Disco Elysium Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Kyl Von Kull]

As a teenager I didn't see the world in these terms so it was never an issue. I was drawn to the literary form like a moth to a flame. The language, the fantasy, pure aesthetics.

No one’s going to send you to a re-education camp for teenage heterodoxy (at least not until after the barricades go up). But speaking of Epic Pooh and Tolkien’s aesthetic:

Spoiler

The sort of prose most often identified with "high" fantasy is the prose of the nursery-room. It is a lullaby; it is meant to soothe and console. It is mouth-music. It is frequently enjoyed not for its tensions but for its lack of tensions. It coddles; it makes friends with you; it tells you comforting lies. It is soft:

One day when the sun had come back over the forest, bringing with it the scent of May, and all the streams of the Forest were tinkling happily to find themselves their own pretty shape again, and the little pools lay dreaming of the life they had seen and the big things they had done, and in the warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying over his voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and wood-pigeons were complaining gently to themselves in their lazy comfortable way that it was the other fellow's fault, but it didn't matter very much; on such a day as this Christopher Robin whistled in a special way he had, and Owl came flying out of the Hundred Acre Wood to see what was wanted.

Winnie-the-Pooh, 1926

It is the predominant tone of The Lord of the Rings and Watership Down and it is the main reason why these books, like many similar ones in the past, are successful...

...The humour is often unconscious because, as with Tolkien, the authors take words seriously but without pleasure:

One summer's evening an astonishing piece of news reached the Ivy Bush and Green Dragon. Giants and other portents on the borders of the Shire were forgotten for more important matters; Mr. Frodo was selling Bag End, indeed he had already sold it-to the Sackville-Bagginses!

"For a nice bit, too," said some. "At a bargain price," said others, "and that's more likely when Mistress Lobelia's the buyer." (Otho had died some years before, at the ripe but disappointed age of 102.)

Just why Mr. Frodo was selling his beautiful hole was even more debatable than the price...

The Fellowship of the Ring, 1954

I have been told it is not fair to quote from the earlier parts of The Lord of the Rings, that I should look elsewhere to find much better stuff so, opening it entirely at random, I find some improvement in substance and writing, but that tone is still there:

Pippin became drowsy again and paid little attention to Gandalf telling him of the customs of Gondor, and how the Lord of the City had beacons built on the tops of outlying hills along both borders of the great range, and maintained posts at these points where fresh horses were always in readiness to bear his errand-riders to Rohan in the North, or to Belfalas in the South. "It is long since the beacons of the North were lit," he said; "and in the ancient days of Gondor they were not needed, for they had the Seven Stones."

Pippin stirred uneasily.

The Return of the King, 1955

Tolkien does, admittedly, rise above this sort of thing on occasions, in some key scenes, but often such a scene will be ruined by ghastly verse and it is remarkable how frequently he will draw back from the implications of the subject matter.

I loved this stuff as a kid, too, but...

 

[Kasparov]

There's a ton of subtle detail in the new version that wasn't in the original, the floor and the countertop for example are pretty different. The aesthetic has shifted too, somewhat -- the new one is a lot more subdued and to my eye it suggests watercolour where the first version was more tempera or maybe acrylic. The lighting is subtler too.

Rostov had a breakthrough when painting the Traffic Jam - the specifics of isometrics and the various maps we rendered clicked. After that he went back to the interior of the cafeteria and gave it a fresh coat.

I think it was a smart move to go with a 3D scene and a fixed camera. The Pillars pipeline with prerendered maps would make it really expensive to iterate on the art like this, whereas a free camera would make it impossible to paint in stuff like the shine on the countertop. This way it's possible to blend hand-painted and rendered lighting in a uniquely beautiful way.

Here I have to point out that we pre-render our backgrounds as well. It's a warped version of the pipeline we imagine Obsidian devs used with Pillars. Painting the backgrounds involves juggling huge Photoshop files with lots of layers pre rendered in advance. Re-painting something is all right compared to a change in the layout of objects - that involves re-painting in multiple layers.

 

[Kasparov]

I loved this stuff as a kid, too, but...

Moorcock's essays are one thing, but I wouldn't say his own high fantasy is anything more than what he accuses Tolkien of. Based on most of Elric and Dancers. Again - great for kids who love to roll dice and shout incantations.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I loved this stuff as a kid, too, but...

