Disco Elysium - Insane Drunken Cop Simulator RPG GotY 2019

[GentlemanFaggot]

Can you tell me without spoilers, is this game a commie propaganda or not?

No it's not.

Anyone who gets offended at any portrayal of any political group in Disco Elysium probably has a stick up their ass.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Bought it tonight. Going to try to get into it later.

 

[Secret Asshole]

No it's not.

Anyone who gets offended at any portrayal of any political group in Disco Elysium probably has a stick up their ass.

Indeed.

The devs are trolling with the Marxist stuff, just look at the first image on the page I posted.

 

[Lemmingwise]

Can you tell me without spoilers, is this game a commie propaganda or not?

I didn't finish it. I got bored with it pretty quickly.

I do get the impression that it's written from a bit of a commie perspective, but with an honest attempt to create an experience rather than just jamming propaganda in your ear.

Despite it being up my alley, I ended up not having the best time with it. The atmosphere is unique as are the setting and the quests, but the writing ended up being a lot less interesting than something like planescape.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

So I just finished the game after biting the bullet and hoping my potato laptop can run it (it can but not well). I think the best comparison to the game is the first season of True Detective - absolute phenomenal set up and cast only for a very disappointing ending. The world is interesting and slowly gets unraveled to the player (though I wish the game had country names be similar to what they mean to represent in the real world so it will be easier to follow up) and doesn't stray too much into favouring one political side. The characters are fun and it is nice to get to know each of them.
But then there's the ending and it is underwhelming as hell:

Spoiler: Ending

After going through the mystery it turns out to be a random commie sniper. It's disappointing and actively goes against the player trying to make sense of the situation. The memory loss the player goes through is just a result of falling the wagon and there is nothing supernatural in its origin, which just raises the question about all the supernatural stuff that you either talk about or do, and going "it's the effect of alcohol/withdrawl" makes it feel tacked on.

The gameplay is pretty pointless to be honest. The random skill checks might be fine in concept and trying to show the player that failure is not the end but a new player doesn't know if they gate him out of important plot points which is especially important in a 20 hour game. So save scumming is the way almost everyone will go (and makes the conclusion even worse). The health and mental power are also pointless considering you have plenty of health packs and very little chances to die.
The game seems to have multiple methods to solve problems according to builds and a lot of little hidden points but I can't fathom a reason to replay it. The ending doesn't change anything to make earlier moments different and I never had a feeling that there is a real difference in how to play the game regardless of politics, builds or how dirty a cop I want to be.
In the end Disco Elysium making selling point is being novel in both gameplay, setting and tone, but I'm not sure any continuation will capture the same feeling after it drops the ball in the final act and doesn't really have any reason to return to once it is over.

 

[Wonderful Id]

I really wished I liked this game more. Maybe I just wasn't in the right place or it wasn't what I was looking for at the time, but it really didn't click with me.

Maybe it'll be one of those games where I come pick it up a few months later after abandoning it and love it like how I dropped Dark Souls right away, then picked it up on a whim and did 80 hrs.

 

[Terror Rism]

oof!

people unable to understand the meaning in how the game ends leads me to believe that they truly do not understand the plot or the setting as well as they think they do (or didn't see the phasmid conversation), and they always are the same people that think there's no reason to play through the game at least twice

yes, the game wraps up in a similar fashion every time and was rushed for dev time, and that's a shame. however the game foreshadows this MANY times (especially if you replay the game, hmm i wonder why inland empire is a skill) and the lack of excitement behind the reveal of the killer is clearly intentional. the entire game your character is constantly attempting to insert his own past and opinion into this murder investigation much to Kim's patient annoyance, and the majority of the story building is based around your character's own story, not the murder story. the murder is the linear path leading towards the main character's redemption, and there are 3 outcomes to the ending even still, with potentially Kim getting you back in, Cuno doing the same, or yourself alone being refused your job back.

the phasmid encounter coming directly after the deserter encounter, outright explaining that Harry's mental suffering and internal struggle is exactly what makes him so incredible and amazing, telling him he needs to overcome his own past (which is very soon after potentially learning that The Pale is literally the culmination of human history overtaking and destroying civilization, tying into harry's own journey) and that even the insects wish they had the ability to deal with his personal issues is the crux of the storyline and holy fuck how unintelligent can you be if you get that far and go "BUT THE MURDER MYSTERY" and i'm trying very hard to not tell you to go back to high school to take a literature class.

