Disco Elysium

The worst effect of absorbing racism is the affect it can have on a later check at the nightclub.

It's the most heart-wrenching red check in the game! I don't care what anyone else says; I was far more worried about disappointing Kim than I was about getting shot.

• I'm sorry to say that the bgm for the ravers is stuck in my head.
• I forgot to mention that I sang karaoke! It uh... did not go well. Not even a little bit. Like I do so often for this game I was howling with laughter.

You know how bad the Switch port is? It broke my pro controller, I had to reset the thing, I've never seen anything like it.

Day 5

• I broke into the ice cream machine and took the off-site filament copy. I used it in the machine upstairs before bringing it back to the church.
  • I brought the ravers in and reminded them no drugs.
  • They helped with the sound equipment so we could hear the noise. It was... a thing. I need to learn about the Pale first though. Whatever that is.
• I bought dice from the dicemaker.
• A billionaire in a shipping container gave me 100 reál for failing a dice roll.
• Other than that there wasn't much to do, other than read books to pass the time. I learned about the Innocencents, and helpfully answered Dolores for all the questions. That hurt my morale. But I also made a herb tea.
• I spoke to Klaasje about Sunday night.
• Reading so much helped me get into the book club!
• I started thinking about the Wasteland of Reality.
• Rene died.
• Huh. Harry actually got a good night sleep!

Edited by SilentColossus on May 19th 2024 at 8:21:11 AM

Oh he's much more wealthy than just a billion.

He's definitely not a single digit billionaire.

Evrart did not believe me when I told him about it. That makes sense, considering that Harry can be a bit delusional, hence the fact that Harry saw the light bend around the guys face, but Kim corroborated it.

Evrart is helping me find my gun!

I was suspicious about helping Evrart, but Kim was really insistent that I find my gun, even if it meant working with the union.

I felt less guilty when I found out what was in the apartment Evrart wanted me to break into, and then even less guilty than that when I met who lived there. I fined him twenty reál for something he did.

Whelp... I guess that went better than expected?

• I let Ruby go, and am very much regretting letting Klaasje go. Damn her puppy dog eyes and how she said "please" when I threatened to arrest her. Volition told me not to fall for her charms, and yet...
  • Maybe I shouldn't have let Ruby go. I keep letting suspects off the hook.
• Thank you Inland Empire, and goodbye Horrific Necktie.
• You guys said there was an Authority check related to Kim, and I'm very happy I took the spoilery advice and decided to use another skill point in Authority. Even then the check was only like 75%, so I was freaking out. I passed though.
• I can't say I necessarily liked all the Hardie Boys, but I wish I could have saved more. Only three are left, now. Titus respects me now, though. I told him he should join the RCM.
• Before the tribunal, I learned about the Pale from Joyce. I'm not sure I understood it: it's some kind of timeless unreality? And it's spreading? And it's in the damn church - or rather they built the church around it - and it will spread from there, too?

Edited by SilentColossus on May 22nd 2024 at 10:25:25 AM

You passed the Tribunal. Good job. It's truly amazing how much tension can be found in a purely turn-based system that has no action elements whatsoever, just through incredible writing.

• Regarding Ruby: You cannot bring her in. If you insist on capturing her, she shoots herself.
• Regarding Klassje: She's not lying about her fate if you arrest her. It's truly your choice, of course, but I didn't feel too bad for letting her go.
• Regarding Kim: Failing that Authority check means that either you have to do the rest of the game alone or Cuno will become your partner.

Edit: Here's a fun note that shows how much thought the developers put into the story. You can search for and accumulate pieces of the T-500 armor worn by the victim — everything except the pants. While the armor will stop one of the mercenaries' shots (if you fail a dodge check), the one that takes you down is in the leg and is an Impossible red check. So even if you go out of your way to protect yourself, you can't avoid it.

Now, for the Pale. You can get a ton of information on it from Joyce (by visiting her without Kim present), and there are some other characters who have solid details to add. There's a ton of world-building around it that is only lightly touched on during the game; it's apparently part of a setting that the writers have been cooking up for years.

In a nutshell, it is a physical manifestation of entropy. The planet appears to be immersed in it, with intermittent islands of reality (the "Isolas") that people live on. Entering the Pale is like leaving reality behind: everything just sort of progressively falls apart, even time and space themselves.