Moorcock's essays are one thing, but I wouldn't say his own high fantasy is anything more than what he accuses Tolkien of. Based on most of Elric and Dancers. Again - great for kids who love to roll dice and shout incantations.

Oh, his fantasy and science fiction is pure pulp aside from Gloriana. But I think his quality issues are different: his epics just feel phoned in, like disposable art (obviously art may be stretching it). He’d have had to work to achieve the nursery rhyme tone he derides in Tolkien and he was never much of a worker. Tolkien’s books were labors of love. Moorcock spent most of his career as a hack. It’s less forgivable because he was capable of so much more—the Pyat books were excellent.

 

[Prime Junta]

I was a huge Tolkien nerd as well. Can still quote reams of Elvish from memory -- understand some of it too! -- and can read and write Fëanorian script (although I have forgotten my Certhas Daeron). Read LotR probably thirty times or so. It wasn't really until the Peter Jackson movies that I outgrew it, although I did start seeing the flaws well before then. Tolkien is why I'm such a worldbuilding geek. Middle-Earth is the only real character in Tolkien, but boy howdy does it have breadth and depth. Despite the valiant efforts of the likes of Ursula K. Le Guin and others, nothing else has managed to pull me in like it.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I went and looked at the original and the new cafeteria screenshots side by side. I thought it was gorgeous when I first saw it but they've taken it to the next level.

There's a ton of subtle detail in the new version that wasn't in the original, the floor and the countertop for example are pretty different. The aesthetic has shifted too, somewhat -- the new one is a lot more subdued and to my eye it suggests watercolour where the first version was more tempera or maybe acrylic. The lighting is subtler too.

I think it was a smart move to go with a 3D scene and a fixed camera. The Pillars pipeline with prerendered maps would make it really expensive to iterate on the art like this, whereas a free camera would make it impossible to paint in stuff like the shine on the countertop. This way it's possible to blend hand-painted and rendered lighting in a uniquely beautiful way.

What I'm liking in the newer screenshot particularly is how much more worn in and grungier the floor tiles look. It's nice to see a game that isn't shy about making things look 'aesthetically ugly,' if such a thing can be said. I fully expect a stray cockroach to be lurking around with no regulars bothering to bat an eye.

 

[Master]

Ffs guys. Its just a bit darker, that's all.

 

[Big Wrangle]

Did the Disco Elysium team break into your house or something?

 

[Kasparov]

He’s just jealous of his mom

 

[Haba]

Things can be worn out and dirty WITHOUT being murky dark and shown through some piss-filter shit.

 

[Kasparov]

Tbh then that same map looks different at different times of day. Grab a chill pill

 

[Fenix]

I think I gave it a short run (and some others) but I was a Tolkien nerd through and through back then and MUME reigned me in every time. My vocabulary expanded during that period around three or four times.

I have to cite Moorcock’s Epic Pooh whenever someone mentions Tolkien.

The Lord of the Rings is a pernicious confirmation of the values of a declining nation with a morally bankrupt class whose cowardly self-protection is primarily responsible for the problems England answered with the ruthless logic of Thatcherism. Humanity was derided and marginalised. Sentimentality became the acceptable subsitute. So few people seem to be able to tell the difference.

The Lord of the Rings is much more deep-rooted in its infantilism than a good many of the more obviously juvenile books it influenced. It is Winnie-the-Pooh posing as an epic. If the Shire is a suburban garden, Sauron and his henchmen are that old bourgeois bugaboo, the Mob - mindless football supporters throwing their beer-bottles over the fence the worst aspects of modern urban society represented as the whole by a fearful, backward-yearning class for whom "good taste" is synonymous with "restraint" (pastel colours, murmured protest) and "civilized" behaviour means "conventional behaviour in all circumstances". This is not to deny that courageous characters are found in The Lord of the Rings, or a willingness to fight Evil (never really defined), but somehow those courageous characters take on the aspect of retired colonels at last driven to write a letter to The Times and we are not sure - because Tolkien cannot really bring himself to get close to his proles and their satanic leaders - if Sauron and Co. are quite as evil as we're told. After all, anyone who hates hobbits can't be all bad.

Interesting read, it suddenly gives very different perspective on things that looked so unshakable, because like everybody treated it like that, and not only about Tolkien - that part "civilized" behaviour means "conventional behaviour in all circumstances" surprised me.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Ffs guys. Its just a bit darker, that's all.

If it makes you feel more comfortable, I also suffer from micro penis.

