Disco Elysium is out

[Infinitron]

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

https://www.gog.com/game/disco_elysium

Quote

 

Disco Elysium is a groundbreaking open world role playing game. You’re a detective with a unique skill system at your disposal and a whole city block to carve your path across. Interrogate unforgettable characters, crack murders or take bribes. Become a hero or an absolute disaster of a human being.

Unprecedented freedom of choice. Intimidate, sweet-talk, resort to violence, write poetry, sing karaoke, dance like a beast or solve the meaning of life. Disco Elysium is the most faithful representation of desktop role playing ever attempted in video games.

Countless tools for role playing. Mix and match from 24 wildly different skills. Develop a personal style with 80 clothes items. Wield 14 tools from guns to flashlights to a boombox, or pour yourself a ****tail of 6 different psychoactive substances. Develop your character even further with 60 wild thoughts to think – with the detective's Thought Cabinet.

A revolutionary dialogue system with unforgettable characters. The world is alive with real people, not extras. Play them against each other, try to help them, or fall hopelessly in love. Disco Elysium's revolutionary dialogue system, with partially voiced characters, lets you do almost anything.

Carve your unique path across the city. Explore, manipulate, collect tare or become a millionaire in an open world unlike anything you've seen before. The city of Revachol is yours for the taking, one small piece at a time. From the streets to the beaches – and beyond.

Hard boiled, hard core. Death, sex, taxes and disco – nothing is off the table. Revachol is a real place with real challenges. Solve a massive murder investigation, or relax and kick back with sprawling side-cases. The detective decides, the citizens abide.

 

 

[algroth]

It looks fantastic, can't wait to play it.

[bugarup]

It looks so much my thing, and reviews are pretty good so far. Can't wait for a year of patches and then to play it.

[Keyrock]

This definitely looks like my jam.

[ShadySands]

You get UnderRail for free if you buy it on GOG

[Humanoid]

Never heard of it but looks like something I'd definitely play. Will have to wait until after Outer Worlds, however.

Not seeing (or more importantly, hearing) all that much Disco in the trailer though.

[melkathi]

I am working on my backlog, but will keep an eye out.

Until then my Disco will be limited to the shower

To my surprise, one hundred stories high
People getting loose y'all, getting down on the roof
Folks are screaming, out of control
It was so entertaining when the boogie started to explode
I heard somebody say

Quack!
Look at me
I'm the Disco Duck!

[Wormerine]

First five hours in and so far it's brilliant, though tone wise unforgivibly ruthless. It knows it's noir, and doesn't try to misinterpret it as cool.

Very interesting character build system. Writing has a very distinct voice and I am digging it. 

Spent half an hour inspecting a folder and then died reading a postcard and had to redo it again 10/10.

[Humanoid]

1 hour ago, Wormerine said:

Spent half an hour inspecting a folder and then died reading a postcard and had to redo it again

What is this, a Sierra adventure game?

[Malcador]

Well that was weird, checked GOG about 30 mins ago and saw it as $56.99 USD, now I see it as $39.99.  Guess it's not that expensive.

Edited October 16, 2019 by Malcador

[Wormerine]

26 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

What is this, a Sierra adventure game?

Pretty much, but with will skill checks. 

[algroth]

5 hours ago, Malcador said:

Well that was weird, checked GOG about 30 mins ago and saw it as $56.99 USD, now I see it as $39.99.  Guess it's not that expensive.

I see it at $18.27

[melkathi]

40 minutes ago, algroth said:

I see it at $18.27

I see it at 39,99 Euros...

[Wormerine]

Paid 34,99 quid.

[ShadySands]

39 strips and 99 slips of gold-pressed latinum

Edited October 16, 2019 by ShadySands
Technically it would be 1 bar 19 strips and 99 slips of GPL

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Looks amazing will pick up when it's on sale.

 

[daven]

So it's not an RPG then?

TTON job all over again but actually good?

[HoonDing]

Dixie Hades

[Wormerine]

On 10/24/2019 at 11:14 AM, daven said:

So it's not an RPG then?

What do you mean by RPG? There is no combat, but you do develop his character, and interactions and options available to you are identified by you character build. There is certainly roleplaying and deciding what kind of character you want to be, and character react to it, and there are repercussions. 
 

As I endorsed the game quite a bit, I think I would like to summarise my overall thoughts after finishing the game (no big spoilers, obv).

Game varies in quality quite a lot. I would divide it in my mind into three parts (Part 1, Part 2, epilogue).

