Disco Elysium - Insane Drunken Cop Simulator RPG GotY 2019

[Rich Evans Apologist]

Fallout 1, 2

That's why I said degree. FO1/2 have a whole lot of narrative and dialogue hidden behind you having certain skills, sure, but compared to the way that every single dialogue and interaction piques at least one passive skillcheck? And how the game is built from the ground up on everything involving these skill checks, rather than trying to tweak a P&P system to work in a video game?
Wait, these are visual novels about anime girls. Some guy I know told me Queen goes deeper and is a management game, but that guy has pretty esoteric tastes.

The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante

This informs me that it came out - I had my eye on this when it was just a demo, but I didn't follow up on it.
It looked neat, but it also released on March 4th. Trailer looks like it was last year.

it's also noticable that it happens twice for right wing views and not for other types of views?

That depends on whether you'd take Fuck the World and Pissfaggot as left-wingers, given they're Skulls members (the anarcho-communist gang).
Excluding them, yes, it only happens for Gary and the driver.

It's one of the clearcut examples where the developers views shine through

...and then when you think about it, the racist lorry driver and gary the cryptofascist cause virtually no-one any trouble, like I said, whereas the Union Boss and the Ultraliberal both nearly destroy the town in their contest to see who blinks first and the moralists are thoroughly derided throughout the entire game by the entire town.

In fact; the whole demoralized "the world is shit through and through" view is very much aligned with certain left-wing anarchist types of worldview.

It's also pretty common in post-soviet eastern european storylines, yes. Really, soviet and pre-soviet, too.

This is an absurd criticism in the context of a discussion about disco elysium where a man converses with his 16 personalities with a perpetually stuck face.

Harry's strange quest to redeem himself involves grappling with his relationship's end and his abuse of drugs as well as burning himself out on work, all with a bit of dramatics added on. I've done those things. There are fantastic, strange, and overdramatic elements abounding in the game, yes. I can strip them away to the core elements without much effort; even the deserter living on the island has a parallel in those crazy japanese soldiers that were isolated for years after WW2.
I don't exactly know of anyone who reincarnates throughout the eons, though. Or really much of anything TNO or anyone in Sigil has done.

 

[Lemmingwise]

...and then when you think about it, the racist lorry driver and gary the cryptofascist cause virtually no-one any trouble, like I said, whereas the Union Boss and the Ultraliberal both nearly destroy the town in their contest to see who blinks first and the moralists are thoroughly derided throughout the entire game by the entire town.

Yes and in the vagina monologues a lesbian ends up grooming and raping an underage girl, yet it's still written from the perspective of lgbtq empowering. The movie "gloomy sunday" ends in defeat for the polyamorous jews, yet it is still clearly a loveletter to their activities. It's possible to read between the lines.

Some guy I know told me Queen goes deeper and is a management game, but that guy has pretty esoteric tastes.

Long live the queen is a surprise masterpiece, especially compared to the other games they have made. It obviously is a different tier of development made by just a couple of people. It has a smaller scope than Disco Elysium. But world is surprisingly deep and there are numerous paths (though particularly; numerous ways to die).
For example, there are about 6 lore skills (local history, foreign affair history (neighbours), world history, internal affairs (state secrets), foreign intelligence (espionage), faith lore (religious history).
For every 10% of skill that you develop, you get information. Then there are numerous situations where that lore helps you understand an interaction better (for example, someone mentions the time one of your nobles attacked them; having full info helps you remember that it was a retaliation, not an unprovoked attack) and often having the right info allows new options.

As games go, long live the queen has pretty broad appeal, as you can see from the wide variety of different type people that have done let's plays for it.

 

[Terror Rism]

also i recommend Pathologic 1 (2005) and 2 (2019) to anyone that feels like the "character over political meaning" as opposed to the opposite doesn't satisfy them, but still wants a slavic take on ways of dealing with harsh conditions and mysticism. (DE contains a considerable amount of mysticism but takes a long while to get there)

it essentially takes the opposite approach that DE does, having all character developments, their perspectives, and worldbuilding tie deeply into the very interconnected politics of the fictional town, which represents the early industrial revolution and the problems it can and has lead to (specifically in the early 1900's northwest americas with its native populations).

i consider it much more difficult to argue story-wise about pedantic small things with Patho than it is with DE as it's much more refined as a single storyline, which is why i hope that any sequels to DE are similar in scope/effect and that they find their proper space in the realm of artistic progression.

 

[Rich Evans Apologist]

Yes and in the vagina monologues a lesbian ends up grooming and raping an underage girl, yet it's still written from the perspective of lgbtq empowering. The movie "gloomy sunday" ends in defeat for the polyamorous jews, yet it is still clearly a loveletter to their activities. It's possible to read between the lines.

