Another game, another game thread from me.

Having just played through Fallout 4 and then Fallout New Vegas, I was on the hunt for my next fix. Disco Elysium has been on my wishlist since release. The critical praise it receives is hard to ignore. It's an isometric roleplaying game, where you play a detective who wakes up from a drunken stupor, having lost all his stuff and can't remember a thing.

Here's IGN's review to get a taste of what the game is like

https://www.ign.com/articles/disco-elysium-the-final-cut-review

Steam page, but the sale ends soon. I see it marked down often.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/632470/Disco_Elysium__The_Final_Cut/

Too early for me to have any firm measure of it, but I like it so far. The writing is excellent, the ideas and concepts at play are neatly interwoven in to a detective story -- you've got a murder to solve -- filled with skill checks and hidden dice rolls. Character building is diverse, skills are very interesting. This isn't a game of combat, but of logic and wits, emotion and failure.

There are four attributes you put points in to at character creation, Intellect, Psyche, Physique, and Motorics. There are three presets to choose from, but I went custom with 4-2-2-4 and chose Perception as my signature skill. The build path has massive effect on how the game plays, which options and paths are open or closed. So my build choices make my character more well-rounded but less exceptional than some but with an emphasis on my reasoning and agility. Low psyche and strength limit my ability to be compassionate for example, or to intimidate a suspect I'm questioning.

On the other hand, high-ish Motorics make me more perceptive, I can see things others will fail to notice. My reaction times are fast and I can use gadgets and items effectively. Like many good RPGs, everything comes down to a skill check, rolling the dice against the fail chance. There's always a chance it can pass regardless of how likely it is. And failure in this game is not an end state, it can often open up other opportunities or information. It's quite neat really how intricately woven together the systems are, and how uniquely the game will play depending on the build and dialog choices the player makes.

One of the aspects I really like is how you need to be selective in the dialog options you choose. In many, if not most, RPGs, you will always exhaust all conversation options so that you don't miss anything. But here, you have to approach it like it's real, and do you really want to ask that woman what her bedroom habits are? She doesn't know you, probably doesn't trust you and well, frankly, that's none of your #%&*$# business. Could you make her clam up by saying the wrong things?

It feels like the ultimate 'go in blind' game. As such I am making sure I don't spoil it by looking anything up. Doing things sub-optimally or just failing outright is part of the experience, part of the charm. Just go with the flow and let the chips fall where they may. There's not a game to beat here, but a story to put on like a suit, to envelop yourself in, wrinkles and all. Which is good, because you start with no clothes at all

What an interesting game this is. It's difficult to sum up, and it's not often I'm lost for descriptors. It's part detective novel, part psychological exam, part psyche probe, part expose on the best and worst of the human condition. It's exquisitely executed, the way the conversations and skill checks roll seamlessly, as you discover plot points, clues and your inner motivations, fears and limits. Your character is shaped by your choices, but also by circumstance and environment, you do have a backstory after all, even if you have no idea what it is. It gets pieced together over time.

Game play consists of controlling your character in a top-down iso perspective across a beautifully hand painted map, a blend of expressionism and impressionism. If Dishonored was compressed by gravity and spit back out in isometrics I'd expect this isn't too far from the result. If Francis Bacon was hired to be lead art designer on a RPG, I'd expect a similar outcome. Unique art styles give a game distinction, and here it works, in the same way it does in games like Borderlands or the Return of the Obra Dinn. The departure from realism in to artistic rendering adds to the experience, giving the game a unique vibe. It also tends to make it timeless, not falling afoul of the advances in photo-realism as new generations of hardware and technology make older games feel old.

Throughout the gameworld are intensely interesting characters. Few games elicit the sort of anticipation I feel here just walking up to one I have yet to speak to. Interaction feels uniquely organic, this isn't a NPC to exploit or farm for trinkets. It's a human being, and I feel compelled to approach it as one, attempting to avoid insults or probing too deeply past their defenses, sensing when I'm pushing things too far, lest they clam up, locking away the information I seek. Trying to divine from them what their own motivations, fears and interests are, to use that to curry favor and maybe uncover the clue that breaks it open.

