Hey everybody, my name is Dave Jackson, and this is Tales from the Backlog, a video games podcast where I will bring in guests to talk about the games we play My guest today is a friend of the show, a co host of the Pixel Project Radio podcast and junior cryptozoologist, Rick Firestone Today we’ll be talking about Disco Elysium, a narrative-driven CRPG developed and published by ZA/UM in 2019, with an updated and expanded version subtitled The Final Cut releasing in 2021. Elevator pitch for disco elysium- a murder mystery where you play as the world’s biggest fuck-up cop. But before that, what have you been playing lately? Ok, let’s get into today’s focus, Disco Elysium. This game leans extremely heavily on its story, as there is no traditional combat like you would see in other RPGs like this. We will discuss the rpg elements and a brief spoiler-free overview, but detailed discussion of the narrative and characters will happen in the spoiler section. Our histories with the game- What interested us in this game? I had started to see this pop up in people’s game of the year lists, but at the time it was PC only. I have a laptop that I play games on, but it can basically only handle 2D indie games or games that are over 10 years old. But then the devs released what they called the Working Class Update, which drastically lowered the system requirements, so I was able to play it on PC. The textures were muddy as hell, the game hitched and froze sometimes (my PC’s fault to be clear), but I was able to play all the way through it. Replayed on Switch before recording this, and it runs pretty great on Switch aside from a few crashes. Play time- 25 hours the first playthrough, about 30 hours for the replay Basics of how the game works, key mechanics, what makes this game stand out? story and characters- will be slight, before the spoiler wall You play as a police officer, who has been on such a drug and alcohol bender that when the game begins, your consciousness is in a primordial black void before gradually waking up and discovering its “meat body”. Your character is a giant piece of shit, with the world’s worst hangover, health basically hanging on by a thread- can die so many ways right at the beginning Simply put, your character does not remember anything, anything at all. Not your name, not how your face looks, nothing. Rick, amnesiac characters are a common storytelling trope. Do you think it works in DE? Soon joined by lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, and tasked with solving the murder of a person whose body is hanging from a tree behind the hotel you’re staying in. Quick aside on Kim- Kim is one of the best video game characters of all time, and a perfect compliment to the main character’s antics. You’ll be working with Kim to solve the murder. Rick thoughts on Kim? I’ve had this in my twitter bio for quite a while now- I think that Kim Kitsuragi would be proud of me. And that means a lot. Kim is such a complex character. Stoic yet excitable, patient, professional but funny when the time is right. Top 3 people I least want to disappoint in my life: my wife, my parents, and Kim Kitsuragi. Kim replaced my brother on this list. Incredible voice acting for Kim Overall thoughts on the story? I think that the detective story is good, it’s subversive and entertaining at every step, but that’s not the part that will stick with you. The characters, the situations, the heart and soul poured into this world, that’s the part that changed how I judge video games. This is a singular achievement, in my opinion. This game is funny, it’s heartbreaking, and everything in between. Writing The game’s biggest strength Think for a second about the game that you love and would hold up as an example of “good writing in games”.Rick? I have mine, too, like Fallout games, Planescape Torment, Witcher 3 Prose is consistently entertaining, characters are well-described, even very minor characters, there is great great character development. To put this in a short way, and this is very hard to imagine but I’m not exaggerating- every NPC is worth talking to. There is not one boring or throwaway conversation out there. The game is really funny, and not in a tryhard way imo The Jamrock Shuffle, for example But the biggest thing is that this game has HEART. IMO, no game handles complex and emotional subjects like poverty, tragedy, addiction, breakups, depression, etc like Disco Elysium. Writers were inspired by social media, namely Twitter (scrolling feed, right side, "people don't like reading in games yet they're doing it all day," etc) Using text as a main vehicle for story vs VAing - something I wish was more commonplace. More in depth, less expensive (i.e. focus budget elsewhere), there's a reason books never went away (OK boomer) Setting Set in the realist fantasy world of Elysium Proper noun soup- my only real criticism of the game Elysium is made of landmasses known as isolas that are separated by the Pale, a mysterious connective tissue in which the laws of reality begin to break down. Prolonged exposure to the Pale can cause mental instability, and traversing the Pale is considered highly dangerous Nations and people follow four main ideologies- fascism, communism, moralism and ultraliberalism The game takes place in the city of Revachol, on the continent of Martinaise, which had gone through a communist revolution in recent history, only to have a group of