 

[Kasparov]

The Dice Bear writes about their highlights from EGX Rezzed from two weeks ago. Check it out.

Disco Elysium from ZA/UM studios

If you can walk away from a game struggling to conjugate a verb, you know you’re on to a good thing. Disco Elysium from ZA/UM studios smacked me in the face, from the dystopian blackness of its beginnings to the realisation I could be a Karaoke superstar in the grimy bars of Revachol West. Within seconds I was immersed in the game’s 70s inspired world, filled with genuine characters and an atmosphere so thick with stale cigarette smoke and empty bottles of booze, I remembered why I stopped smoking.

Disco Elysium was a glorious mix of isometric RPG and Point & Click adventure. The conversation trees were so dark and twisted yet somehow realistic in their presentation, that I began struggling with the same inner demons as the game’s main character. Even now, two weeks later, I am astounded by the skill of the writers to create such richly developed characters and a conversation web that boggles my mind – seriously, the amount of responses and tangents this game has the possibility to go in is awe inspiring.

However the game is more than a conversation simulator, it’s a gritty cop drama. You’ll need to hunt for clues – piecing together evidence in an attempt to solve a variety of crimes. These were so beautifully done that I found myself trying to unravel the scene in my own mind palace, deciphering the evidence presented to me and then solving the case, like a true detective. The force itself is corrupt, riddled with illegal activity; something strange is going on in the community and you may be the only one able to save the day… or not.

Disco Elysium had me biting at the bit to play more, such a sumptuously viceral world with characters I both love and detest; I can’t wait to for it to be released later this year.

 

[frajaq]

we're reaching hype levels I never thought possible

 

[Master]

No shit. All it takes is for ZAUM to lower gamma correction by 5 degrees and Codexers start lining up for a blowjob... Sad times

 

[Kasparov]

No shit. All it takes is for ZAUM to lower gamma correction by 5 degrees and Codexers start lining up for a blowjob... Sad times

DOTA is more along the lines of your color preferences?

 

[Delterius]

This is getting so weird. Let's stop this before there's no turning back.

I believe there's no turning back for you, Casper.

 

[Kasparov]

This is getting so weird. Let's stop this before there's no turning back.

I believe there's no turning back for you, Casper.

Do you misspell your own mother´s name as well?

 

[Big Wrangle]

All it takes is for ZAUM to lower gamma correction by 5 degrees and Codexers start lining up for a blowjob... Sad times

Yea man seriously what the fuck? Remember when No Truce of the Furies was panned for its slightly brighter direction? One of our veterans, Big Josh, wrote an essay deconstructing the whole scene. And then these filthy Holocaust survivors decreased it a bit and it's acclaimed.
smh no integrity these days.

 

[Delterius]

This is getting so weird. Let's stop this before there's no turning back.

I believe there's no turning back for you, Casper.

Do you misspell your own mother´s name as well?

But you're my mother.

 

[Master]

All it takes is for ZAUM to lower gamma correction by 5 degrees and Codexers start lining up for a blowjob... Sad times

Yea man seriously what the fuck? Remember when No Truce of the Furies was panned for its slightly brighter direction? One of our veterans, Big Josh, wrote an essay deconstructing the whole scene. And then these filthy Holocaust survivors decreased it a bit and it's acclaimed.
smh no integrity these days.

What...?

No shit. All it takes is for ZAUM to lower gamma correction by 5 degrees and Codexers start lining up for a blowjob... Sad times

DOTA is more along the lines of your color preferences?

DE isn't that different actually. So far its all pretty cookie cutter colorful stuff... Frankly, kinda kitchy.

 

[Kasparov]

This is getting so weird. Let's stop this before there's no turning back.

I believe there's no turning back for you, Casper.

Do you misspell your own mother´s name as well?

But you're my mother.

My previous comment still applies

 

[Delterius]

This is getting so weird. Let's stop this before there's no turning back.

I believe there's no turning back for you, Casper.

Do you misspell your own mother´s name as well?

But you're my mother.

My previous comment still applies

I guess we have to agree to agree.

But will you?

 

[fantadomat]

This is getting so weird. Let's stop this before there's no turning back.

I believe there's no turning back for you, Casper.

Do you misspell your own mother´s name as well?

But you're my mother.

My previous comment still applies

I guess we have to agree to agree.

But will you?

That is some weird dialogue. You will be very strange drinking buddies.