Ah, Shadows of Doubt. A one of a kind detective game that's set in sandbox sci-fi city thats procedurally generated. Make sure you've had your coffee because its got some heavy weight to it, Some brainy gamers are going to adore this one, but for others, it could be intimating but there are tools to help you along the way, so anyone can give it a go...

What's going on here? Well this game has some wild lore, This game starts in an alternative history 1979 but the events begin all the way back in 1589, worth reading actually, but anyway. Here you are in good ol' Alt History 1979, Where it's imagined that a megacorporation also has become the political leader of the country known as the U.A.S, The United Atlantic States and thanks to their focus on hyper industrialisation and ignored warnings from scientists, The sea levels of the world raise to the point where land travel no longer exists and now the world is just citys on man made built islands. It just turns out the leaders of the country just so happen to be a massive producer of soft drinks and snack foods, so thanks to their creative thinking, they have basically implemented ways of their products to be sold to everyone. Now they have purchased the police, everyone has health problems and they've created this social credit system where in order to retire in a lovely location known as "The Fields" you have to contribute something back, mainly by endless working otherwise you're stuck in this awful city hell hole until you do it or die. So that's mainly why everyone is angry at each other and lookin' only for themselves..

But just like Sniper said in TF2 in his youtube video "At the end of the day, as long as there's two people left on the planet, someone is going to want someone dead" and thats where you come in! Murders occur here and there and you're job in the game is to find out who did it and solve it, Why? Because in this game you're playing the role of a detective.

Every now and then, you pick up a trail for a murder case. These pay really well and generally the main type of game play you'll be enduring most of the time, These kinda cases where you have to work out whodunit are randomly generated. Some cases are easy because the clues left behind are just easy to look up or trace back but other cases can be challenging due to a lack of leads or the limited intel. It's pretty much RNG but if its always too easy you could change the difficulty and reduce the amount of clues, Be warned however. Less clues can be VERY hard to finish a case but there's not really any punishment for getting the case wrong.

But since you got the skills to pay the bills, Murder isn't the only crime that pays! Oh no, This town is full of opportunity because there are so many people who don't trust each other. So people will gladly post jobs on notice boards where you'll quickly learn that no one needs their lawns mowed or babies babysat, instead everyone needs something stolen, a home vandalised for petty revenge or someone just needs to know find if their partner is cheating. You got all the tools to make it happen, so this is a good way to make cash when you're not working on a murder case. However, some of these cases can be the most difficult in the game and will take up a lot of time. Don't expect to solve them in 24 hours as some of them can take ages. Sometimes their clues will pop up when you're in the middle of investigating something else. Thats always alot of fun to discover!

With so many NPCs and potential work, How the hell do you keep up with it all? well fortunately, your detective skills allows you to keep track of everyone as your game progresses. So everyone you meet, their names, looks, shoe size, finger prints, height, weight, job, etc. You'll be collecting all the data of these NPCs within the town you've either created on your own, or randomly generated. This means no player will have the same run as another and more so those who are familiar with open world sandbox games where NPCs have their own life programmed into them, like oblivion, skyrim and etc. This is basically the same, except there's at least 350 something and that's just on the default maps..

There are rumored mods out there where you have a town with over 2000 npcs! I haven't touched that yet, but consider that every single NPC has so many unique articles of personal data for your to discover and sift through, its incredibly impressive and will keep you busy for many hours like I have.

Unfortunately along the way, you'll come across some annoying bugs. Its mentioned in the discussions here that the devs are aware of these and working on them as time goes on, so make sure you save often because I've died a couple of times in stupid ways but it's not as bad as some people make it out to be, The game only was released recently as of this review and its deserving of its praise. Im excited to see how this game moving forward due to the mods only beginning to emerge, and it does feel like there could be alot more added to this game. I'd highly recommend it but prepare to destroy the hours of your day or week in RL. Im 70 something hours in, just completed by first run and I'm still hanging for more...

See ya round, kid!

David the Diver is quietly hiding its depth of gameplay with various mini game modes in a brightly coloured pixel game.

You play as Dave, A friendly chubby bloke who happens to be in a diver and ends up running a sushi shop while he's there.
Catch is (pun intended) is that David isn't working out a logistics network of trucks to get his fish, Instead he's going to deep dive into the waters below and catch each fish by himself. You're be doing a classic hunter and gathering mission and then when thats all done, you head up to your shop and make some money, Strange thing is even with the fact he swims all day and every day, Then rushes around orders in a sushi restaurant, David never seems to shed a single bit of weight off his belly. He might wanna go get that checked out, hey.

But you don't have time for that. Or ... at least its not a mode I've unlocked yet. This game has a LOT of activities for players to take part in. At first it starts off as a two phase mode but very quickly it adds so much more. Not only are you collecting fish for supplies for your shop, Now you're managing staff, upgrading your restaurant, skill training your staff, learning new recipes, juggling balances, etc. There is a decent business sim hidden here but when you've got your head wrapped around that, along comes a whole lot of new modes and features.

Crafting upgrades for your suit, your tools and your weapons, Fish Farms to ensure a steady supply of fish when you're focused on other fish and a decent story with fun cutscenes that leaves you wondering whats going to happen next, and a reminder that there's more to life than just making big money.

The list goes on and I would warn that this is the only negative part of the game. The amount of information and "tutorials" there are is overwhelming at the first, You'll be slammed with so many features and game modes in this single game that many might actually withdraw from the game altogether but fortunately. happy to let you know.

You don't have to know everything exactly all at once and you can take your time participating it in all. My recommendation for players who are easily intimated by heavy dialog boxes of words and sudden increases of depth in game and brain weight would be, don't rush the main story quests. take your time and fully understand each section first before you advance the story line. You can literally just spend each day doing anything you want and progress at your own pace.

High recommend, Fun game to play. Go for it.