capitalist nations invade and overthrow the commune. Revachol is still feeling the scars of this revolution and invasion, and retains little autonomy from the invaders. The only autonomy it has is its police force, called the RCM. This is the police force that your character works for. Rick how do you think the setting works in the game? Without spoilers? I think the setting and politics and history of the area really play into the story in several ways, which helps explain some of the turns that the story takes, but I do kind of get lost in the proper noun soup. The only reason I’m as comfortable as I am with all of it (not that comfortable) is that I’ve played the game twice now, but ymmv Gameplay No combat- brave and awesome. Has changed the way I look at games. Rick did you miss combat? IMO the fact that Disco elysium pulled this off so well just made me wish for this in other games where the story is very good but the combat is awful, like Planescape Torment. If your combat is below average and you’re confident in the writing, just cut the combat out. Most of the game is spent in dialogue, either with people or the narrator explaining what you see when you interact with objects Dialogue trees that you can sometimes exhaust, sometimes you can only pick one choice. Skill checks happen in dialogue often, more on those later. For example- Your skills are constantly running skill checks in the background and if they succeed they will pop up with observations, musings, etc, or even full on developed thought processes. These are not always helpful or reliable. Sometimes your skills will suggest something, bad result, “why did you trust me? Don’t ever trust me again” Shivers, perception often give these There is a time mechanic, time passes only when you’re in dialogue, npcs have schedules, some quests will only be accessible after a certain time. You can pass time by reading a book, which lead to a funny situation for me. It was like 3 pm on day 4 or so, and I needed to wait until 10 pm for the only remaining quests. So I pulled out a book about cockatoos and read it about 25 times for 7 straight in-game hours until it was 10 pm. There is a time limit in-game, day 10, but I beat the game both times on day 5 or 6 without really rushing, I did most of the side quests I found both playthroughs so I can’t comment on if anything special happens. But the point is to not rush, you will be fine, I find it hard to believe that you’ll actually run out of time in this game. Rpg elements As a CRPG, a system of skills and skill checks via dice. Rick what’s your experience with CRPGs and/or tabletop role playing? Did it affect your play in DE? Once again, One of the things that makes DE stand out is that there is no traditional combat. Every conflict in the game is handled through dialogue and skill checks, and this is how EXP is earned. 70 xp for a completed main task, 10 xp for a side task, 5-10 xp for a thought Always 100 xp between each level Get skill point, but no need to spend them right away, more on that later You have four main governing abilities (Physique, Motorics, Intellect, Psyche) and 6 skills within each ability, for 24 total skills. This is where you will spend skill points when you level up. These skills all act as certain characters that will chime in during dialogue and help or hinder you. This is one of the genius things in the game imo. Your skills are constantly rolling hidden checks in the background, and when they succeed they barge into your conversation (fully voiced in the final cut), like members of a traditional RPG party. Extremely good at simulating how scatterbrained you can be, or your hidden motivations during a conversation, and different character builds will result in drastically different tones for conversations. For example, the skill Inland Empire is kind of your imagination, your gut feelings, and hunches. It might help you by giving you a helpful hunch, but too many points in Inland Empire can give you daydreams and intrusive thoughts that distract and otherwise are not helpful. Should also note the skills all have their own character portraits and they are horrifying and amazing Rick real quick are there any skills that you really loved? And how do you feel about this system as a whole? For me- electrochemistry, shivers Skill checks You’ll come across white and red skill checks in the game. White checks can be attempted as many times as you want, no need for save scumming them. Come back when you’ve leveled up or changed clothing or whatever. This is why i said to save skill points, you can use them to re open white checks. I was often walking around with 5 or more skill points to use whenever I came across a check I needed to pass. Red checks cannot be repeated. But you often have a chance to not do the check right away. Change clothes, assign skill points, then try One key thing in role playing games is, is it fun to fail skill checks? If it’s not fun, people will resort to save scumming. One of DE’s triumphs is that it is always interesting or fun to fail a check. You may not get the result you were hoping for, or you might even die and have to re load, but damn they are always interesting. More in the spoiler section. This also plays into the health system. 