See, I take those as they appear in the presentation themselves. I would, and did, walk away from the vagina monologues thinking that particular bit was more than a little discomforting. Supposedly The Waste Land is a poem whose original meaning and intent is vastly divorced from what people who read it get out of it. I know that the devs lean left. It doesn't bother me any more than that the guy who made Earthworm Jim is probably crazy.

To that end I'm not going to come around on the idea that although the game makes fun of every ideology and reduces Harry's interpretation of it to something retarded (I'm so smart/I wanna get rich/I'm afraid to do anything/I hate women), it is somehow especially light on the one that sets the entire plot in motion and especially hard on the one that doesn't threaten anything or anyone in the setting. I do keep digging for examples, though, simply because I'm curious. I was a bit more libertarian nestled with centrism in late 2019, and I just found it shitting on my beliefs to be funny.

Long live the queen is a surprise masterpiece, especially compared to the other games they have made.

The friend that recommended it said it was interesting as a time management/skill balancing game. I'll probably give it a whirl eventually -- but still. Even if the individual components were there in some form before, it's the combination and critical success that can go on to inspire future developers/writers to refine the formula.

also i recommend Pathologic 1 (2005) and 2 (2019) to anyone that feels like the "character over political meaning" as opposed to the opposite doesn't satisfy them, but still wants a slavic take on ways of dealing with harsh conditions and mysticism.

Pathologic I is hard to get through simply because of how much walking around the core loop is, though it's a fascinating thing. Can't recommend Pathologic II enough though; it was a fascinating morsel of a game and it's a real shame that IPL isn't really going to have the funding to do much with the Bachelor/Changeling, although last I remember they were still hoping to put in some barebone storylines for them. Maybe the recent #MeToo press around the head cheese will generate some buzz for them; who knows.

i consider it much more difficult to argue story-wise about pedantic small things with Patho than it is with DE as it's much more refined as a single storyline, which is why i hope that any sequels to DE are similar in scope/effect and that they find their proper space in the realm of artistic progression.

I've sometimes compared Pathologic to Kafka when I try to sell people on it, which I think helps to avoid people squabbling over its elements. Drawing concrete parallels is fairly difficult, and a lot of its elements are wholly alien to the western perspective. Everything is so wrapped in allegory and obscure aphorism coupled with the way it manages time and choice so organically, it really does seem like everyone comes away from that game with a different experience and interpretation. Except that everyone should agree the punching segment at the end fucking sucks.

I also really adore the thought-map from that game. Fantastic idea that I hope other people yoink.

 

[Kane Lives]

Honestly it was as jarring as having all this attention to a worker's strike and scabs. A game that started with very avant garde ambitions like having a face stuck in perpetual grin and the potentiality of dying from grabbing your tie, quickly devolved into very cardboard cutout characters.

"Racist" "communist" "fascist" "capitalist" aren't characters. It felt like dating a woman with pushup bras. I didn't manage to finish the game because it was quickly clear how much flatter it was than it set out to be.

The funny thing is I liked the capitalist and fascist characters the most, and broadly sympathised with them, even if I don't agree with their principles completely. (Rest in peace, old man.)

 

[Secret Asshole]

What the fuck happened to my precious thread.

Ok, here's the lowdown:

Tankies are faggots. Done.

Important question, can you turn the voice acting off?

 

[DeadwastePrime]

Important question, can you turn the voice acting off?

im pretty sure you can.

 

[Peasant]

The funny thing is I liked the capitalist and fascist characters the most, and broadly sympathised with them, even if I don't agree with their principles completely. (Rest in peace, old man.)

I thought Measurehead was hilarious since he's basically a gigachad /pol/ poster.

 

[Rich Evans Apologist]

Important question, can you turn the voice acting off?

Yeah. It's basically got sliders - none, people speaking (not thoughts), and everything.

One issue people have is that a lot of the old voice acting has just been thrown out and replaced with a more professional studio - but the old acting was seriously charming if goofy.

 

[Kane Lives]

Yeah. It's basically got sliders - none, people speaking (not thoughts), and everything.

One issue people have is that a lot of the old voice acting has just been thrown out and replaced with a more professional studio - but the old acting was seriously charming if goofy.

Is the old voice acting completely gone?

 

[Rich Evans Apologist]

Is the old voice acting completely gone?

I dunno offhand the complete list of changed actors, and I haven't played through the director's cut yet myself, but a lot of them are just gone. If you liked the old Cuno, he's not there anymore and there's no option to flip it back. It's one of the big complaints in the negative reviews section since the cut released.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

I dunno offhand the complete list of changed actors, and I haven't played through the director's cut yet myself, but a lot of them are just gone. If you liked the old Cuno, he's not there anymore and there's no option to flip it back. It's one of the big complaints in the negative reviews section since the cut released.

