Hello!

Did you miss us? Were you nice in our absence? In any case, our new schedule has allowed us to prepare a longer-than-usual devlog about authentical virtual real estate.

Home Sour Home

On today’s episode of Cribs, we’re gonna take a look at our protagonist’s palace. Come marvel at the hand-crafted furniture and the hardwood floor with only a few planks missing!

If you didn’t get that first reference, don’t worry, that show first aired 26 years ago. If you did, forget the previous sentence.

Nightmare Home Makeover

Let’s meet the architect of this quaint little home, yisah, 3D Environment Artista, to take a look around the property.

Q : How did you lay the first stones of the shack’s interior?

A : The interior of the shack was designed around the outside of the shack, which already exists in the game. I volunteered to try to create the inside. The art director provided a rough, 2d sketch, and I just got started on Blender, blocking out shapes and dimensions. It was a fun process, going back and forth between each iteration with the art director. The writing department came up with the story and all the important assets, as well as miscellaneous objects. The 3D artists were tasked with modeling all decorations and interactable objects. It was a very collaborative experience among many artists. I modeled some of those too and put it all together in the end.

The shack’s outside in the base game (top) and the working 2D sketch of the inside (bottom)

First 3D model of the inside of the shack

Q : What are some details you enjoyed working on ?

A : One of the interesting things about the process was modeling each individual plank on it. Sometimes the scale was too big, then it was too small, too thin, and so on. Once we found a sweet spot, I added damage and broken, warped planks to give an old look to the shack. It was tedious, but it was probably one of my favorite parts of the process. Making each plank a believable and interesting shape was very fun. The topology count didn’t matter at the end, since we’re using a render and painting it over. So, I didn’t have to worry about UVs or polycount—which is unusual in 3D gamedev—but I’m very glad I didn’t have to worry about those.

The shack before and after adding all the clutter

In the game, once you are inside a location, the surrounding area is just pitch black, so to create a nice silhouette of the shack, some planks are just floating in the air in the viewport view, which is really funny to see.

WIP of the textured shack

One Man’s Trash

We couldn’t have DCA inhabit an empty house, obviously, so we had to add the bare necessities for a decent(ish) life. Perhaps the most unusual piece of furniture is the strange sculpture on the nightstand, which Epiche, the Queen’s Personal Portraitist, will tell us about.

Q : What can you tell us about this sculpture made of trash?

A : Creating this trash sculpture was a challenge on its own. The idea that [OOH MAMA SPOILERS GALORE] adds a couple of layers to its design. It would have to show something about [YEAH WE’RE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT THAT], and it would have to be made primarily from pieces of garbage found around Revachol. These were the primary elements I tried to convey in the final result.

Studies of the Trash Sculpture

The positioning of the hands and the overall silhouette represent an old man crouched down, nervously biting his fingernails and digging through his own mind. The pulled-out tape filling his head is not just a playful reference to Disco Elysium, but representative of his messed-up memories and mental state. Along with the tape sits a lightbulb. Notice that it isn’t broken, just burned-out.

Annotated preparatory sketch of the Trash Sculpture. To see the glorious full version, you’re gonna have to wait for the vertical slice.

The cage of the table fan, which makes up the base of this sculpture, is positioned in a way that suggests a halo, referencing the religious and paranatural forces in Elysium. To give it that “fisherman’s town” vibe of Revachol, I added some fishing lures.
DCA’s [REDACTED FOR YOUR OWN GOOD] a beard made from wine corks, likely from bottles he drank himself, as well as a large red nose made from a beer can. Finally, the fishing-lure eyes are arranged in a way that makes the sculpture feel unsettling. Each looks in a different direction, symbolizing DCA’s [NUH-UH]. It also reflects his inability to [DO STUFF THAT DOES NOT CONCERN YOU].

Reader’s Questions

Big news, folks! It turns out bugging people about sending e-mail eventually causes e-mails to be sent to you! One of them even contained nine whole questions! If you noticed the air was growing more damp, it’s my tears of joy.

If you ever want to contribute to the global rise in humidity levels, forward your questions to [email protected], or get into bathtub racing.

Our first set of questions comes from Vénegüe, who asks:

Q : Is there a method to sign up for an email newsletter with the planned updates occurring every two weeks? If not, will you plan on adding this feature in the future?

A : Well, that’s a great idea we didn’t think about, so now you can. Should you pass the interfacing skill check in the footer of our webpage, you’ll be able to copy our RSS feed, and then paste it in your feed reader of choice, so you’re always aware of new devlogs coming out.

