5 ms·

Disco Elysium and the need for collective action

90 points by otachack 3y ago

dpflan 3y ago
Any recommendations for similar games or similarly impressive games?
- throw1234651234 3y ago
  PST. The one and only. DE never even came close.
  - sirl1on 3y ago
    Planescape: Torment?
    - brirec 3y ago
      I assume as much. It’s been sitting in my “to play” queue for a while, because it frequently comes up as an example of a similar game (or even possibly the only similar game?) Unfortunately its age definitely shows when you see the complicated controls and such. (I grew up with consoles and prefer controllers. Sue me.) Maybe this is a reason to dig out my old Steam Controller
  - tastyminerals2 3y ago
    Story wise, yes. DE main quest is a classic detective story. Music and art of DE though is probably one of the best in RPG genre.
- zx_q12 3y ago
  There isn't really anything else just like it. The cRPG genre is the closest you'll get, but they are usually more combat focused. Baldur's Gate 3 just came out and is very good. Detroit: Become Human is another great story game and was recommended to me by someone who also enjoyed DE.
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  If you are a puzzle person you might like Return of the Obra Dinn. There isnt really anything like Disco though. Just 'if you like x you might like y.'
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  I second this request. Specifically, I would love to hear about more games that actually reward role playing. In Disco Elysium, you adopt beliefs ("thoughts" in your "thought cabinet") and then are rewarded for choosing dialogue and performing actions consistent with those beliefs. You can have a wide variety of experiences with the same exact story in DE based on the beliefs you choose and adhere to. The art, writing, and worldbuilding in DE is excellent but what really sets it apart for me is that actual and literal role playing.
  - burnished 3y ago
    There are plenty in the sense that there are many games with morality scales that reward your participation, I think they are sometimes called red/blue morality in a derogatory sense? Superjerk vs jesus, force lightning vs whatever bargain bin replacement the light side gets. In a lot of other games the reward for roleplaying is getting to roleplay. But thinking about it from another perspective, games where the mechanics reinforce and contextualize that, you might like Caves of Qud for the reputation system, Tyranny because the whole thing is just framing for the kind of role you'd play in this particularly fantastical setting, and Fallout New Vegas because its fun going into it with a character or concept in mind and just going nuts with it. None of them come close to DE in what I understand you to be looking for, we could only be so lucky.
    - JohnBooty 3y ago
      Thank you for the suggestions! I will slowly check them out... a friend of mine worked on Fallout:NV! Can't believe I've never played. None of them come close to DE in what I understand you to be looking for, we could only be so lucky. I was hoping that some games would, quite frankly, simply ape Disco Elysium's thought-cabinet mechanic to an extent! I'm surprised they haven't, especially considering DE's success, particularly with indie fans and creators. I thought DE might spawn sort of a mini-genre.
  - rgoulter 3y ago
    I think what makes Disco Elysium stand out is how much it encourages playing a quirky character. It's possible to play a "boring cop" or a "sorry cop". But the game portrays that the character you're playing was ... not really that.
- polytely 3y ago
  I really liked Pentiment from Obsidian Entertainment. It's written/directed by Josh Sawyer (of Fallout New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity and Icewind Dale 2 fame) and an incredible art team. It's a game set in late medieval/early mordern Bavaria and you try to solve a series of murders in a town over the period of 25 years. It's very different from Disco Elysium but it's really rich in both themes and art. No other piece of media has made me experience the weight of history like this one. It's about how history is about what we choose to remember and how we choose to interpret things. It's about how small nudges can alter people's lives and how we co-exist with the stuff and stories of the people that came before us. It's extremely well researched, one of the only games I can think of with an actual bibliography in the credits. Most importantly it moved me to tears on multiple occasions, and it really made me appreciate both history in general and the history of my own local environment in particular. Highly recommended, it's not that long and it's easy to pick-up even if you aren't that familiar with games.
- tormeh 3y ago
  The Torment games (both Planescape and Numenera) are good. So is Tyranny. I'd say Torment: Tides of Numenera is maybe the most similar game I know, as it is also an RPG with hardly any combat.
- poglet 3y ago
  You asked for 'similarly impressive games', these are some I enjoy: Outer Wilds, Deus Ex (2000), Dishonoured Series, Prey (2016)
- burnished 3y ago
  I found Tyranny to be very impressive.
- runeblaze 3y ago