i'm drunk but holy fuck goddamn do i hate seeing this constantly i don't care how little sense this makes

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

people unable to understand the meaning in how the game ends leads me to believe that they truly do not understand the plot or the setting as well as they think they do (or didn't see the phasmid conversation), and they always are the same people that think there's no reason to play through the game at least twice

yes, the game wraps up in a similar fashion every time and was rushed for dev time, and that's a shame. however the game foreshadows this MANY times (especially if you replay the game, hmm i wonder why inland empire is a skill) and the lack of excitement behind the reveal of the killer is clearly intentional. the entire game your character is constantly attempting to insert his own past and opinion into this murder investigation much to Kim's patient annoyance, and the majority of the story building is based around your character's own story, not the murder story. the murder is the linear path leading towards the main character's redemption, and there are 3 outcomes to the ending even still, with potentially Kim getting you back in, Cuno doing the same, or yourself alone being refused your job back.

the phasmid encounter coming directly after the deserter encounter, outright explaining that Harry's mental suffering and internal struggle is exactly what makes him so incredible and amazing, telling him he needs to overcome his own past (which is very soon after potentially learning that The Pale is literally the culmination of human history overtaking and destroying civilization, tying into harry's own journey) and that even the insects wish they had the ability to deal with his personal issues is the crux of the storyline and holy fuck how unintelligent can you be if you get that far and go "BUT THE MURDER MYSTERY" and i'm trying very hard to not tell you to go back to high school to take a literature class.

i'm drunk but holy fuck goddamn do i hate seeing this constantly i don't care how little sense this makes

It's pretty bullshit way of looking at things. There is nothing mutually exclusive about having a satisfying conclusion to the main questline in the game and subverting the expectation of some grand conspiracy/supernatural at work. The story could just as well ended with the most obvious suspect being the culprit and that would at least rewarded the player for paying attention, as it stands its neither a likely/logical explanation nor one that the game tries to manipulate the player into believing.
And it still leaves the origin of the memory loss as completely unexplained despite being the second biggest question in the game. Which, unlike the murder mystery is a massive part of the character's (non)-identity and is extremely bizarre if you look at it from a real world prespective rather than some movie plot hook.

If we look at it from a literary perspective then a work that is from a mystery genre (that is very much this game, in both main plot and sidequests) should very well be judged on the solution to its mystery. But the game doesn't deliever on that, settling for a bad explanation that stains the excellent world building and characters. Even if we take the game as drama/psychology book about humanity and its past (with the main character being an allegory to the world that is crumbling (both literally and culturally) under its past with a very bleak future in a neverending grand cycle) with the mystery as a backdrop, it's still unsatisfying since all those world views you gain over the game don't seem to amount to anything but a footnote in the game's conclusion. The main character is judged in the end for his actions over the course of the game feels more like a checklist of side quests, most with very little choice in player input during the game. It doesn't feel like some rebirth and attempt to break Harry's death spiral but a momentary return to reality that is likely to end very soon because there doesn't seem to be any grand change in Harry's character. Maybe if the devs had Harry decide to change his lifestyle according to the player's choice philosophy during the game it would have been better (and fit nicely with the player's choices and the theme of making the same changes over and over hoping that this time the change will work).

I won't say it's wrong that you can enjoy the game's ending or prefer the journey to the destination, but it's a childish way of thinking that its wrong for some people to think the ending is the most important part of a work.

 

[Terror Rism]

you have missed a lot of details and information that is given to the player through interaction with different skills and making different choices, and your conclusion is clearly tied to that fact. i'm no longer drunk enough to bother giving you a full breakdown of the plot, characterization, and themes so i'd really recommend that high school literature class now.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

you have missed a lot of details and information that is given to the player through interaction with different skills and making different choices, and your conclusion is clearly tied to that fact. i'm no longer drunk enough to bother giving you a full breakdown of the plot, characterization, and themes so i'd really recommend that high school literature class now.

