A great concept, with room to grow

[Redrich]

This has become a sort of vibe game for me. Just going around, exploring the city and picking up cases as they come in. There's something about literally walking along the street and coming upon a body yourself, and having to figure out the scene before the Enforcers arrive to cordon it off that adds both drama to the whole affair. Plus, you never know if someone you passed on the street while walking to where you found the body was actually a murderer. Procedural generation can be a crap shoot at times, but here it does it well. It's amazing how complex the game is despite it's voxel nature. The art style is simple on the surface, but it comes together to create a picture perfect noir atmosphere with the attention to the small details in the character designs and architecture. Combined with the neat alternate history background that I really hope continues to be explored as the game grows, it really stands on it own.

Now, I've seen a lot of people talking about stuff they want to see here. So I figured I'd throw my hat into the ring with a few suggestions outside the norm based on my play experience. I tried looking for a roadmap to see if the developers had any of my ideas planned, but I didn't find one. So apologies if any of this was already mentioned somewhere as future features


Crimes of passion vs. premeditated murders
I believe there are four standard MOs for murders presently in the game. I don't know if there are official names, but I've dubbed them the Corporate Climber, the Stalker, the Sweetheart Killer, and the Dark Ritualist. There can be some overlap between these MOs, as I have seen some ritual influences in the Stalker's repertoire, as well as sometimes the Sweetheart Killer. And they are very classic, very fun noir serial killer archetypes. However, that's what I wanted to discuss. Serial killings, or more specifically killings in general.

Other than perhaps the Sweetheart Killer (assuming their murdering was over extreme emotion born from rejection rather than simply a case 'if I can't have you, nobody can'), all of these murders are premeditated. I'd be interested in seeing a lot more murders that were less serial killings and more...desperate crimes. A bungled break-in leading to the burglar killing the resident. A spouse/partner accidentally killing their significant other during a spot of high emotion or while intoxicated. Events where the death was not intentional, but now there's a body and they gotta deal with it.

They could just leave the body and run. Go and hide with a friend, or find some dark corner of the Fathoms they can squat in. Or maybe they hide the body, resulting in a missing persons case that you can take up and end up uncovering the truth of. Or even just someone finding the body later, away from the scene, and you having to trace back leftover evidence from when it was dumped to find out who moved it. Just something to add variety. Serial killings are great, and their patterns are fun to unweave. But adding in some more spontaneous, unplanned (in the eyes of the killer) deaths could add some difficulty and twists that would require some fun additional detective work. Confirming whether details a body dump site are contamination, or belong to the killer. Working through probable friends of the suspect to determine who'd they like are hiding with, or even what places they regularly went to that they might still visit so you can arrest them. Stuff like that.


Player and citizen relations
I know what this sounds like, but I don't mean it like that. At the moment, the relationship between the player detective and citizens is simple yet effective. If they are innocent, they are a source of information. If they are a suspect, then they get their lives investigated. But that's about it. Citizens don't really care about the player until they break the law. Even the player's neighbors don't even know them, if you start in an apartment. And while you can learn some details from friends, neighbors, and partners of them, you never can learn it directly from them via socializing.

Now, most times a hardboiled detective is portrayed as a loner and generally lacks friends, true. But they do build up networks of informants. And occasionally, they do find some friendly faces they can rely on for help. My suggestion would be to just add a little more in the way of getting to know NPCs, so that there are ways to get information from them beyond simply throwing crows at them. In case of finding information about suspects, sweet talking information out of witnesses and the suspect's acquaintances. But also getting to know your neighbors or maybe the employees at that cafe you frequent, who could come to you of their own volition to pass along information - or ask for a favor involving a side case that you could call in later for their assistance.

There's also the case 'friend on the force' trope. At the moment, Enforcers are literally there to be obstacles. You can't even bribe the crime scene guards to get access to the body. That alone could be a feature, but lets go beyond that. Befriending an Enforcer could come with it the ability to access things like peeks into government databases (which we will get into on their own shortly), free access to crime scenes, 'hints' based on what they've heard around the office regarding the killer that can help when evidence is lacking, and other such favors. But those favors would likely require favors, or tons of cash, in kind. Likely including unsavory activities brutalizing the populous, or perhaps just making that one 'good cop' mentality Enforcer get the memo to sit back down and stop making everyone else look bad. Or helping the good cop too, though that'd probably be a pain.

Just some deeper interactions with citizens on behalf of the player could add a lot of depth, and further avenues for detective work.