  I think Ruina [1] is extremely good as a single-person made RPG with very well-crafted world. I really enjoyed the roleplaying aspect of it (it came from a TRPG scenario by the author). Not sure how good the English fan-translation is though [1]: https://rpgmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Ruina:_Fairy_Tale_of_the_Forgotten_Ruins https://rpgmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Ruina:_Fairy_Tale_of_the_Fo...
JamesBarney 3y ago
This article takes a story about some creators getting screwed out of their company by a crooked CEO and makes it about unions. Whether or not creative artists should unionize (I'm generally anti-union but the game industry working conditions seemed so screwed up I think it's needed) this wasn't a dispute between employees and owners, but a dispute between two owners. One of which was a sophisticated unethical CEO and the unsophisticated creatives owners who built the game.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  You're anti union except for when conditions are bad for workers? Are you against business owners coordinating too?
  - burnished 3y ago
    Those things don't conflict at all, or at least don't seem to - what are you getting at? Could you state your point more directly?
    - wahnfrieden 3y ago
      No thanks
  - thfuran 3y ago
    I, for one, think that mission-oriented organizations should be more willing to admit that they're done and disband rather than endlessly expanding. In the case of unions, there is an adversarial party, so it is possible that gains could eventually be clawed back, but large, long-standing unions (like other organizations) do have a tendency towards bureaucratic bloat that might make someone take a position that resembles "I support the unions we don't have but not the ones we do".
    - adamrezich 3y ago
      > I, for one, think that mission-oriented organizations should be more willing to admit that they're done and disband rather than endlessly expanding. what incentive mechanism could possibly facilitate this? because without one, it's not going to happen, whether you or anyone thinks it "should" or not. this is an open question that seems to be rarely if ever discussed. when presented with any sort of "anti-x" organization (for example), I always wonder: why should I trust this organization as having the definitive position on whether their stated goals have ever been achieved? it seems brazenly obvious that, without any sort of incentive to the contrary, they'll just keep moving the x goalpost such that they can claim x is still an issue, worthy of there being an "anti-x" organization to fight it. this seems like quite the predicament, because obviously sometimes there are xes that need to be opposed by organized groups of people—but how can they possibly be held accountable for remaining on-mission, and, more importantly, for being an authoritative source on societal progress with regards to x?
pickledish 3y ago
For those who might not know, this story is a lot more complicated than “evil CEO steals IP from game creators”, even though that’s the short version that gets shared around a lot because it sounds infuriating. I highly recommend this documentary about the whole tale from People Make Games, it’s 2 and half hours long and I enjoyed every minute of it despite not really even being into video games! https://youtu.be/JGIGA8taN-M?si=-7m8vs77wHRHv2AI https://youtu.be/JGIGA8taN-M?si=-7m8vs77wHRHv2AI
- CurtHagenlocher 3y ago
  The article does mention the excellent People Make Games documentary, though is somewhat dismissive of it. And of course, it could be true both that Kurvitz is an asshole who was very hard on his coworkers and that he was robbed.
- zoogeny 3y ago
  This documentary really frustrated me. It seems the documentary creator wants to tell two stories at once but he conflates them. There is one story, the story of the financial maneuvering to take control of intellectual property. And there is another story where a mercurial creative is a nightmare to work for. These are two completely distinct stories (IMO). The only way they connect is that the CEO who wrested financial control of the IP uses the difficult personalities of the creatives to justify firing them. So the conflation is: was it legally and morally justified to gain majority control over the IP vs. was it legally and morally justified to fire a difficult employee. It is a strange/absurd way to find some kind of journalistic balance and it just felt extremely amateur to me. Kurvitz and Rostov legitimately sound like a nightmare to work for, as is often the case with single-minded and purpose driven creatives. They probably should not be in management positions. But there is almost no way anyone could say they didn't get finessed out of ownership of their creative work. I have no idea if it was legal but I do not see anyway to see it as moral, no matter how bad of a manger they were.
b59831 3y ago
[dead]
coderintherye 3y ago
Everyone who wants to do a startup should thoroughly read and comprehend the Disco Elysium situation. This is why so much money goes to lawyers and why contracts should be written to have zero trust in your business partners even if you do have it. Most people are fairly reasonable, but all it takes is something such as an unexpected divorce to completely unravel someone's decision-making to where they will suddenly be justifying any and all actions to take control and extract money for the good of their future self.