I thought about just rating the comment and moving on, but it is really a good case of a fedora-tipping youtuber level comment:
First of all there is a bizarre hostility that I can't fathom, did my misunderstanding of a video game make you angry for some reason? Being hostile for no reason just makes the conversation worse for everyone.
Second of all, if the game is blindingly obvious in its messages then you should be able to easily explain to me what I'm missing. If the game isn't obvious but a complex work that needs a lot of explanation to grasp then why the fuck are you expecting different people to have the same experience and conclusion from the game (or any sort of media)? Unlike books that are straightforward to read, a game is a completely different experience that can vary wildly by the player's choice. Maybe I binged the game rather than play leisurely, maybe I missed some dialogue options, maybe I missed complete dialogue sequences (I missed the final conversation, though I read about it afterward. But in any case of easily missable dialogue, if it is required for the understanding of the game then it's a bad design flaw of the game), I'm not a native English speaker so there might be undertones I didn't grasp, maybe my life experiences themselves made me think of the game differently, maybe I really am a moron that doesn't know what good writing is. Point is that getting mad about others not understanding a complex work is ridiculous.
Finally, I don't know what posh high school you went to, but my high school literature class experience was being taught basic bitch literary devices and being told to read stories and then take some faggot's opinion of what the author meant rather than have my own interpretation. I hope your outlook on literature isn't reading/watching some other person explanation it and then taking it as some gospel that is impossible to argue.

 

[Terror Rism]

i've had alcohol it's proper essay time, sorry for the morning insult but i really thought i had explained well enough and assumed you were being a cunt

Spoiler

the reason i mention missing the point is because at its core, disco is only partially a murder mystery game. it's understandable to be hung up on the identity of the killer, and be disappointed of the mundane nature of the situation (if you didn't encounter the phasmid) as it's the core of the plot. however the reason behind the lack of excitement or relevance of the deserter's identity (despite being foreshadowed dozens of times through skill checks and dialogue) is interwoven into Harry's personal journey and rediscovering of his own self, which is the "point" i've been getting at.

yes, this requires potentially a second playthrough or savescumming to get all of the information and you can miss things. this was integral to the attempt to bring the d&d type of storytelling to a game format, and i understand if you consider it bad videogame design. however, the information is there and it does add up to the core message of the story, that closure for the past will either not come, or if it does it won't feel satisfying. for history and harry, creating new ideas and art is the most important thing for survival.
there are more things that add up to this than i can count or list, but i'll try to elaborate on the most important ones in a way that makes my insufferable artist ranting clear.

firstly and hopefully obviously, you don't choose anything for poor Harrier's backstory, we can only portray the aspects of his personality that you want to put forward into the game world. his behavior (during the game and hypothetically after the ending) is whatever you chose it to be, but regardless he is/was all of those things. all of the ideologies, weird gym/art stuff, and Dora stuff is all part of his memories and the player gets to piece together his personality as they please. i disagree though that he doesn't get the chance to change himself and create something better for his life. he's done this three times, drinking himself to oblivion over the lack of being able to overcome his past, ideologically and because of his own actions, and this time he's experienced full amnesia; which allows him the chance to reinvent himself. Harry can further receive redemption through the phasmid conversation, and the dream he has at the end about Dora. being able to miss all of these things fits the idea of a tabletop campaign, where circumstance can lead you to not understanding the full story if you don't run the same campaign again.

with that though the deserter being just some communist (alongside the dora dream being placed immediately beforehand) ties directly into Harry's personal torment with all of his contradicting ideologies and scattered, unfocused history. the deserter has tied his entire identity and mindset around history that he cannot get past, in the same way that harry is constantly dealing with his. harry will never be able to get over what happened and continue to relive it for the rest of his life most likely, and the deserter is emblematic of what he would have ended up as if he didn't have the chance to mentally reinvent himself. as for the murder mystery, the deserter and where he resides is foreshadowed many, many times (majorly through visual calculus, inland empire, shivers, perception, and incidental dialogue/items). you can form a correct theory that lele was killed by a communist over his relationship with klaasje using an antique rifle from the island off the coast by day 3 (at least i did on my first playthrough with the preset "sensitive" build and average luck). the deserter fits in with the harry's theme of overcoming the past and seeking relief over it even more, as even the last thing he had to hope for at the end to give himself a symbolic act of closure is taken away from him when Renee dies of a heart attack instead of him getting to take a final victory against his former enemy. he also (when explained via Conceptualization) is able to re-contextualize the past for the better in the form of creating new meaning from old history if told about the nature behind the town square statue, giving hope to harry's situation.

