61 - Disco Elysium: The Final Cut

I wrote about Disco Elysium a few years ago, after it was a big COVID game for me. It's one of those game's that's been added to my personal internal library of inspiration; I simply don't stop thinking about it. Even though I've only played it the one time (though I own it on several systems), so much of the experience is permanently burned into my mind as if I just played it yesterday. There's really nothing else like it.

meow wolf reference! hopefully my displaced estonian comrades come to rescue me. we have common cause.

Realization on my third relisten: The Royalist and Revolutionary are literally the alternate-versions of the Sniper and the Merc: two men: one black and the other white; on ideologically opposed sides of the conflict for Revachol; having a deeply personally-motivated conflict over the same woman. What distinguishes both pairs of men, however, is how much of a person each side sees the other. The men playing boules value each other very much, despite the deep and painful conflicts in their relationship. To the Sniper and the Merc, each is a stranger to the other. One man is oblivious to the existence of the other, and that other man views him as an embodiment of all that is wrong, and nothing more.

This episode made me replay the game. This time I just went full on phywcial dumb cop. And holy shit. Just blasting the mercs at the shootout and having green check after green check was one of the most satisfying experiences I've had playing a video game.

listening to this again post election and tearing up at the idea of hope and survival and finding a hand to reach out to in the dark. thanks guys 💗

I'd skipped this episode to avoid spoilers, but I bounced really hard off the game a while ago, something about all the chattering voices in my head for every option really. But then I listened to the ep anyways, and hearing you guys describe the story really cemented this as a story I want to experience! Y'all did a great job selling it as something special. Also excited to hear I can turn voices off lol. Can't wait to dig in soon.

The thing that I love about this game that is lacking in so many other stories, whether they're movies or books or games, is how utterly sincere it is. It feels honest. It feels human. It feels ugly, and beautiful, and real. And it would have been so easy for them to make it a game about how their ideology is best, to subtly show how communism was good actually, but they just don't do it. They're as ruthless with what they love as they are everything else. I have never played anything that made me laugh, and cry, as utterly hopeful and depressed as this game.

The Moral Intern is like if Aaron Sorkin founded a religion

Finally got around to playing disco, an subsequently listening, very worth it

Still listening to the pod, but been putting off listening to it till i could actually play though the entire game, and learning more about aspects that i didnt see in my run and the history of the studio puts into picture some of the things that are prominent in the game

Making contact with the person in the shipping container was incredibly fun. If for no other reason than Kim's reaction to it.

highly suggest norco to you all, very much hit the same synapses in my brain disco elysium did.

I really hope you guys consider doing Kentucky Route Zero! It's another adventurish game with a strong left bent