Of course you can approach it differently, using authority or intimidation for example to achieve results. Much of this will be shaped by how you spend you skill points, and how you invest in the Thought Cabinet. Thoughts are unique, limited perks that you 'internalize', often giving both bonuses and maluses, and help to further shape you character's mind.

Conversations are deep. So much so that I think if I had not bought the Final Cut version, before it was fully voiced, I'd struggle to find it as charming as I do. Voice acting is superb, with the actor they chose for narrating your thoughts just perfect. Having all dialog fully-voiced imparts authenticity, soul. I'm a reader, but I can see that this game would feel very different if these conversations lost that human quality that the voices provide.

Every conversation is a rolling series of skills checks, both hidden and overt. The game constantly rolls these checks against your skills, and the course it takes is shaped by which ones succeed. This is all hidden, you won't know the eight that failed, just the one that passed. It's all effortlessly seamless and feels natural, with an overarching internal dialog interspersed with the actual conversation. Your thoughts pop up, giving insight or advising caution perhaps, while the player chooses the response to kick it along. Failure is as much a part of Disco Elysium as succeeding is.

It's not a game of distinct action and reaction, it's much more grey than that. Morally certainly, but it's a game to be played between the lines if that makes sense, where it feels like intuition is rewarded rather than picking black over white. It's a game where you really shouldn't know anything about it. Just play it, and see where it goes. And hope that your next poor choice doesn't kill you by destroying your spirit.

Supercop, babeee.

Dam(n) right.

I'm a superstar.

You've played it Lieste? What did you think? I'm just about done with day 2, just waiting for 2100 hours to talk to that smoker dude, then I reckon tomorrow I can cross the waterway and get on with it.

I loved it. Trying to either herd the cats which are his psyche, or just letting it all hang out. The world reacts suitably to a (sort of) licenced, (sort of) badge wielding, (sort of) gun toting crazy cop... who is acting in some degree of moderately effectively as an investigator.

Some of the revelations can be dark... many are funny.

I always enjoy your review work, DB! I find myself seriously considering games I would never have looked twice at otherwise! This one is no exception. RPG's aren't usually my jam, but once in a while I find something I like out of my normal genres, and you make this one sound interesting enough to take a flyer on at some point!

Check that from earlier. Hyperstellar, is what I am



Well said. I have to admit I've played it straight. This is probably the only video game that has made me feel shame and embarrassment. I know I'm not seeing a whole side to the game, but I've felt compelled to play the cop, kick the sh!t, and get my act together. It feels like I am betraying Harry's true form, but I don't want to self-destruct, although I'm sure the writing for that sort of path is extraordinary. Might be worth another go to play it electrochemically haha. The temptation thoughts that pop up are soooo tantalizing




Kind of you to say JC. This game's still on sale for a couple days on Steam for $22. It seems to go on sale regularly if the timing's not right. It's a difficult game to recommend, not because I don't think it's brilliant or compelling, but because I know there is a large part of the potential audience that just wouldn't get on with it. It's hard to pick a game to compare it to. Maybe Planescape Torment combined with Divinity Original Sin, but even that feels off the mark, a stretch trying to anchor it to a known quantity.

It's deeply political, allegorically. It's the strongest theme in the game, and permeates every corner. Some folks won't care for it, some won't grasp it, and I don't mean that in a demeaning way. It reflects more on Disco Elysium's themes and writing than the player, I think. It's intellectual in a way few games are. But it's not elitist, It's grounded in mud and vomit and drugs and murder, but viewed in part through a cultivated lens, especially the writing, but also thematically.

Not sure my attempts to describe it are coming across in the right way. It's a pure roleplaying experience, but stripped of so many conventions. No combat, or spells or even enemies in the traditional sense. The combat's in the way you use words, or defeat things through reason or discovery. The enemies are the other guy's motivations, or desire to mislead you, to hide what you seek. It's a battle against yourself at times. Shame and embarrassment are not common emotions in a video game, are they?

Anyway, it's a game well worth the time, for some. But how would someone know without playing it? Steam sales help to bridge that gap

It's also hilarious contradictions like buying into race realism, feminism and hardcore misogyny simultaneously. No biggie, you can embrace or reject them all... in a dazzling dance of lunacy. Disco Baby.

