(If you know you know)
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Nice! I think it’s worth doing at least once for the extra cutscenes. And honestly, it’s not the worst collectible out there (though it would’ve been better if there was a purchasable map of their location).
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Holy shit there’s some inspiration from Samuel Beckett??
I fucking LOVE the existentialist, surreal, silly themes from Waiting for Godot so there’s that.
Also yeah I love and am trained in theatre
Cool, well good to know there’s some good stuff in KentuckyRZ when I get to it sometime
BTW, O to all masters of Disco Elysium, what do I start the game as? Should I choose a pre-made archetype or is a first run-through better with a custom character?
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That is why I know you would love it. Parts of Godot are staright up used in some of the games conversations and the third act interlude is a stage play in his style I believe. The last act of the game also revolves around a theatrical adaptation of Frost’s Death of the Hired Man.
Whatever you like though since it is your first time I recommend an even spread. You want to have at least two in the Physique and Psyche so you have at least two health and two mental.
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Okay, well here we go. Locked this in.
I figure since the game lets you make a custom and not use up all the points it gives you, I figured I’d set the stats similar to how I’d view myself.
3/4/2/2 should be okay.
I looked it up and some people say the 3 pre-made archetypes are good since new players won’t understand how to best use the Custom feature.
But others say each pre-made gives you One point in a certain category which can really suck for some reason.
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Perfectly respectable, it was my first allotment as well and it did well enough for me. Intellect is also great because they are some of the skills that pop up the most plus there are two Intellect orientated Thoughts that whencombined are a good exploit.
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I advise you to read the info box of each skills. It’s a good way to understand what they do.
Also, I see your acting-self couldn’t resist taking the Drama skill as signature. “play the actor” indeed.
By the way that’s what “sucks” with the pre-made archetypes : the signature skill is chosen for you and cannot be changed (and it starts at 6, see beneath).
Have fun, Bratan.
I will just say one thing about how the game works, because I think it can be useful: skills are used in two ways :
- active skill checks, they are as fun to fail as they are to pass. Just enjoy the ride.
- passive skill check narration : this is the fun of the writing.
- If a skill is 3 or lower they will rarely (if ever) talk to you, only for the “evident”,
- between 4 and 5 they will frequently, and affably appear, becoming your “core” personality,
- 6 and above they will start to obsessively butt in (in a fun way), sometime positively (it can give you clues, or motivate you to do a grand action), sometime negatively (it can mislead you, or go on unrelated tangent)
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Ah shit I forgot to mention it but @TheChicken it is absolutely imperative that you go to the yacht lady at alone at night and say “Mr Evart is helping me find my gun.” This is vital to ensuring you succeed in your quest.
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You got it, boss. (This better not screw me over! 
)
By the way, I’m still not sure about how these skill checks work.
Sometimes a skill box pops up, and even though I don’t own it (because I only own Drama) I can still try my hand at winning it? Why?
Does the owned skill just automatically trigger success on that specific check?
And some skill checks are inexplicably lower chance for me than others (and if I end up failing them, it tells me chance was “Impossible”… so why give me the choice?
Btw, is the Tie a good thing to wear? When trying to pick it up, it talked about how it was really evil and probably wanted to kill me like a noose. I picked it up anyway then thought “oh no, this might be a trap” and unequipped it.
Anyway, only played 30 mins today before I had to go. The tone is great. The hook is nice, a detective with amnesia (and is he even really a detective?)
Not really a fan of how interacting works. Gotta use the right stick to highlight it then OK it. Can’t just walk up to objects and use it.
Now I’m gonna play more! 
1 Like
You won’t live long in Revachol if you think “This better not screw me over”. But this won’t screw you over though.
You have checks both automatic and optional for all the skills. The signature skill is merely a boost to a certain skill if you want a leg up early on, there are points where the game will account for your chosen skill but that is rare.
Because either your skills are too low or they are meant to be impossible (there are few checks that hardcoded to be truly unpassable even the measly possible checks to get close to the body first times are possible). Red checks are one offs, white checks will unlock again after a level up, sometimes after you take in a thought or you do something that alters the outcome of the check.
A lot of the early checks involve the yellow status which already have penalties slapped on them due to your clothes.
Of course there is always the option to savescum, if you are the type of person to do that sort of thing.