90 points by otachack 3y ago

dpflan 3y ago

Any recommendations for similar games or similarly impressive games?

throw1234651234 3y ago
PST. The one and only. DE never even came close.
- sirl1on 3y ago
  Planescape: Torment?
  - brirec 3y ago
    I assume as much. It’s been sitting in my “to play” queue for a while, because it frequently comes up as an example of a similar game (or even possibly the only similar game?) Unfortunately its age definitely shows when you see the complicated controls and such. (I grew up with consoles and prefer controllers. Sue me.) Maybe this is a reason to dig out my old Steam Controller
- tastyminerals2 3y ago
  Story wise, yes. DE main quest is a classic detective story. Music and art of DE though is probably one of the best in RPG genre.
zx_q12 3y ago
There isn't really anything else just like it. The cRPG genre is the closest you'll get, but they are usually more combat focused. Baldur's Gate 3 just came out and is very good. Detroit: Become Human is another great story game and was recommended to me by someone who also enjoyed DE.
jabroni_salad 3y ago
If you are a puzzle person you might like Return of the Obra Dinn. There isnt really anything like Disco though. Just 'if you like x you might like y.'
JohnBooty 3y ago
I second this request. Specifically, I would love to hear about more games that actually reward role playing. In Disco Elysium, you adopt beliefs ("thoughts" in your "thought cabinet") and then are rewarded for choosing dialogue and performing actions consistent with those beliefs. You can have a wide variety of experiences with the same exact story in DE based on the beliefs you choose and adhere to. The art, writing, and worldbuilding in DE is excellent but what really sets it apart for me is that actual and literal role playing.
- burnished 3y ago
  There are plenty in the sense that there are many games with morality scales that reward your participation, I think they are sometimes called red/blue morality in a derogatory sense? Superjerk vs jesus, force lightning vs whatever bargain bin replacement the light side gets. In a lot of other games the reward for roleplaying is getting to roleplay. But thinking about it from another perspective, games where the mechanics reinforce and contextualize that, you might like Caves of Qud for the reputation system, Tyranny because the whole thing is just framing for the kind of role you'd play in this particularly fantastical setting, and Fallout New Vegas because its fun going into it with a character or concept in mind and just going nuts with it. None of them come close to DE in what I understand you to be looking for, we could only be so lucky.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    Thank you for the suggestions! I will slowly check them out... a friend of mine worked on Fallout:NV! Can't believe I've never played. None of them come close to DE in what I understand you to be looking for, we could only be so lucky. I was hoping that some games would, quite frankly, simply ape Disco Elysium's thought-cabinet mechanic to an extent! I'm surprised they haven't, especially considering DE's success, particularly with indie fans and creators. I thought DE might spawn sort of a mini-genre.
- rgoulter 3y ago
  I think what makes Disco Elysium stand out is how much it encourages playing a quirky character. It's possible to play a "boring cop" or a "sorry cop". But the game portrays that the character you're playing was ... not really that.
polytely 3y ago
I really liked Pentiment from Obsidian Entertainment. It's written/directed by Josh Sawyer (of Fallout New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity and Icewind Dale 2 fame) and an incredible art team. It's a game set in late medieval/early mordern Bavaria and you try to solve a series of murders in a town over the period of 25 years. It's very different from Disco Elysium but it's really rich in both themes and art. No other piece of media has made me experience the weight of history like this one. It's about how history is about what we choose to remember and how we choose to interpret things. It's about how small nudges can alter people's lives and how we co-exist with the stuff and stories of the people that came before us. It's extremely well researched, one of the only games I can think of with an actual bibliography in the credits. Most importantly it moved me to tears on multiple occasions, and it really made me appreciate both history in general and the history of my own local environment in particular. Highly recommended, it's not that long and it's easy to pick-up even if you aren't that familiar with games.
tormeh 3y ago
The Torment games (both Planescape and Numenera) are good. So is Tyranny. I'd say Torment: Tides of Numenera is maybe the most similar game I know, as it is also an RPG with hardly any combat.
poglet 3y ago
You asked for 'similarly impressive games', these are some I enjoy: Outer Wilds, Deus Ex (2000), Dishonoured Series, Prey (2016)
burnished 3y ago
I found Tyranny to be very impressive.
runeblaze 3y ago
I think Ruina [1] is extremely good as a single-person made RPG with very well-crafted world. I really enjoyed the roleplaying aspect of it (it came from a TRPG scenario by the author). Not sure how good the English fan-translation is though [1]: https://rpgmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Ruina:_Fairy_Tale_of_the_Forgotten_Ruins https://rpgmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Ruina:_Fairy_Tale_of_the_Fo...

