SHADOWS OF DOUBT

A detective procedural

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The first thing we do, in our pre-alpha build of Shadows Of Doubt, is delete the entire world. On starting a new game, you’re given the option to generate your own rainy cyber-noir city, with size and population density sliders to choose exactly how big a haystack you’ll search for your murderous needle in – but project lead Cole Jefferies suggests we begin with the provided demo world (four blocks by five, population: 146). Which, with a single stray keystroke, we remove from existence. Oops.

This accident does, at least, give us chance to generate a new world. A loading bar spools through tasks – lays out blueprints, creates life, plants evidence – and in doing so, weaves an entirely new murder mystery for us to solve. “In my game, the killer might be in a certain apartment, and in another game, it might be a completely different person, in a completely different part of the city,” Jefferies explains. “But the basis of the storyline, the key beats, are the same.”