Government databases, the instant win button?
I saw awhile back that someone felt that the gov database, as it currently stands, is a little bit overpowered. You get a name, even just a first name, and you can get pretty much everything short of a password on a person. And honestly, I kinda agree. I get it is mostly a means to help assist the player if they really have reached a dead end, but I had a minor suggestion on how to keep it like that while also making it both more immersive and more like actual detective work.

And that suggestion is to divide the database into three different ones. A City Citizen Database, an Enforcer Criminal Database, and a Hospital Patient Database. I realize that sounds like a lot of work, and it is. So let me explain.

The City Citizen Database would be close but not exact to what we currently have for the Gov Database. You just need a name, and you can find out some information on the person. This would include their full name, basic physical description, their workplace (but not job title). and address. But it would not contain their fingerprints, and the address comes with a caveat: it would be their last registered address. Meaning, in the case of criminals in hiding or people who might have moved but didn't change their address, it wouldn't provide you with the instant bullseye for where you need to go to find them. Obviously, at the moment, citizens can't move or hide. But that'd be something I'd personally suggest, both for the sake of making more detective work and to help with information one might already have 'decay' over time to prevent yourself from becoming a perfect database of all people in your city.

The Enforcer Criminal Database would work one of two ways. If you enter a name, it would provide you an criminal record on the person...if they have one. This would include their name, basic description, previous charges, their fingerprints, and their last known address. If they don't have a record, you don't get anything. The second way, and one I feel would help with partial information, would be to be able to scan in a fingerprint via this database to see if it matches any known criminals. Whether it's a hired killer who has been brought in before, or a petty criminal who finally moved to the big time, you'd be able to put in a finger print you had and pull up their record. But again, it would only provide you with basic information and an address they may not still be at. This prevents the database from being overpowered, while still providing key information and allowing suspects who only have left fingerprints and may not be known by the victim to be IDed without having to comb every building in the city.

The final database would be the Hospital Patient Database. And it's purpose would be two-fold. Firstly, it's a less potent version of the City Citizen's Database. It provides a citizen's full description, a list of their medications, and any recent visits to the hospital. That last one could be useful to determine if a suspect is the killer. They have wounds they claim they got somewhere else long before the murder, but still appear to be defensive wounds likely caused by their victim? Maybe they went to the hospital the day of the murder to get treatment, confirming your suspicions. Assuming they didn't check into a back alley doc, of course.

I imagine that'd be a lot of work, but that's just how I feel that you could both keep the concept of the government databases and ensure they are not too overpowered.


Player apartments, furnished and unfurnished
This is just going to be a short suggestion, born mostly out of my observations about the decorating system. I will say a little more about apartments in my last suggestion though. Regardless, for player apartments, just adding in the option to purchase them either unfurnished or with basic preset furnishing for those of us who don't want to completely decorate them ourselves. Unfurnished would cost less than the furnished option, of course. Because, while I love decorating, getting the kitchens to look nice has been a nightmare for me. Especially because it's impossible to presently stock the shelves and drawers at the moment. So just the ability to have a kitchen and bathroom already set up would be lovely.


City generation, building placement, and the locations of city services
So this is kinda a mixture of a critique combined with two suggestions. But the former is an important part of at least the first part of the latter, so yeah.

I've noticed, at least at the moment, city generation doesn't really care about where businesses go in relation to one another. Sometimes, it works. Like a block of nothing but restaurants. Perfectly reasonable. Other times...you get an entire street of nothing but Sync Clinics. It feels like the cyberpunk equivalent of the Mattress Firm conspiracy from a few years back. Not to mention, I've weirdly noticed that diners tend to generate in pairs a block from each other, usually near industrial buildings. I've also had the amusing time in my current city of two separate types of businesses having the same names as one another. There are two Popeye restaurants (presumably Port Bourbon is in Louisiana, I guess) and two pawnbrokers named Lothario. It's amusing, but also a bit confusing when I need to track down suspects who visit these places or work there.

My personal suggestion on all of this would be to have it so that certain businesses cannot generate within a certain distance of each other. For example, a sync clinic not being able to have another sync clinic within a two block radius to guarantee some variety in businesses. Likewise, having some sort of filter that guarantees that two businesses of the same type cannot have the same name. A diner and a restaurant having the same name is okay, because there's at least some level of specificity as to which is which. But two pawnbrokers with the same name is just confusing, especially if they are on opposite sides of the city.

The second suggestion is one that is built out of a desire to make things more convenient as well as add in some additional possible points of information gathering, as well as some challenge. Plus, it'd add a building in to help with adding further diversity. In this case, simply put, taking the Enforcer officers and hospital wards out of city hall, and giving them their own dedicated emergency services building. And replacing them in city hall with several new offices, including city records offices where you can do research as well as real estate offices where you can view all available apartments.