JamesBarney 3y ago

This article takes a story about some creators getting screwed out of their company by a crooked CEO and makes it about unions. Whether or not creative artists should unionize (I'm generally anti-union but the game industry working conditions seemed so screwed up I think it's needed) this wasn't a dispute between employees and owners, but a dispute between two owners. One of which was a sophisticated unethical CEO and the unsophisticated creatives owners who built the game.

wahnfrieden 3y ago
You're anti union except for when conditions are bad for workers? Are you against business owners coordinating too?
- burnished 3y ago
  Those things don't conflict at all, or at least don't seem to - what are you getting at? Could you state your point more directly?
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    No thanks
- thfuran 3y ago
  I, for one, think that mission-oriented organizations should be more willing to admit that they're done and disband rather than endlessly expanding. In the case of unions, there is an adversarial party, so it is possible that gains could eventually be clawed back, but large, long-standing unions (like other organizations) do have a tendency towards bureaucratic bloat that might make someone take a position that resembles "I support the unions we don't have but not the ones we do".
  - adamrezich 3y ago
    > I, for one, think that mission-oriented organizations should be more willing to admit that they're done and disband rather than endlessly expanding. what incentive mechanism could possibly facilitate this? because without one, it's not going to happen, whether you or anyone thinks it "should" or not. this is an open question that seems to be rarely if ever discussed. when presented with any sort of "anti-x" organization (for example), I always wonder: why should I trust this organization as having the definitive position on whether their stated goals have ever been achieved? it seems brazenly obvious that, without any sort of incentive to the contrary, they'll just keep moving the x goalpost such that they can claim x is still an issue, worthy of there being an "anti-x" organization to fight it. this seems like quite the predicament, because obviously sometimes there are xes that need to be opposed by organized groups of people—but how can they possibly be held accountable for remaining on-mission, and, more importantly, for being an authoritative source on societal progress with regards to x?

pickledish 3y ago

For those who might not know, this story is a lot more complicated than “evil CEO steals IP from game creators”, even though that’s the short version that gets shared around a lot because it sounds infuriating. I highly recommend this documentary about the whole tale from People Make Games, it’s 2 and half hours long and I enjoyed every minute of it despite not really even being into video games! https://youtu.be/JGIGA8taN-M?si=-7m8vs77wHRHv2AI https://youtu.be/JGIGA8taN-M?si=-7m8vs77wHRHv2AI

CurtHagenlocher 3y ago
The article does mention the excellent People Make Games documentary, though is somewhat dismissive of it. And of course, it could be true both that Kurvitz is an asshole who was very hard on his coworkers and that he was robbed.
zoogeny 3y ago
This documentary really frustrated me. It seems the documentary creator wants to tell two stories at once but he conflates them. There is one story, the story of the financial maneuvering to take control of intellectual property. And there is another story where a mercurial creative is a nightmare to work for. These are two completely distinct stories (IMO). The only way they connect is that the CEO who wrested financial control of the IP uses the difficult personalities of the creatives to justify firing them. So the conflation is: was it legally and morally justified to gain majority control over the IP vs. was it legally and morally justified to fire a difficult employee. It is a strange/absurd way to find some kind of journalistic balance and it just felt extremely amateur to me. Kurvitz and Rostov legitimately sound like a nightmare to work for, as is often the case with single-minded and purpose driven creatives. They probably should not be in management positions. But there is almost no way anyone could say they didn't get finessed out of ownership of their creative work. I have no idea if it was legal but I do not see anyway to see it as moral, no matter how bad of a manger they were.

b59831 3y ago

[dead]

coderintherye 3y ago

Everyone who wants to do a startup should thoroughly read and comprehend the Disco Elysium situation. This is why so much money goes to lawyers and why contracts should be written to have zero trust in your business partners even if you do have it. Most people are fairly reasonable, but all it takes is something such as an unexpected divorce to completely unravel someone's decision-making to where they will suddenly be justifying any and all actions to take control and extract money for the good of their future self.