Some are amusing connections, like realizing a friend looks like a character in a TV show. A great many thoughts are negative, and a subset of those are known as "intrusive," - a psychological term better known by those with obsessive-compulsive disorder. They don't carry a single thought from origin to conclusion in a sensible way. Human minds aren't single-rail machines, Kurvitz reminds me. How did developer ZA/UM write this swirling mess of thoughts in a way that made them feel uncannily familiar?Īlthough most of us don't see our thoughts as pieces distinct from one another like colored panes in a stained-glass window, this storm of imagination at the center of Disco Elyisum is a familiar part of the human experience. It's a sensation that's more relatable (minus the memory loss) than I realized until seeing it played out so literally on the screen. Knowing which from which is as convoluted as you might imagine for an amnesiac. He is constantly forced to face thoughts from various corners of his brain and decide whether to incorporate or discard them. Thanks to alcohol-induced amnesia, he doesn't know his own name, let alone his opinions on the warring ideals of organizing labor and capitalism. "Our hope was to render the player character in minute detail - every thought, obsession, muscle twitch," Kurvitz says.ĭisco Elysium's detective protagonist attempts to solve a murder at the center of a union-controlled district called Martinaise. Disco Elysium's detective is beleaguered by his own mind, assaulted by thoughts that may be distressing or comforting, helpful or distracting. The only animal aware of its inescapable fate. The human animal, that is: a beast burdened with abstract thought, imagination, and the indignity of existing in a constantly decaying meat prison. "With Disco Elysium our main thing was 'being this type of animal'," lead writer Robert Kurvitz explains. Even conversations with others are only made up half with dialogue - the other half is the detective's inner monologue, Perception perhaps pointing out how a suspect hides their hands while Empathy highlights their suffering.ĭespite playing like a classic RPG set to the tune of '70s disco and a TV crime procedural, Disco Elysium is all about the bedlam in our brains. All 24 facets of his brain offer their opinion eventually, requested or not. Everything from browsing a bookshelf to considering a karaoke performance is presented as an internal dialogue where his Logic delivers observations while Drama tendencies urge him into singing the saddest song he can imagine in front of a bar's patrons. Disco Elysium is experienced entirely through the detective-colored lens of your protagonist's mind.
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