Dora is harry's personal destructive past, and something he will never obtain closure for and something he'll never be able to get over, as harry dials her number by muscle memory at random and dreams about her every night (which she tells him herself in his dream). his past hangups and failures would likely be reduced to personality traits or weird quirks if not for the trauma of being left and having his child aborted in favor of another man's child, which clearly has ruined his life and is not something you can easily forget. dora can't give him closure either herself, as Harry only wants to fully return to the way things were instead of desiring to know the reason why or whatever. as such the only actual future for him is one where he takes the parts of him that you chose to piece together and hopefully uses them to better himself, or if you went full crazy person drug fiend he'll end up as a shithead (or a hobocop if kim got shot and you refused cuno's partnership). and like the achievement says, the figurines won't win her back, so harry's stuck there.

the realization that The Pale is essentially the past itself is eating the world away and that it enters from churches worshipping the same deity he's turned his ex into is an effective tie to Harry's own habitual self destruction, as well as a potential driving force behind his renewed set of viewpoints leading to a better future for him. the only thing that's hinted at even holding the pale back from it's multiple entrypoints (in churches, that worship Dolores Dei, whom harry has turned his ex wife into mentally) is the creation of completely new things, like Anodic Rave music using ice sounds. as long as Harry sees his ex wife as a godly perfect thing and idolize her he will always symbolically be introducing his own "pale" destroying himself, and similar to the church he will need to create new things within himself to combat that. in the same way the pale will inevitably destroy the world they exist in, harry too will die. if he does nothing but cling to the past and doesn't create anything new, even if it's a mashup of old ideas and old ideologies (in the same way the ravers are diminishing it slightly by mashing up old music, ice sounds, and the pale noise) he will die faster and no one will care about him, in the same way the world will.

so while you may not have looked up much from the phasmid conversation i'm not sure, it's incredibly important to the actual supernatural element of the storyline that you seemed to desire, as the phasmid nesting where it does directly causes the deserter's diminished mental state and explains why he developed a fixation on klaasje via prolonged contact with the creature's psychic abilities, and also reveals that the world only has 40~ years left to go. for Harry himself the phasmid is the emotional whiplash from the Dora dream and the (what i'm confident is) calculated letdown of the deserter being no one special. while i think it may be in his own head, the conversation with the creature is where Harry receives his internal redemption; cementing within himself the fact that he, as a creature capable of complex thought, memory, and emotions (including pain), is more incredible and worthwhile than even a near-supernatural creature that you either chose to believe in or rejected the possibility of, and his own confidence as a detective is renewed as he cracks a supernatural case that all but 3 people think is a genuine hoax or impossibility. the fact that kim or cuno are able to take a picture of the creature as evidence further adds to Harry's social redemption and credibility as a competent policeman and problem solver, and the inclusion of either of them into the force gives hope for his future with the inclusion of new people and opinions in his life. i feel this is the sendoff that allows his journey into becoming accepted back into the force as actual change in his life and personality, if your harry ends up that way of course.

it took me 2 playthroughs and almost 0 outside viewpoints to end up with all of this connecting information and worldbuilding, and my summary is only a fraction of what the game actually says about the themes i've been mentioning. i have many interpretations of things within all of this information as i expect everyone to have, but all of the things i've said are things that the game tells you if you put in the time and effort to discover. the lack of satisfying closure and the uncertainty of life are common themes in eastern european art and literature, and DE is no different in that sense. i've taken some liberties with optimism in harry's potential future as Kurvitz's initial expressed vision (and the sober monk writing method) seems to be geared towards a character fixing their life and society creating new ideas, but i don't feel like i've misrepresented any plot elements beyond making basic connections with everything directly leading up to the ending. also i obviously do wish there was more dev time available for them to add more ending possibilities, i just don't think it's the abrupt, quick ending some people seem to think it is with all of this being in the game.

if this isn't clear i give up

 

[Sammy]

To throw my own hat into the ring (and to try to truncate it so its not an essay; essays are good tho I love that kinda drill down into interactive entertainment),

Spoiler: because some people still haven't finished the game, you know who you are

I think that Disco Elysium, distilled, is a game about discovery. Of all the game's themes, its one of the, if not THE, strongest. Discovery plays a big part, of course, in murder mysteries and crime drama, but that's really not what the game is about. That's the wrapper, the bait that hooks you into something that ultimately is about something entirely different. This game isn't really about being Sherlock Holmes in Eastern Europe Final Fantasy 6, and you're lied a bit to at the start that it is.