I found part 1 simply fantastic. While I only did one playthrough, and can't vouch for other character builds, the game seems to constantly respond to your skill choices and in-game decisions. There seem to be skill checks a-plenty - both as traditional skill checks, but also enviromental detail and information feeding: your character will notice things, "skills" will talk to you, giving you unique tasks, and suggestions. It seems like this is the fulfillement of the vision designers had - it's a detective mystery which you can tackle in various different ways, and game responds to who you are and what you do. There is a tangible feel of progress, mistakes, and character growth/change. Pacing is excellent, with dialogues never dragging for too long, and for a text based RPG the game manages to vary things up and not be simply a wall of text.

It seems to be that part 2, is the part they run out of money. A new area opens for you and you leave with clear goal and couple promising leads. The game simply does allow you to follow on those, and story progression is locked behind single-skill check, with no way around. Of course, I might have missed something, but I did a bit of digging on the internet and it doesn't seem to be any way around it. Beyond this simple check, there are other things to do, but they are barely connected to what you do, and again, have little in terms of reactivity or freedom part 1 had - a lot of side activities end up with one very high, specific skill check required to complete this side story. This lack of reactivity continues, with certain even taking place, even there were many hints throughout suggesting you might be able to avoid it, and the investigation progresses not thanks to you. I imagine it is there to allow character who didn't do well up to this point to progress, but I felt it really sucked. In addition, it is confirmed that some skill checks are rigged - either succeeding and failing by default - not a fan. There also no fast traveling, and with bigger distances to cover (back and forth between part 1 and part 2 areas) I found myself wasting a lot of time.

Epilogue feels like a lengthy test. This is a massive wall of text after a wall of text, and a judgement day - you seem to go through ever single dangling story thread and tick it off seeing how you did. I found it extremely tedious and it became really annoying after a while. It felt like devs were cramming all the final reactivity they planned into small contained space.

 

Some stats: game took me 32 hours to complete - a fairly comprehensive playthrough, but to completionist - I turned out some tasks for roleplaying reasons, and left some tasks uncompleted due to skill-checks outside of my character build required. 
 

I did find character build systems a bit annoying in the latter part. As changing your equipement is the easiest way to maximise your chances of succeeding a roll, constantly swapping your clothes before a check is tedious. I am still not sure how "thought cabinet" contributes to the game. Thoughts might unlock unique dialogue paths, but if it is the case, it is not clearly communicated, so I am second guessing. If all they add are small modifiers to your skills, then they are mechanically lame. 

As a recommendation: Part 1 is fantastic, and I think it is worth picking the game up for that reason alone. As to the full price... maybe if you feel like supporting clearly talented new studio. Otherwise a sale. There are certainly more consistant titles you can get. for that price.

[rjshae]

Perhaps this will bring back the adventure game in a new form?

[Keyrock]

This is likely the next game I'm scooping now that I finished Code Vein. This game seems like someone set out to make a game specifically for me. The only thing I'm waiting for is for Steam's Proton support for the game to mature a bit. Currently, the reports from people with similar specs to mine are that the game runs but with workarounds and poor performance. Given the astounding pace at which Proton has been advancing, I fully expect it to be running well out of the box in a matter of weeks, if not days.

[ComradeYellow]

Looks fantastic at first glance but I kinda get the impression gameplay may bit a too nuanced for my liking.

[alanschu]

Definitely on the radar. Basically flipped a coin between it and Outer Worlds. Just finished up OW though!

[Starwars]

Let me throw in a vote for buying this game as well. It's one of *those* games that just stand out and you know you will remember for a long time. A strong and unique experience. 

It's not flawless at all, as was pointed out above, the game falters a bit as it goes on and I think there are some parts of the writing that doesn't work as well as they could. But I was glued to my seat until the very end. It doesn't happen that much for me any more that I play a game that I just can't quite let go of, but this was one of them. I just couldn't wait to dive back into it when I got home from work or whatever. It's a special one.

I know it's sort of meaningless to compare since they are so different but I still have to point out the difference between The Outer Worlds and Disco Elysium here. Like I said, DE isn't flawless at all in its writing, far from it. But it has such a strong voice and character, an ambition and seemingly a desire to create something that doesn't feel like "your typical RPG" type of writing. TWO feels so extremely bland and "middle of the road" in the writing department when compared to it, despite the fact that both settings are pretty out there. One little sidequest in DE to find a lost husband for his worried wife had more of an impact on me than the whole of TOW, no joking.

Again, they try for different things. But yeah, DE really feels like the developers wanted to deliver something unique and strong. And they succeeded.

 

Edited November 11, 2019 by Starwars

[Hawke64]

How is Disco Elysium in terms of updates and bugs? I purchased it on day 1, but decided to refund after the 3rd failed attempt to download it. I had the same issue with Pathfinder: Kingmaker, the game became much better in 6 months.