Nothing really is at the core of Esoteric Ebb's gameplay as much as the stats are.
Like yes, they are your strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom and charisma, but they are so so much more.
Just like in Disco Elysium these are, next to your partner Snell, your companions while playing the game and carry opinions on really anything.
Strength is not just about being strong. Strength is conservative. Strength is being what is expected of you. Strength is following Urth, is being THE Cleric, is being a MAN. Yes, strength is violent at times, but really its strength is defined by being the carrying foundation of how it has always been. And of course that politically affiliates it with the Party of Norvik.
Dexterity is also a fascinating case. It is about being fast but also about having fast fingers. It is about making the next big bucks. Dexterity is opportunistic. It keeps you out of trouble, not by staying out of it, but by being away again fast enough. It is hardcore Freestrider. It is liberal in that it wants the freedom to posess.
Constitution is by far one of my favourite voices in the game. It is simple, the voice of the body. Short sentences. It consumes. It feels pain. It is also stubborn. Yet it has its eloquent moments. It is the beast inside you, that wants to survive.
Intelligence is great at exposition yet it is also great at Ego. It is very much fitting, that in isolation intelligence, who is about information and ambition, has the mission to make you think you are better than anyone else. You could be mage king. You could rule them all, because you are smarter than them.
Wisdom at its core is a voice about the people. It is understanding the systems you are a part of. It is empathy for everyone. It is nonviolence. It is hope for a better future. Of course it is Azgalist. And most if not all times it is your voice of reason. Right next to Snell of course.
And lastly Charisma. Charisma talks a lot and yet has nothing to say. It markets you to the people around you, but it cannot let you be honest about it. You have to manipulate. You have to make them like you. Charisma has no ideas, has no values. It talks like it is more about social survival than it is about social integrity. And that is what makes it apolitical.
I have yet to finish a second playthrough, but my first was a high wisdom Azgalist run and it was really a story for the heart. At its core Esoteric Ebb is not about a murder. Esoteric Ebb is despite its marketing also not about being the worlds worst cleric. It is about what you believe. It is what you believe about people.
Where Disco Elysium talks about politics yet is more an examination of the self, Esoteric Ebb is about community and politics. It is about believing the best in people and understanding them that gives you the feeling of being a part of something greater. It opens doors in life to be a part of the community. To care. And the game wants you to care. Not just because it is immersive but because it matters to take part in something bigger an believe in a better future. You are not set in stone. You don't need to be strong all the time. You do not need to lie about who you are. Your people will hold you, even without any profit, even if you have lost all hope, that they have really thought this through. And it will not be painful or scary. It will make you whole.
So Disco Elysium is the only game you've ever really liked
I get it! It's a phenomenal game with superb art and writing, and its themes are consistent and deeply explored. It sets a high bar for video games. But there are other really, really fantastic games out there. This is a list that is 100% my own taste of things that aren't necessarily similar, other than the fact that they're really fucking good. (A lot of these are on sale for the Steam Summer Sale until July 11 2024!)
In Stars and Time
In Stars and Time is a time loop game where you play as Siffrin, the rogue of a party at the end of their quest to save the day by defeating the King, who is freezing everybody in time! But something is wrong: every time you die, you loop back to the day before you fight the King. You're the only one who remembers the loops, so it's up to you to figure out why it's happening, and how to break out.
In Stars and Time is a heart-wrenching dive into mental health, friendship, and love. It's about feeling alone, and how awful it is when the people who love you don't notice (and how awful it is when they do). It's about falling deeper and deeper into your worst self and your worst tendencies, and how to come back from it.
The creator also did one of my favorite Disco Elysium comics ever, which is only tangentially relevant but worth mentioning.
Roadwarden
In Roadwarden, you play as the titular Roadwarden for an undeveloped and "wild" part of the kingdom. Monsters roam the forests and roads, and it's your job to keep people safe. On paper, anyway. Your real mission is to find out what is of value in the area, and how to take it from its people. How well you perform this task is up to you. It's an oldschool text-based RPG, and I take a lot of notes by hand when I play.
Roadwarden explores exploitation and industrialization by making you look in the face of your potential victims. You can only learn what your bosses want you to report on by getting close to the residents, after all. There are mysteries to be solved, secrets to be gathered, and hearts to win.
The Longing
The Longing is an adventure-idle game where you play as the solitary servant of a sleeping king. Your task is to wait for him, for four hundred days. Time in the game passes in realtime (for the most part). There are caves to explore, books to be read, and drawings to make.
The Longing is about loneliness and depression. It's about whether or not you decide to stay in that hole, and if you do, what you do with yourself while you're there. Maybe you'll wander. Maybe you'll stare at a wall. Maybe you'll just sleep until it's all over.
Papers, Please
Papers, Please casts you as a newly hired customs officer in a country that is rapidly tightening its borders as its fascist government tightens its fist. This game is stressful. Sometimes you intend to help out the revolutionaries when they asked, but then you got so stressed out trying to make your quota so you can feed your family and pay your bills that you didn't notice the name of the person they were hoping to contact while going through their papers. Sometimes someone puts a bomb in front of you and expects you to defuse it. Sometimes someone suggests you steal people's passports so you can get your family out, and with the horror you see daily, the idea tempts you more than you'd like.