Were it about simply solving a murder mystery, your primary game loop would be discovering evidence pertinent to the crime, as well as ancillary and contradictory evidence and trying to figure out what information boils down to red herrings and which information is important, but it would all tie back to the crime. Instead, you're constantly encourage to venture out into the world to, well, simply discover, (against the will of your patient exacerbated partner who IS playing a simple murder mystery video game), you make everything else but the murder mystery your priority and return to the mystery when the clock runs against you, or its convenient, or you don't really know what other distractions to dive into at the moment. So much detail and importance is placed on discovering your character, and who you are, and whats happening to the world, and all of the other smaller mysteries surrounding you, while the murder mystery plays out pretty straight forward, albeit being well written. When you get stuck on it (by failing your skill rolls or whatever) the solution is to go off on more personal adventures that have nothing to do with the mystery until you unlock the chances again by leveling up or having some new personal insight that lets you go back to the primary plot again. If we were to imagine Disco Elysium as a home to live in, the murder mystery is like the concrete foundation the structure is built on, the cold, uninteresting but super important structural support, but the actual house, the walls, the furniture, the decor, all the stuf a human would value and find imporant, is made of everything else, all the other "side quests".

But, of course, you're not told about this twist experience at the start, there would be no discovery in that, diminishing the theme's presence. Discovery is something hard to achieve organically when you try to force it. The game can do its best to lead you into a specific head space, but some people simply won't achieve that, much like some people won't understand the appeal in a certain type of movie or TV show or whatever. You can't of course, simply tell people HEY DISCOVER THINGS, that's not discovery, that's following a script. And, of course, different people respond to different stimuli. Given the accolades the games is getting, I think it achieved its goal of discovery by reaching an audience of desirable proportion.

But back to the point of this discussion currently, the ending. As @Terror Rism mentioned, there's a lot of details and clues placed about basically telling you you're not on the right track with your investigation, that there's still something undiscovered about this situation, but the cards are stacked against you. Shivers, Inland Empire, etc, tell you this, but in cryptic and veiled ways you're really not intended to fully understand, but just kind of sort of to feel. You're not really intended to solve the mystery Sherlock Holmes style anyways, with a neat wrap up and everything working out just fine. Your character's life hasn't been anything near that, even if that's the facade he puts on outsiders to see. Also, as you discover the doomed path of the world, your own character's wretched history and problems, the focus of what's important slips from your day job to your situation.

Ultimately, why is the death of one hardened mercenary so important? Because along the way, you also pick up that if you don't solve this mystery, the situation will get worse, it will get out of hand. But you're not Sherlock Holmes, you're not going to stop the bad from happening. The bad happens. The bad happened to you before, the bad is happening to your character currently, the bad is happening to the world and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Being able to solve the mystery "the way you wanted", aka fully and completely before the shit hits the fan, goes directly against this message the game works so hard to construct.

In truth its a very bleak situation, and if you, the player, allow yourself to let down your guard a little, you have to admit, while the details aren't exactly the same, you can empathize with that fact. Everyone can. Life can sometimes really suck. But there is a glimmer of hope, as there always is, and discovering that hope is the actual goal for your character of the game, not to figure out whodunnit. That's what the Phasmid, in its strange way, represents, as well as the "positive" endings of the game, (not the ones like, where you abandon the game early, or get a game over, or shoot a kid or whatever.) In that light, discovering an allegorical version of your character whom never found hope, the deserter, completely consumed by his own personal demons, acts as a warning to your character. You can see the results of what will happen if you do not discover your own personal bit of hope and meaning. His ties to the narrative make sense, even if they seem to come out of left field, because you, up to that point, were always focusing on the wrong thing (again, by design, the game designers led you down that road. If you COULD solve everything neat and tidy, that goes against the message of "the bad happens, and you can't stop it. Sorry."