Oh yes, another thing you want to learn quickly is that just because an attribute suggests it doesn’t mean you should consider it. Learn when to listen to and when not to listen to an attribute’s advice and which ones work best in which situation so you can make a more sound judgement.
Also wear the tie, he is just lonely and he misses his Bratan very much. Plus you will need the Inland Empire boost for the autopsy.
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Ah, cool. Thanks for the info. 
I found a user’s reddit comment that explains how the system works behind-the-scenes. So maybe I should want to keep a pen and paper around to compare my stats vs the chance events…
Details to Accomplish a Task
Ok so the accomplish a task you need to clear a difficulty level : think of it as the bar when pole vaulting.
Difficulty levels in Disco Elysium are:
Trivial : 6-7
Easy : 8-9
Medium : 10-11
Challenging : 12
Formidable : 13
Legendary : 14
Heroic : 15
Godly : 16
Impossible : 18-20
You always roll 2 dice. Call it 2D6 (roll 2 6-sided dice). Then add the result of your roll to your skill value and to the corresponding stat value. If the result is equal or higher than the difficulty level, you succeeded.
So say you want to seduce someone and the difficulty is godly, you add your Suggestion skill value + your PSY attribute value, and the difference between godly (16) and that skill+attribute is the minimum you need to roll on two dice.
Note that modifiers such as smokes, booze, speed, pyro, clothing and thoughts either add to or subtract from your skill and/or attribute.
Just take the values from your character sheet as them modifiers are already factored in.
Two other things: if you roll snake eyes (1s on both dice) it’s an automatic fail, even if the total of your skill+attribute+2D6 is above the difficulty level. If you roll midnight (double sixes) on your 2D6, it’s an automatic win. This is to spice your rolls with the whims of destiny, even if you are shit at something, like the shittiest in all the shit festival, there’s still a 1/36 (2.778%) chance of nailing that shit. Same, you might be the son of the richest man on earth with chiseled abs, awesome conversation and on the top of the Eiffel tower with the girl you’re trying to make babies with at her birthday, there’s still a 2.778% chance of fucking the whole night up.
Fate has a sense of humour.
There are also “passives” in Disco Elysium. In RPG parlance, they are called “skill checks” where you usually compare your skill to the difficulty level and if it’s equal or above, it’s an automatic win.
In Disco Elysium, passives are your corresponding skill + corresponding attribute + 6 against the difficulty level. There is no 1D6 roll, it’s always a hard 6, and there is no Fate coming ‘ere to rattle the destiny box.
I have noticed that some rolls in DE even at 98% odds of success are automatic fails (one happened on a dance floor), having save scummed the roll for quite a while , not sure if this is true but this might be for storytelling purposes (Harry needs to fuck up to get to a character moment).
Disco’s system (called “METRIC”) is pretty solid, and simple to boot. If you never played Pen and Paper RPGs, it’s not a bad system to start with.
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Yeah, you will get the hang of it in no time flat though. Glad to hear you are enjoying the game!
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Yeah, thanks!
Man, I am finding this game pretty darn funny though! 
Oh yeah, and I put on the tie and unlocked its feature to talk! It’s SO weird but also really fun.
A wild, screaming demon of a tie that tells me to do dark deeds (like arrest the cafateria manager for trying to charge me money – nah im not gonnd be a bad cop like that, not when I don’t even know who I am yet…)
I can play such a kooky cop who literally doesn’t know anything and causes so much confusion to people (“how do you not know this most basic thing??”)
I do feel weird about asking so many questions so far about the world. I hope it doesn’t come back to bite me in some way, revealing to people that I have total-amnesia.
Ooh, and one more thing, how important is the Time feature? Each dialogue interaction passes time by one minute. I’ve currently reached 10am and still haven’t even left the building and I’m worried about missing potential things by asking as much as I can to everyone.
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you have plenty of time, don’t sweat it.
it’s the perfect game. for me, at least.
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Okay, wow, yeah Disco Elysium is very fun.
Also, very long and can suck away time so easily lol – it’s like a playable audiobook with how much text is in here, how much is spoken, and how awesome it all is to take in!
You play as a detective who has a case of Super Amnesia, can’t remember a thing about himself or the world around him, and must piece together that and the murder you came to investigate. Great hook, great premise for a very open-ended RPG.
