Queen Of The Seven Spheres: Print Edition

You wouldn’t believe how much trouble getting page numbers right can be. It took 3 proof copies but I’m finally happy with this final and now live print version of Queen Of The Seven Spheres. You can now purchase your own physical copy and put it on your shelf never to be read.

And don’t fret, because the other two books in this series – Daughter Of The Jackal and The Thief, The Mother & The Empress – will also soon be available in print too. Now that I have a better understanding of the print copy formatting, page numbers and cover margins, I should only need 1 or 2 proof copies of each before they go live.

Now Playing: Disco Elysium

My initial impressions of Disco Elysium were pretty mixed and, after completing the game, I’m sorry to say that they still are. There are aspects of DE I really like and consider to be extremely well done, but other aspects I find extremely frustrating. In DE you play as a police detective tasked with solving a murder. Investigating the murder, interviewing witnesses, piecing together evidence and interrogating suspects was, for me, the most enjoyable and compelling aspect of the game.

But DE is about far more. It’s also about the world you find yourself in and about the character you play – who he is, who he was and who he wants to be. As I touched upon in my FI post, the world crafted in DE is pretty great, but there are times when it does descend into self-indulgent exposition in a way that breaks the natural flow of dialogue. The game gets the balance right more often than wrong, but it’s guilty all the same.

And then we have the introspective elements as your character figures out who he is. Once again, the balance of this is right more than wrong, but there are times when the game teeters precariously on the edge of its own self-indulgent asshole. It never quite falls in, but it gets pretty close.

Everything in DE is about dialogue, and that dialogue and how you proceed is determined by your character stats. You set your ‘core’ stats at the beginning of the game and you can then boost the various skills relating to these stats either through the use of skill points earned via XP, or by equipping various items and clothing, or ‘thoughts’ you’ve unlocked and reflected upon.

However, there is a limit to how far these skills can be pushed based upon your starting stats. If you only put a single point in physicality, for example, you can only ever boost the skills relating to that stat by 1 with a skill point. And the strength of these skills are what determines your success in the various skill checks that occur during dialogue.

It’s a really interesting and clever system that’s supposed to encourage repeat play but I would argue doesn’t quite work that way in practice. Can you build very different characters in DE and have a very different experience? Sort of – your stats and skills do determine how your dialogue plays out, but your progression through the game will always remain the same. The reality is that the vast majority of the dialogue based upon your skills is purely flavour text in nature – it doesn’t actually result in opening new paths of progression.

And you’ll soon realise that whilst it may be fun to maximise some stats and not others to unlock the different (and admittedly funny) ways your character can f**k up and fail, it doesn’t allow you to progress in a different way. Although the dialogue system in DE is incredibly robust and full of variations, flavour and character, none of it really has an impact on how your progression through the game unfolds.

Sure, it’s possible to get yourself killed in a variety of stupid ways, but that’s just a pointless ‘game over’ and reload. The fact is, if you want to progress through the game and the core investigation without constant failures and potential soft locks preventing any progress – which I’ll touch upon in a moment – there are some skills that are clearly more important and frankly required, than others.

There are at least 3 moments in the game relating to the core story that require certain skills to progress. I reached one of these points fairly early in the game only to realise that the way I had built my character only gave me an 8% chance of success. No matter how much I reloaded my save to try and beat the random dice roll, I just couldn’t proceed. I was essentially locked out of any further progression because I’d chosen the ‘wrong’ set of skills and starting stats.

Which is . . . kind of bad in a game that’s supposed to be all about building your character in various ways. After looking online I discovered I wasn’t alone in my problem, but there were ways to boost my chances by doing various side related tasks, but when I realised this would take a few hours to do, I decided it would be quicker to just restart the game and adjust my stats accordingly.

Much later in the game I encountered another similar situation that required two skill checks of a particular skill to proceed or I wouldn’t be able to progress and finish the game. This one was even more ridiculous considering the skill check was simply for your character to be able to notice and use a ladder that’s already clearly visible on the side of a building.

Once again, I didn’t have enough points in this skill to proceed, so I had to hunt down clothing to boost my chances and look up what side content might provide an additional boost – because there’s no logical reason why some tasks add or subtract from your odds. Even then I had to save scum and reload several times to pass the double skill check . . . all so my character could climb a f**king ladder.