Its not for everyone, and yes, its frustrating that everything seems to be a surprise and the story was rigged against you, but that's the point. You have to be in that mindset to discover, for yourself, the glimmer of hope in the ending.

edit, well shit mine's not really that much shorter.

 

[Kane Lives]

So to throw my hat into the ring, I just finished the game.

And I have to say, it's quite a trip. I didn't quite manage to finish all the tasks, but I think I got a fairly substantial amount completed for my first play-through. Reading through some of the spoilers on the game here:

Spoiler: Story discussion

Like most others, I was honestly disappointed at the ending. Everything after the tribunal feels rushed, as if they ran out of time and they needed to close the mystery NOW NOW. I can understand that the main goal was the Cop rediscovering himself all along, but it doesn't diminish that rushed feel.

But everything leading up to that moment? Absolutely superb. Even when I was wandering around just fucking around, the narrative actually made some sort of sense. That they made the world subtly change from day to day made the world feel alive too. The world building was satirical, original, and trippy all at once and it's what I appreciate the most. It appeals to my inner DM.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I think the game would have worked better if it let you go into the island beforehand. It felt very video-gamey that already on the third day I get possible locations for the shooter but the game doesn't let me check all of them until the story says so and it so happen the murderer is there.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

I think the game would have worked better if it let you go into the island beforehand. It felt very video-gamey that already on the third day I get possible locations for the shooter but the game doesn't let me check all of them until the story says so and it so happen the murderer is there.

That was my big beef too. The moment you realize that you can't access it you know it's the right spot.

I still loved the game though and I hope they make a competent sequel.

 

[Kane Lives]

I think the game would have worked better if it let you go into the island beforehand. It felt very video-gamey that already on the third day I get possible locations for the shooter but the game doesn't let me check all of them until the story says so and it so happen the murderer is there.

Aye. The island bit bothered me a lot too. At the very least, they needed to address it in character, because the game straight up do not even mention how to get to the island until that one event occurs. Even a throwaway conversation like

"Hey Kim, we need to check that island too."
"By swimming there?"
"Hell yeah."
"Don't be absurd. The currents will drag you under." etc etc etc.

 

[Terror Rism]

that point is actually touched on before the tribunal, if you narrow down the potential locations to the island beforehand, albeit in a limited sense.
by doing all of the things that allow you to find out (pull out the bullet, visual calculus klaasje's window, connect the bullet with a long ranged rifle etc) and talking with kim, you learn that you would indeed die by trying to swim in the near-freezing turbulent waters and the only way to get there is via a boat, and that the only one you've seen that isn't owned by an ultraliberal rich bitch whom doesn't even want the murder solved is the Fisherwoman's boat on the shore, which is being re-tarred to prevent leaks according to the fisherwoman and will be done/dried by the end of the week.

the only problem i've had with this is that I haven't found a way to ask Joyce herself about getting to the island, which would have felt like everything tied up neatly to me even if she flat out refused.

 

[Pissmaster]

Apparently it's coming out on Switch eventually: https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/7/21211908/disco-elysium-nintendo-release-date-price

Archive.is is down again so here's the article's text:

Spoiler: article

Mind-bending role-playing game Disco Elysium is heading to the Nintendo Switch. The announcement comes directly from art director Aleksander Rostov during an interview with the BBC.

Disco Elysium is the story of a hard-boiled detective, with gameplay that focuses on character building over combat. In Polygon’s review we called it “a pure role-playing experience that feels wondrous and unique compared to its peers.” The game has since received multiple industry awards, the most recent of which came courtesy of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. On April 2 it took home honors for the Debut Game, and Music categories as well as the Narrative category, where it beat out Life is Strange 2, Outer Wilds, Control, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

Originally released in October 2019 on PC platforms, the game is also expected on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. No release date or price for the Nintendo Switch version was offered.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Btw, two question I didn't find answers on. What is the best tribunal result and how you get it, and can you win in the tabletop game?

 

[Orange Rhymer]

I pirated the game and couldn't delete it fast enough.
Children writing about topics they have zero understanding, while trying to summon the aesthetics of the 1970s.

Free was too much. Go be an artfag on someone else's time. Make better games.