I absolutely ADORE the opening, as you’re floating through a dream-state described as sitting in a Void of Nothing, described to you from your “Ancient Reptilian Brain” in a classy disco-esque chill vibe.
The Narrator is also fucking COOL and sexy heheh. Great VA, and Cast all around, probably why I keep losing time, because I just love listening to all the dialogue.
Basically, for notable events so far:
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I met a tower of a man who was actually smarter than you’d think and gave me a very long conversation about the various races and cultures in the world – but he was also kinda racist himself, classing groups of people into the “best and worst” races, obviously putting himself at the top and me below him.
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Everyone has wonderful french accents. Wild to think that when this game won 4 Game Awards, it didn’t have any of that! It was mostly just text. What a testament to how great the writing and world-building is…
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I spent most of the day walking around and interacting with various people. Apparently I didn’t even inspect the dead body I’m there for, because I can’t look at it without throwing up – so I gotta increase my stats quite a bit unfortunately.
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Not sure how all these pieces link up, but I’m interested in how they might.
A worker’s union is on strike, some protesters outside want to take their jobs, because of that the harbour gate is locked down. There’s a crazy kid and his even crazier friend hanging around the dead body for whatever reason. Also I lost all my stuff and my mind and just trying to figure stuff out. -
I didn’t want to go the Hobo-Cop route and found a way to pay off my Hotel Debt – and I managed to do it just 3 minutes before the deadline!! Whoa!
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It’s pretty impressive how much personalization you can put into your character. You can act normal, goofy, horribly sexy, horribly dark. It all feeds into specific specializations and character traits to unlock. Unfortunately for me I already said a Hard No to pursuing Communism and I think UltraLiberalism? (Which apparently if you say “Yes” it just opens the opportunity to pursue them on your list. Because I said no, they’re now completely locked off unless I go back on my save, and by now it’s been too long (and I don’t remember when that was)
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However, for now, I’m playing my character as the most sorry individual ever. Seems like I was a REALLY horrible person before my total amnesia bout and I’m just trying to find more info about myself and how best to navigate the world.
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Oh yeah, and the dialogue and writing in this game can be pretty damn funny. Really well crafted, great sense of sarcasm in the narration sometimes, and some funny stat bonuses/thoughts that can pop up. (My first one – Inexplicable Feminist Agenda – took me completely by surprise, but also, wooo yeah let’s goooo feminism!!!)
Cyberpunk Reference??
Damn that’s deep.
WTF that’s Dark!! I’m Sorry!
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I don’t know what you would expect from a man who calls himself “Measurehead” whose first line is “YOUR BODY BETRAYS YOUR DEGENERACY”. But don’t worry the next racist you meet will be better, he will be your lucky racist.
If you haven’t then discuss your inability to do so with Kim, the “Volumetric Shit Compressor” thought he gives you will help a lot with passing the check.
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I could go for some al gul and ham sandwich right about now
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Didn’t know what the word meant. Every time I think of it I just think of “Eraserhead” 
I may not have! Because that doesn’t seem familiar to me.
Maybe I should be trying every White Check when I can, even if the odds are against me, but I think I didn’t investigate more closely because I was afraid of losing morale or health by doing that..
(It can kinda be unclear? There was a check where you had to jump across a gap to grab your coat. I failed, expected my guy to fall down the hole, but he stopped himself and only lost Morale.)
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It is most likely a reference to “head measuring”, it has it roots in outdated pseudosciences like Phrenology (making assumptions on intellect and mental traits based on cranial size and formation) and physiognomy (making assumptions on someones intellect and mental traits based on what they look like).
No matter how scary you think Measurehead is just think about how scary it is that people still believe this stuff today.
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Glad to hear you’re enjoying Disco Elysium @TheChicken, will be very interesting to hear your thoughts on the game once you hit the end, and what kind of ending you get, and how you fare politically and morally.
I’ve decided from tonight to return to Kentucky Route Zero, but rather than resume from the middle of the third episode (or rather this act as this game calls them), I’ve decided to play the game from the start again. I started playing KR0 a year ago, back when I literally just moved into my house, but all my furniture was in storage, and I had no internet because I opted to have my internet upgraded to fibre and had to wait months for them to install it. While I had bought KR0 (probably in a Steam sale at some point) and had intended to play it, I essentially played it at the time because I didn’t have many options, and I think there were other games I would rather of been playing instead. Not a great mindset when you start a new game, especially one like KR0 which is quite talky and low energy.