It’s just dumb. If your entire game is about building your character in different ways with a focus on different skills then all of these stats and skills need to viable to enable your progression through the story. But in DE, the truth is that some stats and skills are way more valuable than others, and if you don’t set them up correctly at the start of the game, you’re going to have a much more frustrating time of things.

Because failure rarely leads to new outcomes or alternative paths. If you fail a check, you pretty much just have to find a way to boost your stats and try again. Or you can save scum and reload so you don’t waste so much time because you got unlucky with a dice roll even though you had a 92% chance of success.

I just find it so baffling that the developers built this incredibly complex system of dialogue based skill checks relating to so many different stats and skills, but then only built a single line of progression through the game with little to no variation – a line of progression that requires the use of certain skills.

Once I understood what kind of skills were most useful and required and boosted these accordingly, I had a much better time with the game. Anyone who tells you that your stats don’t matter and that any build is viable is pretty much lying. They’re not technically wrong, but it’s not very fun having to restart the entire game because you’ve soft locked yourself out of further progression.

The side content in DE ranges from pointless, self-indulgent filler, to some pretty good and interesting quests. But, as I said at the start of this review, my focus and my enjoyment came from following the core investigation. Who was the victim? Why did he die? How did he die? Who is responsible?

For all the irritations I encountered during my time with DE, it was solving this core mystery that kept me playing. I wanted to figure it out and I was determined to reach the end and uncover the truth. Unfortunately, the ending and resolution of this investigation kind of sucks. Without spoiling too much, it turns out that the murder was just a random act by a random stranger that had nothing to do with anything.

I guess it’s a twist, in its own way, but it’s not a very satisfying one. To say that DE fizzles out at the end would be a serious understatement. This isn’t helped by a bizarre, random encounter at the end that does see the game begin to tumble into it’s own self-indulgent backside.

I know some people really love this game and I can totally understand why and I’m sure if they read this review they’ll be screaming about how meaningful and important all that nonsense at the end is but, I’m sorry – it’s not. All it does is detract from the conclusion and ruins what is already a pretty lacklustre ending.

Disco Elysium is a game that I kind of loved and hated at the same time but it’s not a game I think I’ll ever have the patience to replay, not when I know how restrictive the skills system really is, how linear progression really is, and how disappointing the conclusion to everything is. It’s ambitious. It’s different. It looks lovely and it has some genuinely great moments, but it’s a very flawed experience and a very hard game to recommend.

5/10

Suburban Killbot Year 10

I considered making this my last post. It’s been 10 years since I started writing this blog and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep going. It was starting to feel a little like a chore to keep knocking out posts when I had so much other stuff to do.

But don’t fret, dear non-existent reader, I am going to keep posting because I do still kind of enjoy it and I do still need to get my thoughts down about various games because I have no one else I can rant to about them and I’ll go mad otherwise.

It’s also useful for my writing because I’ve not worked on any fiction for a few years and this keeps me in the game, so to speak. I do want to get back to fiction, it’s just a question of when. That’s not to say I haven’t been working on anything related to my books over the last couple of years.

I’ve tried various advertising campaigns and book giveaways without much success. I can achieve bursts of sales and engagement, but they never last and I end up spending as much if not more on advertising costs than I actually make back.

But one thing I have been working on and hope to reveal soon is physical print copies of my books, not so much to sell, but more for my own enjoyment so I can stick them on a shelf and feel all proud of myself. Also, if there’s a nuclear war and the internet goes down, at least someone in the post-apocalypse can read and enjoy them. Or . . . burn them for warmth in the nuclear winter wasteland.

I hope to have the first print book finalised by the end of this month. Hell, it might already be done by the time this post goes live. In keeping with tradition, here’s my yearly mosaic of all my top rated games. I think this year I might do a Top 10 Games list based on all the games I’ve covered. That might be fun.

Disco Elysium: First Impressions

When Disco Elysium went on sale recently, I finally decided to pick it up. I say ‘finally’ because I’ve had my eye on the game for some time, but never felt confident about pulling the trigger. I just wasn’t sure if, despite the very positive reviews, it was something that I’d like. And now, after clocking 6 or so hours with the game, I’m still not entirely sure.

