this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024

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Is Disco Elysium playable in short bursts? (lemm.ee)

submitted 5 months ago by kurcatovium@lemm.ee to c/gaming

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Hello, I just finished the game I was playing (Book of Demons, would give it 7/10) and I'm looking what to play next.

I don't have as much time for gaming as I used to (job, children, etc.) so I usually have about an hour at the evening to play. Some games are tough to fit into this because it breaks immersion too much and everyday having to remember when I left just to quit soon after is just... tedious? Wrong? Idk and I don't want to spoil good games with it.

My friend gifted me Disco Elysium for christmas and it looks ver promising. But is it possible to squeeze it into this schedule? Or does it break the game too much? Thank you for your input.

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[–] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I think you should try it. I think an hour is appropriate for a lot of the story beats if you have a decent memory, though maybe an hour and a half would be better suited to some of the more involved parts. A lot of this is affected by your reading speed. There's a lot of reading.

For what it's worth, I also played it in bursts, but probably something like 2 hr sessions. There's a lot of rough, serious material in that game and I found it a lot to process at once, so I took breaks between sessions fairly often.

[–] kurcatovium@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Glad to hear that. Although I'm not fast reader (not even in my mother tongue) I like reading when it is meaningful. I chewed through Planescape: Torment after all...

As for time, I'm not strictly limited to exactly 1 hour. It's just I simply can't play 5 hours straight like a teenager can... so one hour was an estimate. Sometimes it's an hour, sometimes it's two.

After all it looks DE should be ok and this short burst shouldn't spoil it. Thank you.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure if the above comment played on launch or after the Final Cut update, but there isn't all that much reading in the game anymore. Almost all text is fully voice acted now. You still have to mentally absorb it of course, but I find it less taxing than reading, personally.

The book-like nature of it is spot on though; it's better to treat it like an interactive novel where you choose the order in which you read its pages than as a traditional RPG.

Don't be afraid to pick wild and weird dialogue options, and especially don't be afraid to fail at things. The game pioneered a "fail-forward" design philosophy

[–] kurcatovium@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Well, since I'm not native speaker I sometimes tend to miss some words/context without reading "subtitles" during voiceovers. On the other hand I'm glad there's voiceover because it usually helps with immersion.

Fail to progress reminds me of my playthrough of Fallout 1 with very low INT character. Some conversation were priceless. It was usually things like "Mmmhm, unga bunga, huh" from my character and then sigh from the NPC like "Oh no, another village idiot..." I highly recommend to at least check some of these low int conversations on youtube - hillarious.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think my favourite low-int detail was in Fallout 2. You come across the tribal Torr early on in Klamath and he speaks in grunts and broken sentences just like that if you talk to him with normal INT or above. However, if you talk to him with low INT the conversation completely changes into long eloquent sentences with advanced vocabulary for both him and you, matching the dialogue options unlocked at 10 INT. Amazing.

[–] kurcatovium@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago

That is brilliant and that's shat I love about old Fallouts.

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 months ago

There’s a lot of reading.

I mean, there's a lot of reading, but almost all of it is voice acted. Wonderfully.

Disco Elysium is worth it for the voice acting alone. And that's not even a tenth of the game.

[–] loops 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I usually play it in short bursts, iirc you can save at any time.

[–] kurcatovium@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

Thank you for heads up. Will definitely give it a try.

[–] eratic@slrpnk.net 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

It depends how long between sessions. The game is a lot like a book - you can read (play) for an hour at a time and put the book (game) down anytime then pickup where you left off. It might be a problem if you haven't played for a few weeks as you might forget where you are in the story.

[–] kurcatovium@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

I manage to play usually about 4 nights a week, so about day or two between sessions. This should be okay.

Reading all the comments, it looks like DE might be great pick for this interrupted play through. Glad to hear that, because everyone says it's a great game.

Even though I have games like Skyrim or Kingdom Come at my account, it's almost impossible to dig into those with this kind of gaming schedule. LA Noire was really great game for this.

[–] Notyou@sopuli.xyz 3 points 5 months ago

I'm not adding anything new, but I wanted to agree with others saying playing in bursts is fine. I would suggest at least 1 hour, if not more. If you don't have an hour just wait till you do. I played it in burst, but there is so much to read that a shorter amount of time won't do it justice.

Definitely worth playing. Multiple times too. I played my first go one way and now I'm playing a completely different Tequila Sunrise.

[–] Pyro@programming.dev 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

To add to the other commentators, it also has a task list / journal which should help you remember things to do through sessions.

[–] kurcatovium@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

Nice, thank you. This should be very helpful in case I won't have time to play at all. Which is what sometimes happen, life is life, so you never know...