Papers, Please is all about hard choices and testing your moral fortitude. Everything you do has consequences. Being a good person in this game is hardly ever rewarded, but not in a way that feels overly cynical. Papers, Please asks you what kind of person you want to be and what you're willing to sacrifice to get there.
The Return of the Obra Dinn
From the creator of Papers, Please, The Return of the Obra Dinn is a game where you play as an insurance investigator for the East India Trading Company. The ship the Obra Dinn has just floated back into port, its entire crew missing or dead. It's your job to figure out what happened aboard the vessel. For insurance reasons.
I don't know how to go into the themes of this too deeply without giving away too much, but the mechanics of the game itself make the game worth playing. You have a magic stopwatch that allows you to go back to the moment of a person's death, allowing you to try and figure out who (or what) killed them, and how. And the soundtrack is extremely good.
Outer Wilds
In Outer Wilds you play as an unnamed alien, and it's your first day going to space! Your planet's space program is pretty new still, so there's still lots to explore and discover on the planets within your system. There are ancient ruins from a mysterious race that once lived in your system, long before your species began to record history. Why were they here? Where did they go? How are they connected to the weird thing that keeps happening to you?
The fun of Outer Wilds is in the discovery and answering your own questions. The game never tells you where to go, and it never outright tells you anything. There are clues scattered through the system, and it's up to you to put them together and figure out your next steps. It's about the way that life always goes on, no matter what, even when it seems like the end of everything, forever. I'd recommend NOT reading anything else about this game. Just go play it. Seriously, the less you know, the more fun this is.
If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers
In If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers, you explore the circumstances of the deaths of four individuals.
This is a short one that took me about two and a half hours to play. If for no other reason, play it for the stunning pixel art. The game explores sexism, racism, and homophobia in the Victorian era and leans heavily into horror themes. Best of all: it's completely free!
Pentiment
Pentiment takes you to the 16th century, where you take the role of Andreas Maler, a journeyman artist working on his masterwork in the scriptorium of an abbey. When someone is murdered, Andreas takes responsibility for finding the culprit.
The game is set over 20~ years and you get to watch how Andreas' actions affect the village in various ways (who's alive the next time you come by, have people gotten married and had children...). It's an exploration of how the past affects the future, and what parts of that past we choose to keep or discard. It has beautiful art, and fans of both Disco and Pentiment often compare them.
Other games you might wanna check out
Night in the Woods, Dredge, Oxenfree, A House of Many Doors, Inscryption, Slay the Princess, Citizen Sleeper, Chants of Sennar, Loop Hero, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, The Pale Beyond, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Elsinore, Her Story, Before Your Eyes, Pathologic (not delved into above because the venn diagram of Pathologic fans and Disco fans is basically a circle)
as someone who came from the grudge (funnily, the experiences leading to my "the grudge" exploded the same time GUTS dropped) and today realizing i've reached stranger (while i was listening to GUTS (spilled) for the first time) — time, growth, to choose your life now over the one you had, again and again. every little thing people say for self-improvement: exercise, eating better, sleeping earlier, drinking water, getting therapy, meeting new people, walking outside, talking to friends, less social media, so on and so forth. moving on is a decision done day by day. it takes time. it still happens.
Hi and thanks for checking out my blog! I make mods for Skyrim. I’m also on the Nexus as allonsywisegirl, and have a separate blog for new mod releases at my-tamriel-now. My mods focus on adding visual interest and playing with concepts based on the wider Elder Scrolls lore. Apologies to mobile users, but the Tumblr links only work on desktop.
(she/her, over 18, certified Jarth Head)
My personal posts and such are under the tag my Tamriel now.
My OCs are: Faolythe, Ash’la; smaller OCs are Aldhwen Greybriar, Fox, Darodra, Ponders-the-River
Just an FYI, if I reply to you on one of my posts it will be as @words-not-working-for-mouth, my main blog.
I have also posted a tutorial on how to backport Skyrim SE mods to Skyrim LE mods here. I think it mostly holds up.
Released major mods:
Project ja-Kha’jay: A Khajiit NPC Overhaul
A complete overhaul of all named, vanilla Skyrim Khajiit (and some mod-added ones as well) that adds lore-friendly diversity based on the effects of the ja-Kha’jay, the Lunar Lattice, on Khajiit.
Nexus Links: Vanilla, Interesting NPCs, Moonpath to Elsweyr, Relationship Dialogue Overhaul, Asya’la the Nordic Khajiit, Khajiit Will Follow, Khajiit Child Maisha
Tag - Masterpost
Khajiit Has Wares: A Caravan Camp Overhaul
Overhauls all 6 Khajiit Caravan sites by adding more clutter and new, exotic wares representing various provinces across all of Tamriel (and beyond.)
Nexus Link - Tag
Children of the Pariah: An Orc NPC Overhaul
A complete redesign of every named, living orc NPC in Vanilla Skyrim. The goal of the mod is to give orcs a more expressive, less caricature-like appearance (with the help of the excellent Expressive FaceGen Morphs), as well as make their appearances reflect the culture they belong to and the communities they live in.
blakekathryn
kaledo-art
annaxmalina
dededos