Part of the reason I wanted to go back was talking to @Accidental_Kills98 about the game earlier on this thread. I said I got frustrated at the game for moments I felt were pretentious and annoying, AK clearly disagreed, especially since I had only reached the halfway point of the game. And honestly, that’s fair, even more so now that it’s been a year and my memory of what I have played is pretty hazy at best. So this seemed like a good time to go through the game, and I’ll write up about it one act at a time. I envy AK and his clear depth and knowledge of art and politics, things I wish I could grasp nearly as well as he does. I feel like in my last post on this I was perhaps boasting about my ignorance, when really I absolutely don’t want to. I consider myself not very smart and not very knowledgable, but certainly don’t see those as strengths or virtues. And a game like KR0 I want to give a fair shake, even if by the end I don’t really understand it.
So, let’s get started. KR0 was released episodically. (Act 1: January 7th 2013. Act 2: May 31st, 2013. Act 3: May 6th, 2014. Act 4: July 19th, 2016. Act 5: January 28th, 2020.) KR0 is made up of five acts, each of which is followed up by what I guess you would call an interlude, which takes a break from the main story, but does still tie back to the main story in some regard.
I think I’ll leave this summary unspoilered but will spoiler tag the follow acts when I play and write about them.
Act 1 sees our playable character, Conway, arrive at a gas station with a giant horse head as a decoration, looking to make one final delivery for the antique company he works for, but doesn’t know where the address is. The gas station attendant tells Conway that to find the address, he will have to find the elusive Kentucky Route Zero, and to talk to a woman named Weaver about how to find the Zero, starting off a chain of events in the game.
Act 1 is pretty simple and small, it definetly feels smaller than what happens in Act 2 and what I played of Act 3. Act 1 begins with Conway in our party, and in the second half we’ll see Shannon join our party, in a really great bit in which the perspective changes as it breaks from Conway, starts with Shannon, giving us dialogue options with her, and then Conway approaches her like an NPC. The game does a really great job of intergrating party members, where party members can often made dialogue options and see their thoughts once they join, as more people join us later down in the adventure.
Act 1 keeps things relatively simple, there aren’t many cutscenes that are mandatory to complete this story. KR0 will break up point and click segments with you driving on an open map, so while you could drive to your next destination, it is very rewarding to go off the beaten track and see what encounters you may find. While most of these are text only, they do tend to be nice and weird. KR0 very much embodies that sortof real life weirdness you find late at night, like driving into a city at 3am or in the middle of nowhere, how when everyone is asleep there is a kind of ethereal feeling you get. I really enjoy this slices of weirdness, my favourite so far being the church which you can hear this loud choir repeating the same two verses over and over, and when you go inside, the place is abandoned and all there is a VHS tape playing the choir noises. No explanation, it’s never elaborated on, just a nicely weird thing to happen, making you think you’ve left Kentucky and entered another realm at night.
I complained about pretentiousness and while that may come up later, in Act 1, I’d say that’s never really a thing. Sure, the game is low energy, serious, and doesn’t have much humour. It’s definetly a game that you need to vibe with I think from the beginning, and if you don’t, I imagine you probably won’t stick with it. There are few main characters introduced so far, and no real stakes. Even the KR0 is something our party only finds the entrace to at the end of the Act, we won’t see what KR0 is until Act 2. Characters have unique voices, and Conway is clearly quite a simple man, which makes for a good playable character in a very strange world. Really I think the only person who does have pretentiousness like I described would be Weaver, but it’s made clear that she is in fact meant to be weird and off like that, not the writers trying for something and failing.
I really enjoy Act 1 and will be a good to see the following acts as things get meatier. As for our first interlude, we get to visit a museum displaying several pieces of art. Quite a nice change of pace, interesting in its own right, but will ofcourse also have ties to the plot overall.
As a side note, I only realised on this playthrough that the gas station’s basement is meant to look like the body of the horse, that’s a cool detail. The gas station reminds me of the Kelpies statue in Falkirk, Scotland.
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