And poor young Kim, having to work alongside you, effective though you can be... you are extremely... unconventional, with the Jamrock Shuffle, and the lost personal effects, including memory.

Kim Katsuragi is now one of my favorite sidekicks ever. Great character. I admire his stoicism in the face of my debauchery haha. Playing it straight is partly because I don't want to let him down.

Lieste touches on the ideological side,and that's how it can be, though I've walked a straighter path so far. Still time to become the disco king I've always, -- secretly I hope -- wanted to be

Here's a good write up to read for anyone thinking of picking it up. Disco Elysium is PC Gamer's choice for top spot on it's top 100 games list. High praise, indeed.

https://www.pcgamer.com/no-other-game-comes-close-to-disco-elysium/

Quote from that piece

"There's so much more to it than ideologies and politics, though. It reimagines the RPG genre, cutting out combat and other metrics for success, and giving us the greatest skill system any game has ever had. Screw your DEX and CON rolls, for this quest you have to rely on your flair for the dramatic and your ability to get off your tits on whatever drugs are lying around. If Disco Elysium stopped there, with its wild and esoteric skills and 'Thought Cabinet', it would still be more creative than pretty much all of its peers, but then it goes ahead and makes each skill a talkative part of your subconscious—sublime."

Here's a quote from the top 100 list that captures Disco Elysium's essence I think

"It's a marvel that Disco Elysium manages to make the warring voices of your brain funnier, more compelling companions than typical RPG followers. The way your skill points affect how active they are in conversations and how their dialogue helps you understand your character and the world around you—it's just brilliant. I can't think of another RPG that makes bad dice rolls so fun, either. I never felt the urge to savescum in Disco Elysium because there was always a clever bit of dialogue waiting for me, even when I literally fell on my ass."

Oh, and it is quite possible to kill yourself getting up and dressed and out of the room on your first day... 10/10 would play again.

I'll be as vague as I can with what I reveal about my own run, I don't want to spoil it for anyone. And as I've said, this is a game that is best served cold, don't read too much about it, don't google solutions or find out what happens next. That's only shortchanging yourself. This approach has worked out fine, aside from not knowing which bonuses a Thought grants. And since the 'cost' of adding, or removing, things from the the Thought Cabinet is high, I find myself tempted to look it up. But so far I've resisted. But I've also not used the Thought Cabinet to it's full extent as a result.

I'm on day 3 of the investigation, made it across to the coast. I'm trying to play it straight, be a good cop, analytical, dispassionate, impartial. I think I've mostly succeeded. Then again, many of the folks 'round here saw me in the days leading up to the start of the game, and it's clear I hadn't been a model citizen. Shameful really, and the struggle to look them in the eye while knowing they know is strangely debilitating. There's one part where I have to question the woman staying in the hotel room next to mine, where the choices I made as I stumbled out of my room that first morning came back to haunt me, left me feeling small and stupid, and well, embarrassed. It's an interesting dynamic in a video game, one I don't know that I've felt before. Repulsive loser now standing here with a 'just the facts ma'am' attitude, and probably my hat pulled down low to hide from the shame.

That a game can elicit this sort of internal struggle is great of course, and it touches on the depth of the psychological notes the game hits on. Well, this is how it affects me, but others will probably feel differently. Some will build on it, disco baby! Others will be unaffected, it's just a video game after all, not a Rorschach test. I find myself connecting on that level though, tethered in a sense to my character emotionally, feeling what he feels, or at least my interpretation of it. Harry probably wouldn't care, look how far he's fallen, right? But I think it speaks to the quality of the writing especially that it can draw me to feel this way.

I've focused on Intellect and Motorics, with Perception easily my most invested skill. I really like the skills system here, and the way it's woven in to how the conversations play out. It's very flexible, although I can only imagine how it would play out with different build choices. I love the way I converse with my own mind, and how seamless it feels.The game mechanics are so unique, but once you've seen it in action you wonder how you haven't been playing games like this for years. It's both brilliant and obvious, but only once you've seen it. The devs did a great job here, and clearly stuck their necks out in such a hyper-sensitive, politically charged world. They had a vision, and executed it to near perfection. In a sense I'm surprised to see this game, but glad there's room for it.

