Shadows of Doubt News

Investigations #15: A game of Bas-Boule?

Happy launch month, detectives. The team here are hard at work as we get closer to launch but we still have a roundup of what has been happening in the community over the last month for you all:

Last month, We began some fun detective polls over on our X page that will help us find out what kind of detectives you really are, so be sure to follow and participate!

In other news, Discord Detective Syrehus has begun setting up shop throughout the Fathoms in the city offering “medical” services to the homeless citizens. When asked about the lagality of such an operation, Enforcers had no comment. Check out the full breakdown and tour right here

A new craze involving the popular sport “Bas-Boule” has now taken over the city. Seek out 15 hidden bas-boule rookie cards throughout your new cities now. Have you found them all?

Finally, some fanart that doubles as a visual tutorial on how to use newspapers properly within the city. Brought to you by Discord Detective Ruby. You can totally read them…or yanno, use them to be a stealthy snoop. The choice is your gumshoes…

Thanks for investigating our first August Blog, detectives. Don’t forget to join in on more discussions and awesome content over on our Discord and follow on X for the latest on all things Shadows Of Doubt. See you next time!

Shadows of Doubt V 38.09 Experimental Branch Patch Notes

Hey folks, we have a brand new experimental patch up and ready for you all with a host of new fixes!

Experimental Branch: These builds are only found on our ‘experimental’ steam branch. You can access this by right clicking the game in your steam library, choosing ‘properties’, then the ‘betas’ tab. The experimental build should be in the dropdown list. Experimental builds may be less tested than the default branch builds. Most experimental branch patches will make their way to the default branch after a week or two (barring any issues discovered).

More improvements to stuttering when navigating between areas
More memory leak fixes
Some object spawn position adjustments
Revised citizen names lists*
Fixed: Assigned inventory hotkeys are now loaded properly
Fixed: Janitors had invisible brooms
Fixed: Active killers could reveal rooms on the map under certain conditions
Fixed: Boarded up windows were only visible from one side
Fixed: Case of AI getting stuck outside of doors
Fixed: Blood pool interactable trigger area could obscure other evidence
Fixed: Explored air ducts are now saved properly
Fixed: Minor fixes/alterations to several ceiling lights
Fixed: In Steam OS the onscreen keyboard did not effect the text input when first selected
Fixed: Cancelling a search could cause items to be found in a following progress bar related interaction
Fixed: Tweaked some furniture placement rules to stop diner booths spawning in inaccessible locations*
Fixed: Inconsistent flooring styles on some ground floor lobbies*
Fixed: In ‘Dead of Night’ there was a very small chance the name on the note shared an identical city directory entry as another person
Fixed: While using a controller the back button prompt was displayed on the submit button in the bug report menu
Audio: Mastered version of soundtrack added
Audio: Menu music recut

* Requires a new city generation to appear/spawn/see

Shadows of Doubt V 38.08 Experimental Branch Patch Notes

Further memory optimizations
Tweaked AI Fleeing behaviour
Tweaked AI crime scene behaviour
Fixed: Save game error that could result in duplicate objects
Fixed: Duplicate evidence being created for murders
Fixed: Missing citizen portraits on load game and certain other situations
Fixed: Missing fingerprints on bullet casings
Fixed: Patched some geometry holes within the included ‘Charlotte Heights’ city, along with some citizen outfit glitches
Fixed: Killer could reveal too much information about themselves or victims when questioned
Fixed: Handwriting toggle button not appearing for some handwritten notes
Fixed: Handwriting toggle button requiring 2 presses to activate the first time
Fixed: Weird behaviour with slider buttons that would cause the value to jump to the min/max; you can now also hold these buttons to alter the value.
Fixed: Visual glitch in Loom’s metallic texture
Fixed: Some minor physics error/console messages resulting from negatively scaled colliders
Fixed: Invalid string on the upgrades screen for non English languages
Fixed: Use of small caps on evidence window title was not displaying certain European language characters; have changed to normal caps for now
Fixed: Stopped AI being able to perform some actions while handcuffed
Fixed: Pawn shop neon sign missing mesh
Fixed: Citizens didn’t not awaken if you handcuffed them while sleeping
Fixed: Murders now should not happen in the main hotel lobby (caused weird AI issues!)

Post-Launch Support

Hello detectives, a word today about our upcoming launch.

The September 1.0 release marks a significant moment in the Shadows of Doubt journey. As a small team working diligently for the past 8 years on Shadows of Doubt, we are proud of the technical feature set we have been able to deliver in the game. We have welcomed some excellent ideas from our loyal and patient community and have tried to add as much as we possibly could into the game, while trying to ensure all existing systems are stable and working as they should with what is a complex interconnected codebase.

To reassure everybody, we have no intention of abandoning the game at 1.0. We've worked incredibly hard to develop Shadows of Doubt alongside you during Early Access, listening to your thoughts and feedback to introduce new content and address bugs and issues, and I'm incredibly proud of the 1.0 release. It's a reflection of what I always wanted to achieve with Shadows of Doubt: an immersive procgen sandbox that I hope really makes you feel like you are a detective in a living world.

After the launch of 1.0, we will continue to listen to feedback and address the most pressing issues. A game is never truly finished, and we recognise that there are always bound to be some sneaky bugs that slip through the net. We will be introducing a new public facing system that will allow for increased transparency on what is being worked on. We know communication is important and just with the amount of development work that has been needed we haven’t had the chance to be as active in the Discord as we would like but hopefully this will go a long way to addressing that and making sure you feel heard.

Lastly and most importantly, I want to thank you, the members of our community, who have been here on this incredible Shadows of Doubt journey, your support has been unparalleled.

Right time for me to get back to work.

/ Cole and the ColePowered team

Beloved sandbox detective sim Shadows of Doubt comes to Steam 1.0 soon

It's easy to argue that immersive sims are the perfect ideal of what a videogame can be. The genre is all about living, breathing worlds that are reactive to every move you make. Your decisions have far-reaching consequences, and every problem has multiple solutions. You can be as expressive as you want, and Shadows of Doubt takes the genre to the nth degree. A blend of classic Deus Ex and Disco Elysium, and set to a backdrop eerily similar to Blade Runner, the noir detective sim is finally coming to Steam 1.0 soon.

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