Do you remember L.A Noire? That was a game I tried to play multiple times but could never seem to finish. I really liked the concept of playing as a detective and solving crimes but the way that game handled its investigation and interrogation systems was very flawed, restrictive and frustrating.

In Disco Elysium, you also play as a detective attempting to solve a crime – a murder. An unidentified man hanging from a tree. And this core plot point of Disco Elysium is, right now, the most compelling and enjoyable aspect of the game for me. Everything revolving around solving this murder, searching for clues, examining the body, interviewing witnesses, figuring out motive . . . it’s great.

I think the problem I’m having with Disco Elysium and the reason I still have reservations about it is that not everything in the game revolves around this plot point. There’s a lot packed into the game that’s more about the character you’re playing as and their personal struggles – which I do like, but it can lead to annoying diversions from what you want to be focusing upon.

And then we have all of the wonderful world building and history and political and philosophical musings that, as much as I can appreciate the time and effort that went into creating this fascinating and fleshed out world, this is a game that is also guilty of being a little too self-indulgent at times as these expository dumps come to dominate entire conversations.

Because ultimately, as interesting as some might be, they’re not really that relevant to the mystery you’re trying to solve. And it’s that mystery that I’m most interested in. When one character I tried speaking with went on a 1000 word rant about his theory of racial superiority I just skipped through all the dialogue without even bothering to read most of it.

Because even if it might be interesting from a world / lore perspective, it really had absolutely nothing to do with the core mystery. It was, frankly, just self-indulgent exposition. I skipped it because it just wasn’t interesting or relevant to what I was enjoying about the game – solving the murder.

And people really don’t speak like this. When your game is primarily one of dialogue, it’s so important you don’t just get the mechanics of that dialogue correct in terms of skill checks, but also the way that conversations flow and the way people speak. Normal people don’t ramble on endlessly like they’re reciting an encyclopedia entry, but that’s how quite a few of the characters I’ve encountered in Disco Elysium speak and it’s kind of f**king annoying.

It’s strange, because for the most part, people do speak naturally and conversations flow in the manner that you’d expect. That’s why it’s even more jarring when you do run into another walking wikipedia entry.

Disco Elysium has a very unique and interesting way of building your character. You set your core stats – relating to intelligence and physical aptitude, for example – and these stats then determine how far you can progress the individual skills relating to these stats. You can try to build a more ‘rounded’ character – but it feels a little detrimental to do so. This is a game where it does feel like focusing on just one or two core stats is more beneficial in the long run.

The skills connected to these core stats are then used to determine the outcome of various dialogue based skill checks which are conducted via a dice roll with a displayed percentage of success. It’s an impressive system in the sense of how many skills there are and how many ways these skills determine how conversations flow and what the outcomes might be.

But, once again, I have my reservations. This is a game where I save scum endlessly. I’m not proud to admit it, but I think I’d lose my patience with the game if I didn’t. Why? The dice roll system. I’ve put a lot of points into skills relating to perception and intelligence, so when I get skill checks relating to these skills with a 92% chance of success, to then get a bad dice roll and ‘fail’ in that check is kind of irritating.

It makes building your character to be ‘good’ at certain things feel a little pointless if your success is still determined by a random dice roll. Wouldn’t it make more sense to simply require a certain level of the skill to succeed? ‘Perception +4’ required, or something like that? And that’s why I’ve been quick saving before every conversation or possible interaction – so I can try again if I fail what should be an easy check and it screws up the progression of my investigation.

I guess you could argue that failure itself can lead to new outcomes, but I just find it frustrating when the outcome is so random and entirely out of my control. What’s the point of using skill points to boost my capabilities in specific stats, even to their maximum limit, if I can still get a bad dice roll and fail? Because when you do, you’re kind of stuck back at square one because the other skill checks that you haven’t built your character for have practically zero chance of success.

I don’t want to rant too long or too much about this yet because I’m still only giving my First Impressions and it may be that as I progress through the game, these mixed impressions may change. But I wanted to get this first impressions down before I go any further because as you can probably tell, it’s kind of irritating me and I needed to get it out of my system. It’s so frustrating when there are aspects of a game you really love, but you feel like other aspects are kind of ruining it for you. But, as I said, these are only my initial impressions of Disco Elysium and I’ve still got a long way to go.