Preface: I don’t really “game”.
A friend sent me a not-so-legal version of Disco Elysium a while ago and so far it seems to work fine on my Linux machine through wine. I’m hoping to play it alongside them as a way to spend time together, but obviously there’s quite a few different decisions to make, starting from the character selection and continuing throughout the entire story. I’m not terribly experienced with the genre but I imagine that every choice I make, maybe even waiting an extra second before clicking something, is going to lead to different branches.
If we were to play this together (over video call and occasionally in the same room), would talking through our decisions and coordinating give us a similar enough path to be able to enjoy it together? Or alternatively, if we chose to go down different decision trees as we play, would we spoil crucial plot points for each other?
We could just as easily play an actual multiplayer game but we’re both excited about this one, and I really want to have experienced it. Knowing me it’s gonna be another five or ten years before I pick up another new game so I want to make this one count.
I’m not terribly experienced with the genre but I imagine that every choice I make, maybe even waiting an extra second before clicking something, is going to lead to different branches.
nah it’s not that hardcore. there are white checks and red checks, reds are 1 and done, white you can retry eventually. the dialog trees are mostly for story, flavor, worldbuilding, etc, though picking some unhinged things might make some checks harder while the opposite might be true and some will give you insight or additional help on checks.
It has no timing-based elements, and the stories don’t diverge that much if you choose to do similar things.
I would consider just screen sharing and making the decisions together, though, mostly because the game loves to talk a lot and I would be constantly afraid of talking over it, and it’s not like the experience of controlling the walking is a high point of the game.
It sounds like you each will be playing your own copy of the game but making the same choices through the aid of a video call? And you’re wondering how similar your experience will be?
One thing that will happen is you’ll both make the same choice but one person will make it successfully and one will make in unsuccessfully. This is due to some choices being reliant on both your stats as well as random chance, the game basically rolls a die and applies your stat as a modifier. This causes different things to happen, sometimes drastically different. This would cause your experiences to diverge, sometimes drastically. On the other hand, this is an interesting aspect of the game and would give you something to talk about.
Other people have already said the other things I would have said.
The game doesn’t progress in real time. Rather, every time you make a decision, advance a dialog, or interact with something in the environment, the clock advances by some amount of minutes. Iirc, you can actually run around the map endlessly without the clock advancing unless and until you interact with something. I don’t recall ever being penalized for sitting on a decision too long.
Edit: there are time-dependent events, though, but they run off the game’s clock, not real time.
I would advise one of you playing and streaming and the two of you making the decisions together due to how much the dice rolls can branch things - you’re basically guaranteed to get a different play through depending on your rolls.
Also for your first character only put one point in physique and then turn on the light. It’s really funny.
I would recommend against simulplaying it. There’s just too much text, you wouldn’t be able to talk to each other and pay attention to the game. Maybe if you have one game up and take turns on who makes the decisions that’d work better.