I'll probably pass on it this time around, I've got quite a backlog of games to work through. No point in making the list longer. I've wishlisted it on Steam and Waitlisted it on IsThereAnyDeal, so I'll keep tabs on it that way.

Did you say she was pretty?? Classic.

BTW, it´s also on sale at GOG, I am still thinking...

No not that, I don't think. It wasn't an option was it? I didn't hit on her either. I did say that to the lawyer girl outside of the Hardie boys, that she was pretty, agreeing with the man who says she could be a model. No, what embarrassed me was how out of it I was on that first morning, no idea who I am or what I do, and having her explain it to me. How pathetic it was showed later in a skill check with the Hardie boys, which I won't spoil, but I had at least three negative modifiers on that skill check related to that first encounter on day 1.

I'm going to add a couple of re-posts here, from the what are you playing now thread in CH. It's some of my best work haha, and I thought it would be pertinent to this thread, even if it's missing some context, placed now in this thread,

Here's a bit more about Disco Elysium and the approach to politics.

https://www.polygon.com/reviews/22421322/disco-elysium-final-cut-review-ps5-ps4-pc-stadia

To put a finer point on it, in my run at least, the politics are something you see in the inhabitants and history of Revachol, not something that you really find yourself swept up in. It's what I observe and uncover, not what I am, or will be. If I am speaking to man who is a race supremacist, I expect him to talk like one, and that's what the game gives you. It doesn't pull those punches to satisfy an audience of the easily offended. Instead, it tackles these politics head on, with at times shocking candor.

Through the choices I make in conversations the game tracks my political leanings. But this is based on which response I choose, what I think my character would say, do or react. Turns out my Harry is a bit of a traditionalist. Who knew?

For folks that understand the subtlety and nuance of politics it really is a wonderful experience. No game I've played has been so stark in its political themes. Again, I think it is a reason to play, especially for players who have interest in the world of politics. It's as intellectual as any game I've played and is well worth your time. It's on sale often, and is a departure, I guarantee, from the games you've played before.

Yes, the character building certainly suggests that playing through multiple times, trying different things, would be worth it.

It's a difficult game to recommend. I mean I can do so on the strength of the writing, the neat way the skills system works in conjunction with the dialog, the phenomenal voice acting, with the sheer novelty of the approach here. But it's the sort of game where I just don't know who else would like it. It's hard to recommend for that reason, that there are sure to be folks who just don't see the same appeal I do.

I mean, would someone take to a game where there's no combat at all? Where you spend most of the game essentially talking to yourself? Some do of course, it's a critical hit. But there must exist a hard cut-off where on the other side the people would wonder what the fuss is about. In a sense it's political theater, in which you have a supporting role. By being a detective you can sort of detach yourself from being converted to any particular ideology, though you don't have to remain that way. It's all about choice, the bare essence of role-playing. This is how I've approached it, not trusting anyone, aside from Kim, and not buying in to what they are selling.

I mean truly not buying in, even if at times I see the benefit of appearing to do so, as of course people are more candid with those they think share their outlook, ya know? But that's just a cop's technique, not a rung in my ideological ascendancy. A tool, like my notebook or crowbar. There's a murder to solve here, and nothing's outside the limits, even fraudulent alliances, if I think it will help me in that task.

If you internalise the race realism, then until you pay to forget it (to free the slot for a new thought) you will get dialogue choices which are related to your currently held beliefs. And the same with all of the other thoughts you can take on.

It can change a lot of stuff, and can have hilarious and incongruent contradictions from interactions between your various characters in your psyche and your active thoughts.

Right, because you can sort of mix and match thoughts and ideologies. It would take a number of runs to really see how expansive this all is I think

I found another way to get to Evrart. I wasn't interested in going too far down Measurehead's rabbit hole. Matter of fact, I'm 30+ hours in, day four or five, and I've only internalized three thoughts so far. I've done

If you have enough (iirc) body, you can push the button without his permission, but you won't have the smarts to do much else at first.

There is also a back route, and your militia jacket, if you don't want to be a leaf in the wind of everyone else's wacky ideas.

Whatever changes you make it changes (some) of your internal dialogues and options - different ways of seeing and solving problems.