2 types of health- health and morale, like physical and mental health. Take a big L in a dialogue battle and you might lose morale. Fail a physical-based check and lose some health. Restore these with items you can find or buy. Depending on your stats, you can actually die in the first room of the game by failing a check to retrieve your necktie from a ceiling fan. Rick what do you think of this system? Thought cabinet DE’s other big innovation, meant to simulate how different ideas and ideologies form in your head and shape your character. At certain points in the game, you will come across an idea. For example, if you keep apologizing in dialogue or feeling sorry for yourself, you will unlock the thought “rigorous self-critique”. You can choose to “research” the thoughts, which is like your character rolling the idea around in their head. Different thoughts have different research times. During the research time you’ll have a temporary buff or debuff as you figure out this idea. Rigorous self critique gives you -1 Authority while researching Eventually the thoughts become permanent and give you a permanent buff. Rigorous self-critique gives you healing when you fail red skill checks, as well as raising the level cap for the pain threshold skill. You can spend a skill point to “forget” ideas, since some of them are quite unsavory, and the space in the cabinet is limited. The thought cabinet ideas come with a paragraph detailing the thought and a paragraph with the final version of that thought. These are extremely well-written, and deal with content that I would not trust 99% of games to handle in an intelligent way. Art/Music/Voice Art has this like, watercolor style Portraits for characters, skills and especially thought cabinet thoughts are all incredible. I don’t know enough about art to describe them, but they’re haunting and interesting and incredible. Soundtrack is by the band British Sea Power, and man, it’s rare for a licensed soundtrack to fit a game as perfectly as it does here. The horns in the main town square evoke a kind of sadness and despair that really set the tone. Full voice acting was added in the final cut version, over 1.2 million words according to the lead writer. Special props to Lenval Brown, who voices the narrator and all 24 skills, who recorded his lines over 8 months of recording. Absolutely phenomenal how consistent yet distinct the 24 skills are. Final thoughts, Do we recommend? At what price point? Housekeeping - Rick is the co host of the Pixel Project Radio podcast, a show that I really enjoy, so Rick can you tell everyone what your show is all about? Thank you for listening! If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your platform of choice, leave us a rating and review if your platform allows it, and spread the good word! I also do a podcast called A Top 3 Podcast, where each week we pick a topic, pick our top 3s in that topic, and discuss. It’s a good time, so check that out if you want to hear us talk about other subjects. SPOILER WALL- we will not get every detail or even close to it. There will be lots of side characters, conversations, etc that we skip, not because they’re not worth your time, but because this game is incredibly dense and we don’t want this to be a 7 hour podcast episode. EVERYTHING IN THIS GAME IS WORTH YOUR TIME. Field autopsy Opening the clipboard and seeing the picture of your ex- immediately throwing you into a spiral, into the black void Boss battle with chair Conversation with Kim on the balcony on night 1 When you dream about having a conversation with the hanged man, but it’s you. You find out that you were dumped, you have no friends, you fucked everything up (visually striking, atmospheric, metaphor - a favorite of mine) Hartie boys/Klaasje storyline Failed the authority check with Titus, clicked the “fake suicide” option and Harry actually killed himself, game over Burgeoning respect with Hartie boys Finding your car Finding the dead body on the dock and telling his wife Karaoke The Tribunal Saving Kim Authority skill check- bonuses if Kim trusts you Or Kim dies and Cuno joins Conversation with your ex/Dolores Dei You have a lot of dialogue options to try to rekindle the relationship or convince her to give you another chance Also a skill check to go in for a kiss But there is no repairing this relationship, this is a flashback of a scene from years past “Oh yes. This is real darkness. It’s not death, or war, or child molestation. Real darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart, Harry…..see you tomorrow.” Just a brutal emotional moment for anyone who has been in a bad breakup or a divorce. There is an intelligence to this, like all of these emotional moments. The killer’s identity Communist party deserter, has been hiding for over 40’years Bitter at his desertion, bitter that the world has moved on Some really well-observed quotes about how people lose enthusiasm for movements Breaks the murder mystery rule, how do we feel about it? Even though we haven’t seen this character before, I think it fits with the themes and ideology of the game that has been well established until this point- the scars of the revolution personified, almost. Conversation with insulindian phasmid Emotional climax of the game Phasmid speaks to you like you’re an invading force, the animal kingdom agrees that humans are going to be the death of the world Says that humans brought the Pale Carry on with life, do your best, leave ex wife in the past, do it for the working class Wrap up conversation with your fellow detectives at the end Great to have Kim defend you