Hello detectives, it’s been a while since my last dev blog so I thought I’d write one to coincide with our latest content update! As noted at the beginning of this year, we are continuing to bring you new content updates along with the usual patches.
The challenge with these have been on deciding what we can add without either 1) breaking something, or 2) needing to rewrite huge chunks of the game, which in turn would almost certainly lead to us breaking something. That’s why back in April you saw the ‘Off-Duty’ update that brought together a couple of fun additions we had been working on but didn’t make release.
There is also a third limitation on updates though, which is one of those boring technical ones: Memory. There’s no escaping that Shadows is a memory hungry game; as everything is simulated and every single citizen/item in the game can potentially ‘matter’ to the gameplay, there’s a huge amount of data need to keep handy. Then also add to that the fact that a portion of the gameplay involves uncovering past events, meaning we have to not only simulate events in our world as it happens, but keep a record of their history in a lot of cases. We have a recipe here for a mammoth memory footprint there.
As we’re also a post-release game, we have to be very careful about what we add; if we add stuff like large new models we’re in real danger of crossing some system memory thresholds: We don’t want a situation where a machine that could previously run the game no longer can.
So we had to get a bit creative on what we practically could add to the game this year…
The latest update though, dubbed ‘modifiers’, is something that we thought was pretty fun that spawned out of these limitations. Instead of having memory-hungry based additional content, we opted to make new content largely based on code-based changes. Or in other words; finding a way to take what we already have and put a new spin on it.
This is where the gameplay modifiers come in, which add fun and often weird new ways to experience the game. These are of course entirely optional, and can be found in their own new menu page. You can toggle these on and off at will, and even stack them all for some really weird combos.
There are 8 new modifiers in the update, but the 2 we had the most fun with (and were the most work) are the ones I’ll mention here. The first is the ability to play through the game as a rat. If ‘Rat Detective’ is enabled, your player character will shrink to about 6 inches tall, and you’ll be able to scurry up walls and ceilings. NPCs won’t be able to see you as easily but you’ll also trigger a range of reactions, with some citizens even engaging in combat with you immediately. It’s fun to see the world of Shadows from a whole new perspective. It’s not easy being a rat though, especially when you’re also a detective rat.
The 2nd is dubbed ‘Snail Nemesis’. Aside from being a metaphor for the speed of Shadow’s development time, this is an idea inspired by the popular meme (or situational concept I guess) of the player being invincible aside from contact with a snail. The kicker is that the snail always knows where you are at all times and will always be slowly moving towards you. There aren’t many game worlds where you could implement this, but Shadows I realised, actually is one. The snail can climb over furniture, and even on walls and ceilings (and through air ducts) so nowhere is truly safe. Have fun avoiding the little guy. Note: The original snail concept (as in the one that exists online) was, as far as I can tell, thought of by Gavin Free, so credit to them for inspiring this silly new gameplay modifier.
You can see a complete list of what’s new (along with new fixes) on the patch change log page.
We also have a couple more ‘sensible’ modifiers, but I’ll leave them for you to discover. Have fun detectives, better get going - the snail is coming for you!
Absolute W update, very fun and a great addition to the game! SoD definetly needed more ways to spice up the vanilla gameplay.