‘Disco Elysium’: The Unbeatable Exercise in Abstraction one up

What the video game seeks to legitimize itself, like any artistic expression, often involves those of us analyzing, reflecting on, and critiquing the works it holds up for comparison as master keys. Let’s drop the corpus. It is an innocent technique that tries to make the reader understand through the horrors of a young environment, in search of the self, in contrast to the two works, which some people ostracize for being childish or containing more harsh statements. In , a thing for addicts.

Thus, it is not surprising to read that such a game is “The Godfather” of video games; Or the “Citizen Kane” of video games, or other obscurity into which the person signing this article has also fallen.

Whoever is free from sin, you know.

Perhaps all this was understood before the release of the film disco elysiumI don’t know. Among the great literary epics there are many incredible video games, authentic works of art, scripts that have nothing to envy in style and depth. In short, video games that are works of art whose merit is undeniable. However, he was not ready to enter the world disco elysium Doesn’t matter how much you played. It’s not an exaggeration, it’s a certainty that came to my mind after a few hours of playing.

Released in 2019, developed by ZA/UM and now republished in its version end cut For Peace, written by Estonian novelists Robert Kurwitz and Helen Hindpere, disco elysium It sells itself as a “spy rpg”. It takes shape in a science fiction world that blends with Strange, which shows echoes of China Mayville. This world is a dystopia shaken by revolution, communism, racism, class struggle, civil war and the tug-of-war of neighboring and warring nations (whose thematic roots seem not far from the collapse of the nation), the Berlin Wall and the Cold War new order of), comes to us from the first novel of the writer, which was published in 2013 under the title puha ja audne lone (which can be translated terrible and holy wind,

a detective with no memory wakes up inside revachol, His tie speaks to him. As well as his limbic system, his reptilian brain. A face in the mirror he doesn’t recognize. Behind the hotel he is in, there is a hanged man’s body that he must identify. It’s the starting point of a video game whose script borders on the obsessive: thousands of dialogue, choice trees, dice rolls, figures to control via clothing and drugs, and a cast of characters that create a static, decadent setting. . Beautiful in its own way. Wandering through his narrative is like entering fully into his reading ulysses James Joyce, The Jerusalem Alan Moore or similar masters of literature, the mere concept of which escapes the vast majority of writers (see? Again I resort to comparisons).

disco elysium It takes all the elements of most classic RPGs, played with paper, pencil, dice and imagination. It’s adorned with a simple graphic proposal (isometric views, illustrated textures, easily manageable menus, and picturesque banners and illustrations that draw from impressionism), but in the end everything happens in the player’s mind. The hero policeman, the epitome of the hero of this genre, without past, without memory, who appears in the story by chance to save the day, comes to consider the corpse of the victim, for which he has been in the city and the city. Gathers in the depths of his lifeless eyes finds a friend. Talk to him. The success or error of the dice roll (throws that automatically count against our statistics) will condition the elements that will open before us or remain closed. Some will be replayed the next day, others will be blocked forever. Moving forward in this tabla rasa, the ultimate puzzle of which is one’s own identity, will be quite a journey.

passion for writing Disco Elysium. It is not for nothing that the studio ZA/UM that developed the game was founded by Robert Kurwitz, the writer responsible for the game’s script. And that is that the story behind this society, after this world, after these characters, can only be a video game. It’s impossible to read and connect all of the plot, the dialogue, the choices, without that sacred tool that binds it all together: interplay. The player, whose story will be made up of choices. Lost at first, learning by mistake, uncovers a complex plot that is, at its purest root, the usual simple story: one crime, one passion. sci fi noir or any other label you want to put on it, the truth is disco elysium It is unclassified.

Throughout history we will discover our identity, the murderer, the victim, the city we are in, the world we live in and the reason for everything that happens at the beginning of the game. Not surprisingly, one of the first missions assigned to us will be as impossible to cover as it is to ignore: get a wider view of reality,

almost nothing.

The mechanics of the title mix graphic adventure with RPG. Dice rolls and statistics changes (a skill tree that we can grow based on leveling up, but which we can also change by changing our clothes and taking drugs or alcohol) are added to the exploration, known as the world. Goes to Elysium, and surrounded by a strange force known as the Paleness, he appears to us fragmented. It’s possible to connect the dots and learn about its history, but it’s an immersion that few games have been able to achieve. The player needs to get lost. Wandering through the streets of Martinais, the city of Revachol, in which we find ourselves, as those who visit Paris, Hong Kong or Barcelona for the first time get lost. Just walk away and get lost. Let our mind draw a map, not made of roads and paths, but of moments and characters. This is how exploration is done disco elysium: Of events, of conversations, of absences, of longings. A gloom covers the abandoned buildings of the coast. At the hotel, in the alley where the poor nameless devil was hanged, we are greeted by a disgusting fear of loneliness. Our spines would drive us to the floor to tell us how the wind carried the fishy stench. The strike on the docks will awaken in us the thoughts about the struggle of castes and classes. About money and the value of life. An exploration not only mechanical: mental too. Skill points acquired by leveling up, unlocking new interactions or hitting rolls, we can also invest in assimilating ideas. Feminism, racism, communism, religion, history… the possibilities are almost endless. Once an idea is assimilated, new options for dialogue and action open up. Once we’ve uploaded some data, going to a known location can change completely. Days pass, mystery surrounds us.

I often find myself in the position of not being able to fully explain why a work is so special. Bad business when I am about to put it in writing and share it with the readers. But it’s so hard to explain what makes Goya’s black painting so special without talking about the technique, the skill, the composition. Appeal, simply put, to the viscera. To contemplate something that goes beyond the senses and that invades our inner self. it happens to me moby dick, knowing that there are readers to whom it says nothing. I get overwhelmed every time I go to a good concert. it happens to me disco elysium, She’s been able to move me with the simplest of things: It doesn’t need awesome graphics, innovative mechanics, it doesn’t need to excite, or appeal to surprise or drama. It’s slow, very slow cooked, the most I’ve done in over twenty hours of play is reading. The cast feels alive, but because each one speaks differently, feels differently, telling us about their past, their dreams, with a truth that is impossible to escape. It happens like in good novels the characters come to life. The complexity of its world can only be compared to the simplicity with which it excites.

disco elysium He deserves a victory not to be compared or compared with anything. We can gather hundreds of direct or indirect references inside and outside the medium. Like great rpg’s, best novels, movies, theatre, comics. Is mouse in his social ambition, as Look Homeward, Angel In your stylistic passion, Lord of the Rings in their mythology and so on. is she citizen Kane video games, Apocalypse Now of video games. It is, perhaps, the videogame of videogames. or none of these. Maybe it’s a simple story embellished with hundreds of complicated mechanisms so that we don’t forget that this is a game, not a book. It is a story of longing for the past and fear of the future. this is a University Of voices that narrate with infinite goodness, with evil distortion, with undeniable sadness. It’s fun? It is long? Is it replayable? I don’t know what to answer, all those nicknames we use to determine the value of a video game seems pointless to me disco elysium, it is unique. It’s real. Perhaps it will stir something in you, dear reader, as it has aroused in me, or it may not. Maybe not now but in the future. It’s an exercise in abstraction, in absolute creation, and he’s not afraid that players will reject him for it. You’ll find someone who enjoys it. It is widely praised for its Metacritic score of 91. Another one thousand “must play” stamps. But does it all matter? disco elysium It will go down in history, I’m sure. He will do it like many things that are difficult to understand, to connect, to share. It’s complex, it demands the player’s attention and involvement. And whoever is not interested, better stay on the sidelines.