Let's start with the emergency services building. Why move them here? Three reasons. First, because it could be made into a harder to access location. Making sure the player can instantly run off to the databases they possess to find their information like they can just waltzing into city all. Secondly, to give them more space to include more features. Like, for instance, a morgue. Currently, bodies are just left to rot where they fall until they vanish. What if, after a set period of time, the Enforcers brought them to a city morgue? It would make it far more important for the player to get to the scene immediately, before it is greatly disturbed. Plus, it could allow for future murder scenarios. Breaking into the morgue on behalf of a client, who is certain their friend's Convenient Suicide was not in fact a Convenient Suicide, to look a body that was not reported as a murder initially for instance. And three, because it lets city hall have more space for its own helpful features.

At the moment, despite all apartments being supposedly listed by your city's real estate office, you have to literally run between various bars and restaurants to actually figure out what is on offer. Freeing up space by removing the hospitals and enforcers would allow for this real estate office to actually exist. Or rather, three offices. One for the Fathoms, one for the Myriads, and one for the Echelons. Each with apartments priced accordingly, and each type in one place. That way, you can easily find a penthouse that you want to save up for to have that final bit of luxury before you retire to The Fields. No more having to break into a bar that doesn't open till noon just to buy a nice apartment.

Now, city records is something that may not be feasible, but seemed like a decent thought to me. It'd work more like an archive really, but one that could be helpful. Currently, the newspaper just flips to a new issue each day with no way to look back at older issues. A place you could would be nice, both for posterity...and possible concepts like, say, confirming that this new killer has an identical MO to a previous one (once there are enough MOs that something like this would be notable) and might be a copycat killer as a result. As well as exposing people who have assuming someone's identity by finding their identity's original birth certificate or previous citizenship record buried in city files. Stuff like that.


That covers my thoughts on what could help with the bits of repetition, frustrating features, and occasional procedural generation issues that the game currently has. Some of this is probably pie in the sky, but I figured I'd throw it out there regardless. I absolutely love this game, and cannot wait to see what direction the developers take it. Keep up the awesome work!

Also, total side note. Whoever you guys got for the actors in that Duchess detective drama that plays over the TVs, they are fantastic in all their campy glory. Angel's actor in particular was top tier goon, loved it.

[J010011113]

I read your title as:
"A Great Concept, With a Grow Room"
and I thought,
"Nono, that's Space Station 13."

[J010011113]

You also make some great points. I totally agree about moving the enforcers to precincts and the wards to either one building or split them up into precincts as well. Maybe each Enforcer division has an accompanying ward attached or next to.

I also feel that City Hall should be located centrally on ALL maps. What kind of totalitarian corporate dystopian government marginalises their seat of power to the outskirts of town? A pretty pizzpoor one, if you ask me.

So, if the City Hall is always central and then the game spawns the city in quarters with space for one Enforcer Precinct and one Ward for each quarter, the game could define the boundaries of duplicate businesses by not duplicating any inside a precinct quarter and assigning it to the quarter farthest away.

This means no direct dupes and more orderly neighbourhoods but more cross town journeys.

To expedite that, I just have one word: RICKSHAWS!
(I'm only half joking)

[Redrich]

Originally posted by J010011113:

So, if the City Hall is always central and then the game spawns the city in quarters with space for one Enforcer Precinct and one Ward for each quarter, the game could define the boundaries of duplicate businesses by not duplicating any inside a precinct quarter and assigning it to the quarter farthest away.

This definitely is a good idea. I feel perhaps making cities hexagon shaped and making each district a quarter might help with this too. There's already the basic system for districts in the game, but they don't seem to do much for determining the character of each neighborhood. Hopefully that changes over the course of development!

[Lupa]

This is actually perfect, i love this, it would add SOOOO much to the game. Building friendships or atleast npc's knowing who you are would bring the game to life.

[J010011113]

Originally posted by Redrich:

Originally posted by J010011113:

This definitely is a good idea. I feel perhaps making cities hexagon shaped and making each district a quarter might help with this too. There's already the basic system for districts in the game, but they don't seem to do much for determining the character of each neighborhood. Hopefully that changes over the course of development!

Thanks.
Agreed!

[J010011113]

Originally posted by Lupa:

This is actually perfect, i love this, it would add SOOOO much to the game. Building friendships or at least NPCs knowing who you are would bring the game to life.

I think a system for determining the disposition of people toward you and having it be persistent and malleable in reaction to in-game events is crucial for a game such as this.

[Lupa]

Originally posted by J010011113:

I think a system for determining the disposition of people toward you and having it be persistent and malleable in reaction to in-game events is crucial for a game such as this.

Yeah for sure