Recently, a little reddit post came to our attention. Apparently, a few people are wondering where we’ve been all this time (and, to be fair, it has been more than a year since the original post), so we decided to climb out of the shit factory and give you a rundown on where things are at.
TL;DR
We are working on a Vertical Slice, a short, playable gameplay sequence, which will confirm that, yes, the mod exists and works. You’ll get an early look at the vibes and general character of Don’t Call Abigail, which you can then critique via Google Form.
ETA : Whenever it’s damn finished, and not a single day before.
But who am I kidding? We’re Disco players—reading long stretches of text is our national pastime—so we won’t be content with a TL;DR. What follows is a preview of our work in diverse fields, each of which I will spew further rivers of text about in following devlogs.
The Protagonist: Don’t Call Abigail
Our eponymous main character, Don’t Call Abigail (which we will shorten to DCA for our carpal tunnel’s sake), already exists in what passes for a physical form in the game files, so you’d think the art teams could just kick back and relax, or even work on other things.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, a blend of neurosis and genius has constrained them to rework the model so players can dress and undress it. Not only for our perverse amusement, but because the ability to have different clothes on necessitates a new base model—preferably one whose privates are fashionably kept so by an elegant (yet still grungy) pair of trunks.
Isn’t he cute?
A new 2D portrait has also been made for the version of DCA you will be playing as, but it, and the reasoning behind why it looks like it does, will have to wait for a future devlog.
Home, Sweet Home
Our dear DCA would not be content drifting across the endless void, and so he needs a place to call home and to walk around in. We’ve chosen to house our protagonist in the shack whose roof reads ALLEZ VOUS-EN in the fishing village, near his position in the game.
He’d gladly let you in to admire our handmade interior, but he says there’s uh… something in the house he has to deal with first. Probably just a bit of cleaning, don’t pay it any mind.
Branching Paths
As did ZA/UM during development, our team is using articy:draft X to handle dialogue. This allows us to easily make game-compatible flows and allows me to spend hours moving fragments around so they fit in a neat little grid with their wires uncrossed.
I love a readable flow.
Writing is hard to get a feel for without giving you a lot of context, so in the interest of not spoiling too much, you’re gonna have to wait for the Vertical Slice. Trust us, it’s good.
Sound and Music
The track below was created by one of our composers, Prolofique, which you can find on youtube. DCA will feature an original soundtrack, and we will be recruiting voice actors to record each line of dialogue.
The Friends in Your Head
24 skills occupy Harry’s mind-like doohickey in the original Disco Elysium, and none return here. DCA’s not as adjusted as Harry was (an impressively low bar to fail to clear), and so his psyche only has room for 16ish unique skills, which are all done, with art, descriptions, and a full style guide for us lowly writers.
A mockup of the skills page, brought to you by gaussian blur.
We’ll reveal a few of our favorites very soon, as they will be the main subject of the next devlog. When will it come out? Eh, when it’s ready. Let’s say next week, pending delays caused by illness, exams, major geopolitical events, tropical storms, public transportation issues, and/or exotic fruit shortages.
Reader’s Questions
Since this is the first devlog, we don’t have direct questions to answer from all of you. You can send questions over by e-mail, like the elderly, to [email protected]. In the meantime, feel free to ponder these questions asked by the development team:
- What’s your favorite fantasy book?
- Who is your favorite DE character and why is it Cuno?
- If I’m drawing a portrait, and you’re drawing a portrait too, then who is flying this plane??
In any case, see you next week if I don’t drop the ball, and thank you for your moral support.
Public relationally,
Skullhead McShay
Professional Goobster, Amateur Serious Person™