good run where I learned everything weirdly just stopped having murders after two cases

Since murders are actually dynamically simulated in game, this can happen if the murderer has a pathfinding issue and gets stuck. Apparently restarting the game fixes it.
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"On two occasions I have been asked,—"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
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Iduno

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My good run where I learned everything weirdly just stopped having murders after two cases

Well, there's only one way to solve that. Is there a knife somewhere?
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Kagus

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My good run where I learned everything weirdly just stopped having murders after two cases

Since murders are actually dynamically simulated in game, this can happen if the murderer has a pathfinding issue and gets stuck. Apparently restarting the game fixes it.

Usually fixes it, in any case... Sometimes they get *seriously* stuck in some logic loop and need to quite literally be slapped out of it. It's possible to find who the to-be-killer is by opening up the save file with a reader, then you can try and go find that person and beat the snot out of them to reset their priority evaluation, letting them finally fit some murder into their schedule. It's drastic and pre-solves the case, but if your file is completely blocked by a killer on a treadmill, that's a way to clear it up.


...however, there's another potential explanation. Namely, that the killer isn't stuck. They may have already gone out and killed someone, but they killed the person in a place where no one has been able to see the body yet, so it hasn't gotten called in and reported as a murder. It's possible to find bodies that haven't been discovered yet, and examining them will start the case as though you'd picked it up via the radio.

Nature of the procedural beast :P

Kagus

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Re: Shadows of Doubt: Dark nights in cities that know how to keep their secrets
« Reply #26 on: September 22, 2023, 08:04:41 am »

Major update slated for Monday the 25th! There have been a slew of minor fixes and tweaks as of late, but this is some legit new content getting added in!

Quote from: Cole
The Cheats and Liars update will bring a new side case that will see you investigate an affair, a new building in the form of the Grand Hotel with its majestic lobby and options to get a room for the night and some new dialogue options allowing you to directly accuse your suspects! I can't wait for you all to check it out

A lot of the focus since launch has been on bug fixing and optimization so it is nice to be able to share new content with you all as well!


I'll be honest, it sounds a little sparse from the description, but hopefully there'll be more meat to it ingame (or at least in the future). Affairs are a big thing though, and have been a major talking point/suggestion in the community for ages. Will be very nice to see new job types!

Additionally, the option to directly accuse someone sounds fun, and hopefully bears with it the fix of making murderers less likely to out themselves by proudly answering that they last saw the victim specifically at the scene of the crime, at the time of the murder.

I'm also curious about the concept of hotel rooms... If this is something that needs to be booked nightly/regularly, this could provide an interesting money sink for players wanting something more pressing than a one-and-done payment like apartments currently are.

Kagus

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Hotel rooms do indeed require daily payments, and while the hotels are still a little barebones they're a fun change of pace. And the recurring payments make having a place there a teensy bit more interesting (although it's really more of a "remembering to pay" thing, since the prices are still very low compared to what you can make in short order)... Just don't pop for one of the suites, they're a complete scam :P

The new dialog options are neat, and allow for you to actually get something resembling a confession out of the killer now... If you've got them in cuffs, you can inform them that they're being arrested under suspicion of murder, which opens up a new line where you can ask them why they did it. So far I've only gotten to question a Valentine's stalker, but I'm looking forward to seeing what the others have to say about it!


However... Murderers will totally still out themselves if you ask them about the victim, no changes on that end. Shame.

Vivalas

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Yeah I don't wanna call the game barebones, as it has a lot and still scratches a specific itch no other game ever has, but the rate of progress leaves a lot to be desired.

I realize they've been focused on bugs, yet a lot of bugs that I used to notice are still around. Numbers backwards on doors, the annoying pursuit music when you have someone cuffed. Alarms triggering non stop for hours after a single incident. Weirdness with AI (saw a stream with enforcers randomly shooting people at a crime scene, which I think is an older bug where people who live with the victim are at home and get attacked by the enforcers). And then they release a content release that I thought would have more going for it based off the name, and instead just offered a new type of side mission.

I think they really need a system to procedurally generate crimes and utilize more evidence while also making fingerprints less useful to make gameplay feel challenging. Currently crimes have a pretty limited method of generation, but I think they could do better. Not just preset cases, but murders where the whole thing is procedural from the ground up. The game really suffers from "samesy" syndrome.
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"On two occasions I have been asked,—"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
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crazyabe

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Honestly, I'd like to see the possibility of getting side missions where after some investigating it becomes clear the target is *you*, and the clear course of action is to track down whomever was offering a job to say- smash up your apartment or whatever for the possibility of stealing the "rewards".
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