People who routinely voyage through the Pale find themselves experiencing memory loss, personality changes, and other effects, including a kind of "cross-bleed" of other people's thoughts and memories into their own. It's a very weird concept. One doesn't really "navigate" the Pale so much as fling oneself in with enough momentum to make it through.

There are hints that Harry's amnesia is connected to the Pale. While never directly stated, there is a reading of the events of his bender suggesting that after crashing his car, he went to the Church, smashed the stained glass of Dolores Dei, and stuck his head into the hole in reality.

As for the Pale itself, it appears to ebb and flow, but is, according to Joyce, slowly expanding. Presumably it will eventually consume everything, but it appears that certain types of human activity can hold it at bay. For example, turning the Church into a club for anodic dance music.

Edited by Fighteer on May 22nd 2024 at 11:22:18 AM

I probably couldn't have arrested Klaasje anyway, if I'm being honest. I knew she was partially playing me the entire time and I let her do it.

As for the Pale, I actually convinced Kim to leave by passing a Suggestion check, so he left Joyce and Harry alone. He even felt a bit bad when he came back and Harry wasn't freaking out, because he thinks he ought to have had more trust in Harry.

That's one way to do it. The other opportunities to do things without Kim are after he takes his leave each night and while he delivers the body to the morgue.

And yes, Harry's lack of freaking out about the Pale is a large part of what convinces Kim that he's not completely gone. There's still a person of worth inside all that self-destructive behavior.

Edited by Fighteer on May 22nd 2024 at 11:28:55 AM

Pfft. "Self-destructive." My Harry hasn't drank or done any other drugs for nine days!

Edited by SilentColossus on May 22nd 2024 at 11:40:08 AM

reminds how I was struggling with passing certain skill checks until I discovered I could spend all the money I was earning on drugs that boosted my stats,and then spent the res of the game doing it

I also did a dry run. It's not a "happy" path. As in real life, it's a hard, lonely road that constantly forces you to face your failures, and there's no guarantee you won't fall off the wagon tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that.

A sober Harry is one who now has to face the absolute wreck he made of himself. But Kim does respect you for it.

I should try a drunk/drugged out run at some point, just to see how the dialogue options change.

Edited by Fighteer on May 22nd 2024 at 11:42:48 AM

I made sure to internalize the wasteland of reality thought, so now Harry gets no benefit from drinking.

Edited by SilentColossus on May 22nd 2024 at 12:43:16 PM

A sober Harry also shaves off that ridiculous stache.

I've shaved off his mutton chops and stopped the Expression.

He... doesn't look good.

Identity is a funny thing. Harry cultivated The Expression as a way to put a charming face on for the world despite his inner turmoil, but it eventually became part of himself. Without it, he's just... an aging man with numerous self-inflicted health problems.

Harry on drugs and booze and The Expression is a charming, extravagantly extroverted, go-getting superstar cop. He's also a colossal prick and a terrible partner, but them's the breaks. It's all part of the front.

Edited by Fighteer on May 22nd 2024 at 11:33:27 AM

I should be going to the island now, but when I passed over the creek near the church, Harry said I should go back when it's snowing. So I've been passing the time reading the same thing over and over.

More importantly, Cuno thinks Harry was cool.

Cindy is gone. I never got a chance to paint the wall: I kept failing the skill check.

Edited by SilentColossus on May 24th 2024 at 9:01:50 AM

Klaasje being let go is the right choice.

And yes, Harry shoukd keep the Expression because it turns out some of our masks for ourselves are actually good things.

I wouldn't have been able to bring myself to arrest Klaasje even if she did do it, honestly. Like I said, I knew she was playing me, and I went along regardless.

Edited by SilentColossus on May 24th 2024 at 4:27:21 AM

It's over

• I got Dros to spill the beans about everything.
• THE FUCKING PLASMID IS REAL? Why did I stop believing. Inland Empire told me to believe in it, and then I did for a while, but then I decided not to because that dick Logic.
• I knew I should have been suspicious of the two RCM in the Whirling, but even the guy - Heidelstam - with the kid? I'm not going to lie that I was very nervous when I encountered them, but mostly they understood that Harry is doing better now that he isn't drinking. And that he solved the case.
  • Harry was a gym teacher.
• Kim is considering joining the 41st.

I'm probably going to have to replay this to see how much foreshadowing I missed.

So yeah, you basically did the "good cop" ending. Congratulations.