How Disco Elysium Makes You Feel Hopeless

The only way to load the dice is to keep on fighting.

I'll say, something you haven't touched on is just the meta-rule that, in general, when a videogame gives you a challenge (for example, a skill check) afterwards it rewards you. It tells you that the challenging path is the good one, that there's rewards there. Not Disco Elysium. Skill checks there are just skill checks. You can very well win a skill check in order to do a horrible thing and go down a really bad path (like shaving your mustache)

Two early skill checks in the game demonstrate this perfectly imo: -Failing the skill check to sneak out of the hotel. you run away and flip off the manager, but as you’re running you accidentally crash into a woman in a wheelchair. you take minor health damage, but everybody just feels sorry for you. so sorry, in fact, that’s the manager decides to lower the debt you owe him. -passing the skill check to throw the boule. two men are playing a ball game in a crater and you take one of their boules and launch it into the ocean. it makes you feel good, but for all intents and purposes, you ruined their game just to feel good about yourself.

While I do agree with your overall thesis here (mostly), I did find the whole section about paying off the repairs of your room kind of funny, because I got it sorted out on the first day by just yelling at Joyce to give me enough money to pay for the room, with no real consequences for it. There's a lot of moments like that, where you can bungle or even outright fail your way into a solution, and to me that's because Disco Elysium is as interested in failure as it is success. The game actively encourages you to act like whatever brand of weirdo you choose, and living by the consequences of your weirdo actions. Red checks, ones that can't be attempted again, are pretty rare, and retries on regular skill checks are pretty easy to come by. It's not a game about failing early but overcoming your failures through hard work and effort, it's an ultimately hopeful game about being a fuckup that fails constantly but keeps trying anyway. That was my takeaway, at least.

I suck at selling DE to my friends cos I can't explain it, but I call it an 'incremental' game. It feels like it progresses SO slowly, to the point where days are ending and you feel like you've done jackshit except accidentally become a facist or smthing, but by the last Shivers check before you leave the island - EVERYTHING you did adds up and gives you a solid 97% of passing.

I have to disagree on calling Sorry-Cop a 'punishment'. It negates the damage from failed skill checks, which is the second best passive effect of any copo-type after art cop's morale healing and xp bonus on conceptualization passives, and can be triggered by copo-type based events like the cockatoo book in the library. Most copotypes get their value from increased skill cap, and while sorry-cop does give a pain threshold cap boost, It has enough innate value that conceptualization explicitly says it is a good dual-type.

I had the body down in my first try, It's seriously surreal that I missed out on this feeling of inadequacy and impotence by luck. I was too lucky.

There's a theory I've encountered that, especially with roleplaying games, there are three types of players. First, there are "gameists", those who see the experience as something that's supposed to be won or lost with the appropriate amount of luck or skill. Next, there are "simulationists" who want a game that mimics a slice of real life as much as possible to create an experience of immersion. Lastly, there are "narrativists" who want the game to tell a compelling story. All three are legitimate approaches to playing a roleplaying game, and there are games that appeal to any of them. And no individual necessarily is purely only one of those three categories; you can be a gameist with respect to one game and a narrativist with respect to another. Disco Elysium is perfect for a narrativist, but if you're a gameist, it will frustrate the hell out of you. Some games, like visual novels, don't really even pretend to be the kind of thing a gameist will want and gameists know to avoid them, but to a gameist who hasn't researched this one, Disco Elysium might feel like a bait-and-switch. With its stats and challenges, it feels like it should have gameist appeal, but it intentionally sabotages players who approach it with that mindset. As you point out in the video, the game doesn't fight fair. If you can shift your mindset when playing this game to a narrativistic one, that sabotage becomes part of the story and the game works brilliantly. If that's not the kind of experience a player wants (and that's not for everyone!), they should steer clear of this one.

I was thinking about those meta rules you laid out and realized Pathologic checks the ones you mentioned. Thinking about it, Disco and Pathologic are quite similar. Both games have this downtrodden messiah of sorts who dumpster dives, solves mysteries and abuses his authority to disgusting degrees.

I have absolutely no clue how such a low view video got into my algorithm, but I'm glad it did. Love the editing and suberb audio quality for such a small channel. Keep doing what you're doing, it's great!

I played as sorry cop at my playthrough and I liked every single minute of it. While I was at it, i definetly had been reflecting my own mistakes with people, and it resonated with me on a higher level. I dealt with the story as sort of "redemption arc" for Harry, and it felt like Harry was on a right path at the end of the story. What a beautiful game

This is one of my favourite aspects of the game, personally. It's first few hours are genuinely quite harrowing, but they make the moments where you do improve yourself and you don't simply retreat into the void as you did before so much more rewarding. Great video!

I like that taking a side is important. Being a non thinking centrist avoidant of conflict resolves nothing, and only serves to promote the status quo. As the ideological goal posts move around, you are discouraged from saying "uhh whatever's in the middle is fine, as long as I am not a target of criticism and don't have to take a firm stance on anything." Very cool. I like that a lot.

I had a pretty successful first run of the game tbh, it took me a while to get the body down but it got done and i solved the case, missed some stuff so I played again. I passed that 3% skill check on throwing up first go which felt incredible

I really like the point I've heard somewhere: usually in video games if you fail a quest you just miss a piece of content, but Disco Elysium actually accounts for fails as something intended, and you go on with your playthrough (and that's brilliant). In a way, it is a game about fails and an eventual redemption, which happens even if you mess up in the process (and oh boi you will!). That being said, for me that didn't work that well: in my first playthrough I chose to put almost all my points into Inland Empire, have fun on my own and ignore other characters. That led to some interesting stuff, but by the end of the game Harry was as delusional and lonely as he was at the beginning. Also I missed a lot of content, but that was my fault because I guess I was trying to see how far you can go into your Inland Empire. That, however, amplified the redemption at the end of my second playthrough, where I tried to make things right, bond (and dance) with Kim, etc. So though you can't fail the game mechanically (failing a check never leads to "game over", and often gives you some fun content), you can fail it metaphysically by being a self-centered prick in denial :) Or at least that means you should come back later and retry it. Anyway, I really appreciate that you dissect very concrete (and at the same subtle) aspects of the game! With Disco Elysium it's easy to fall into talking about more abstract themes, but understanding how it achieves its effects on people requires a more focused perspective (like the one presented in your video).

One of the best examples of video games as a legitimate form of artistic expression. Beautiful game I've recently completed my first play through and its quickly secured a spot in my top 5 for best games ever made

Disco elysium was one of the first games I played after about a 20 year break. Trying to find other games to move onto is hard as the obtuse nature of it was engaging making others since seem a bit hollow

When I played this game I stopped for a long time. Then I decided to declare that "I would beat this game without save scumming so that I would actually beat it". Not alot of games force you to overcome something like that.

"What about the struggle to come?" "Harrier will stand with the people. Harrier will stand with Revachol." "..." "Remember, the party never surrendered."

Disco Elysium is a game for a certain type of person who is not likely to play games in the first place. (I know multiple people who the story, writing, and philosophical bent of the story and game would strongly resonate with, but don't play games..much like the characters within the game itself.). I barely play games anymore myself, but luckily I played it, and loved it! A masterpiece.