I thought there wasn’t any voice acting originally?

 

[Rich Evans Apologist]

I thought there wasn’t any voice acting originally?

It was patchy and for certain characters/moments only. Cuno, the Union Boss, Joyce, Kim were almost entirely voiced, with just a few offshoot dialogue paths being unvoiced if I remember right. Lots of side characters didn't have any voicework.

 

[Steinercard]

also i recommend Pathologic 1 (2005) and 2 (2019) to anyone that feels like the "character over political meaning" as opposed to the opposite doesn't satisfy them, but still wants a slavic take on ways of dealing with harsh conditions and mysticism. (DE contains a considerable amount of mysticism but takes a long while to get there)

it essentially takes the opposite approach that DE does, having all character developments, their perspectives, and worldbuilding tie deeply into the very interconnected politics of the fictional town, which represents the early industrial revolution and the problems it can and has lead to (specifically in the early 1900's northwest americas with its native populations).

i consider it much more difficult to argue story-wise about pedantic small things with Patho than it is with DE as it's much more refined as a single storyline, which is why i hope that any sequels to DE are similar in scope/effect and that they find their proper space in the realm of artistic progression.

I find it so very interesting and depressing that the same tankies who sniff each other's farts avoid Pathologic like the plague. I think it does a better job of presenting it's characters and their varying opinions on things.

With Pathologic the "politics" if you can even call it that, is confined to the context of the bizarre and surreal world through a mixture of Slavic and Steppe perspectives. The closest thing to a "fascist" is the military when they roll in. But even then they're more a tool to promote urgency and raise the stakes than any kind of put down on ideology. The debate between traditional mysticism and rational progression WITHIN the circumstances of how it affects this one village and it's culture was far more interesting than whatever waffle about modern day politics unsubtly shoved in front of you DE was.
That's before we get into the big thing about the whole game and it's plot being more an allegory to theatre and fiction itself along with it's impermanency than trying to bludgeon you with SILLY MUSTACHE MAN BAD.

 

[Kill a Troon for Pikamee]

I thought Measurehead was hilarious since he's basically a gigachad /pol/ poster.

Measurehead is specifically based on renown poster Hakan Rotmwrt (who is a very elaborate racist who knows like 9000 different races instead of like 5, and thinks that australian abos are the most powerful race)

Also if you don't like this game because of politics you are unironically autistic, I played through this game not once thinking about politics because you can simply not click political options in the dialogues. If I were to list themes of this game politics wouldn't even be in the top 5

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

what the fuck did they do to Titus voice? `the old one was so much better.

 

[Lemmingwise]

Measurehead is specifically based on renown poster Hakan Rotmwrt

Hey interesting. Him and "bronze age pervert", apparently. I'm not familiar with either of them.

I played through this game not once thinking about politics because you can simply not click political options in the dialogues. If I were to list themes of this game politics wouldn't even be in the top 5

Pretty significant part of it.

 

[Kill a Troon for Pikamee]

Hey interesting. Him and "bronze age pervert", apparently. I'm not familiar with either of them.


Pretty significant part of it.

Your character is a detective solving a murder
Your character is also dealing with some personal issues
This happens in a surreal world in which reality itself is being dematerialized by entropy or something I don't know

Just so happens there's some unions and strikes shit going on as well it really doesn't matter unless you're so obsessed with trump bad/trump good irl to also care about that shit in video games lmao

 

[Lemmingwise]

Your character is a detective solving a murder
Your character is also dealing with some personal issues
This happens in a surreal world in which reality itself is being dematerialized by entropy or something I don't know

Just so happens there's some unions and strikes shit going on as well it really doesn't matter unless you're so obsessed with trump bad/trump good irl to also care about that shit in video games lmao

Doesn't matter if you care about it or not, it's obviously some of the themes of the game.

 

[JamusActimus]

Also if you don't like this game because of politics you are unironically autistic, I played through this game not once thinking about politics because you can simply not click political options in the dialogues. If I were to list themes of this game politics wouldn't even be in the top 5

I saw it like that: politic are complicated /nuanced and ultimately unfun.

That's why you got caricatures of ideologies.Same I didn't care that much about the politic talk.I was always dismissive of it. To advance the investigation,I dabbled in some racist/facist dialogue (Mesure Head+The lory driver).

Then in my headcanon of my playthrought, the Mc used to be racist.His face looks like racist carricature of a revacholian too.

Spoiler: Ending

My ending was pretty wholesome imo.It was kinda like the white cop and black cop trope. Despite his racism Tequila Sunset ended up leaving facism and critical race theory thanks to Kim which showed him even mens "inferior races" can have character. Kimm said Tequilla was a racist drunk weirdo but a great cop and a good person