Disco Elysium

"What kind of cop are you? Good cop? Bad cop? Utter failure?"

So, this is an urban fantasy/hardboiled detective hybrid open-ended RPG with your character having "24 colorful, psychological skills."

It's an interesting and fresh take on the genre at the very least. I also like the art direction, really colorful in all the good ways. There wasn't much talk about the combat, but it's supposed to be peppered around like a showdown in a story, so it only happens in the big moments.

Also, the hero looks like a vagrant more than a detective.

Freeze frame here to see the 24 skills, divided through 4 categories.

edited 29th Apr '18 3:08:08 PM by AnotherGuy

I mean, he is a disgraced lieutenant with some eccentricities, the look is pretty much perfect for conveying that.

Skill information on dev blogs so far has been on Psyche and Physique categories.

edited 29th Apr '18 3:11:53 PM by UltraWanker

There was one on the Intellect too

edited 30th Apr '18 10:02:52 AM by SpookyMask

Devblog about the combat system.

CSI: Planescape: Torment, I approve.

I like how the skills aren't always GOOD - how, if you invest too much in being aggressive, it can be to your detriment. A nice change from just maxing out your charisma stat and assuming you're golden.

Having them as almost characters in themselves could be interesting. But at least it isn't just combat all the time.

An overview of the final skills category, Motorics

Sooo yeah, looking forward to buying this eventually.

Yeah, sorry I didn't do a search of old thread. Just realized it too late.

Bought it yesterday after a couple of friends got me sold by showing me about the first twenty minutes of the game and I don't regret it.

"Help ! Someone cut my head off, It's trying to murder the rest of me !" is still making me roll on the floor.

It looks like it takes the best strange elements of Planescape (The way some dialogue options were absolutely mad) as well as the idea of stat-reflected dialogue (the "idiot" style Fallout dialogue) to its logical extreme.

Definitely going to get it. Even if I am slightly intimidated by it!

Dang, hadn't played further than 2 days ago...been busy trying to finish Dragon Star Varnir.

Anyway: how do you get more than 1 morale bar at the beginning? Is it due to stat allocation or such (I picked the premade intellectual route)? Because getting game over from realizing that your police uniform is missing is...well, quite sudden (and lulzy, but still).

Edited by onyhow on Oct 21st 2019 at 8:58:54 AM

Yes, it's stat allocation based (volition) but even with only 1 the game over isn't automatic : if you have magnesium around, you can just pop one mid dialogue when the bar is emptying and you'll move on no questions asked.

Aight, finished the game. That was a blast. I've fucked over my sleep schedule sideways with it but I have all the time in the world to get it back on track.

I've seen wrryingly few solutions/answers to things around on the internet so if you have a question I can try to answer them in the best of my ability.

The Steam forums are pretty active. Of course that also means the usual insults and recriminations every other post. But you can find a fair amount of questions already answered.

But if anyone does want to ask here, I've beaten the game too. Very happy to talk more about it, too. It's great.

Thanks for answer...although I guess that 1 point in psyche on that premade might not be best idea then...high int, low cha.

Got my first skill point, now to decide what to level up.

You get to punch a racist child in the face. I'm already in love with this game.

Ahh, Cuno...

^^ You can always add more points to Volition and Endurance later. It's a nice way to heal yourself, too. You can access your stats and level up even in the middle of a conversation.

Best way to spend level ups I found was to keep them around and wait for a delicate skill checks to present itself, and spend them on improving the attribute in question, since it's pretty hard to know in advance what you'd actually like to have.

Do put them into skills you've decided you want to use a lot, though. Having high skills can unlock various passive checks which open up extra dialogue, thoughts, and even quests you might not see otherwise. As does leaving a few skills low, for that matter. So it's still good to specialize, but definitely keep a point or two in reserve.

So I've completed this game twice now and here are several things I've observed:

On first playthrough with 3 3 3 3 and second playthrough as thinker cop, I've only discovered on latter who shot the king statue. I have no clue if I simply forgot to check it in first playthrough(aka checked it and loaded save before I did. I could swore I didn't do that though) or if having enough skills in specific category allowed me to learn that. Either way it suggests that there is lots of minor details you will only learn on specific builds.

And now bit spoilery stuff: Rene dies if you take the photo from booth and talk to him and Gaston about it, it reminds him of his feud with Gaston enough to work up too much and die out of heart attack by following day.

Also realized there are quests you might never know they exist. I failed suggestion check to get Joyce to talk without badge(I think, maybe I succeeded?) on first playthrough and Kimdidn't really like that, so on second playthrough I never tried it and returned to Joyce after finding my badge which meant I never got the drug trafficing investigation quest and never found out about Ruby's involvement or that Tommy was friends with her.

On Evrart I hate that guy. Also discovered on second playthrough, since I forgot to talk to him on first one after telling Joyce info that convinced her to try to secede terminal to union, that his plan all along was telling you information so that you would tell it to Joyce and get union bloodless victory. So guy is definitely smart even though it requires players to do stupid unprofessional thing that Kim isn't too sure about

And about the ending Its hilarious how many things are explained by detective being gym teacher before being a cop, Kim points out it even explains why you were such "juvie" with the anodic music club teens.

Edited by SpookyMask on Oct 28th 2019 at 9:52:23 PM

Jesus christ I've done the game as a thinker cop and I've missed almost everything you jsut said, it's amazing.

Still playing the game, slowly, decide to continue the premade thinker cop...

Gotta say, thank fuck for the Magnesium-Based Lifeform thought for that extra Volition. And boy the murder case is getting really convoluted.

Only on day 3 though, got boombox for cheap and just crossed the river also how the fuck did I trash my car that bad???

Also man, I wonder after that if I want to do another run should I make a character with full Shiver, Inlaid Empire, or such skills. It might make things...interesting. Hmm, maybe I should up my Conceptualization and Visual Calculus on my current char? Didn't put anything there yet, just 2 Logic and 1 Encyc

Edited by onyhow on Oct 29th 2019 at 12:49:25 PM