If you don’t know what an RSS feed is, don’t worry! Nobody does anymore.

Q : How can folks interested in DCA best support the project? Do you plan on introducing options such as Ko-fi or Patreon?

A : We’re true communists. We don’t want your filthy currency.

Q : When the project is complete, do you plan on releasing the modding tools, style guides, et cetera used as open-source?

A : Of course we will, but the fifteen tuxedoed demons currently breathing down my neck (which some call “lawyers”) insist I mention only to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Q : What other Disco Elysium characters did members of Longhaulers consider before settling on DCA? What about him made him so particularly compelling besides his dialogue or lack thereof?

A : It was always DCA. Original devs did him dirty by only presenting him through the lens of Harry’s self-obsession—all that projection. We’re gonna fix that.

Q : Your “About” section slyly alludes to this—what lessons have you learned following the development of Disco Elysium, both pre and post production? How are you approaching development differently?

A : I’ve asked our Project Apparatchik, and I saw her type for 20 minutes or so before she finally sent the following message: “Please don’t get me started or I’ll never ever shut the fuck up.” So as things go, this is a matter for a future devlog.

Q : I noticed the original fan module proposal powerpoint is not present on the DCA site—is that because Longhaulers want to use some of those thoughts as a starting point while heading in a different direction? Or because they want the DCA site to have a specific presentation of development blogging, or project ethos, or a centralized point of contact for interested parties?

A : The original pitch deck remains very near and dear to our hearts. It’s also a very important part of our shared history, so we’ve made it accessible here. (You can also see the original Reddit post here.)

A good deal of the ideas in JB’s pitch deck were modified, with most (if not all) of them remaining, in one form or another, with a few notable exceptions we’ll address in a future devlog.

Q : As with many fan-made mods, there exists a tension between creating a faithful-but-slavishly-accurate reproduction versus a mod choosing a novel approach while struggling with a fundamental misunderstanding of what made the original work so noteworthy.
How will Longhaulers balance this tension?

A : With skill. Walking this line has been our highest priority. We know what it is to read bad bad bad DE fanfiction.

Q : What game mechanics of Disco Elysium are you excited to engage with?

A : Every member of the team has their own answer to this question, but the most popular ones were narrative gameplay structure and skill interactions. No, I’m not biased because I’m on the writing team, what are you talking about?

Q : What mechanics or literary tools will you set aside to create something unique to DCA?

A : Mostly coitus with the Pale (and even then).

Our second set of questions is from Peter, who asks:

Q : Regarding Tabula Rasa — I know the plan for DCA is to use only the same neighbourhoods Disco Elysium uses, but does Tabula Rasa allow you to load new locations, or extensions to the Disco Elysium map; or are you limited just to the already pre-rendered world of Disco Elysium?

A : New locations are certainly possible, and the shack interior is an example. They’re created with other means though, added to the available areas, and are full Unity scenes. Portals (known to mortals as doors) can be configured to transport players between them. For example, the interior door to The Whirling is a Unity portal that links to the exterior Unity scene (and vice versa). Now, the Allez Vous-En shack’s covered storage area is a clickable portal that loads the Allez Vous-En Shack Unity scene.

Q : Are you looking for musical collaborators on this project, or will it use exactly the same (beautiful) soundtrack as Disco Elysium?

A : We’re not looking for additional musical collaborators at this time. For our playable demo, we’ll be using original music, but we’ll likely include some of the soundtrack in the full mod. (Honestly, our group is really kind of obsessive about making everything from scratch, so an entirely original soundtrack is within the realm of possibility.)

If you want to see what some of our writers are listening to while working on it on a piece of shit website that’s somehow a quasi-monopoly, you can find that here.

Q : Besides the obvious influence that is Disco Elysium, what other movies, novels, works of art in general, and especially games can you cite as major influences on DCA?

A : Disco Elysium is our primary influence and aspiration, but the ZA/UM story and the controversy surrounding the IP definitely opened up some interesting themes to explore. So, before we even get to the additional reference material, it must be said that we had multiple playthroughs and countless hours of study under our belts and permeating our brains before we even started. 

Aside from playing an obscene amount of Disco Elysium, we read Strange and Terrible Air and Full Core State Nihilist. We watched every interview and documentary, and we read every article and analysis—for both Disco Elysium and ZA/UM.

As far as overall vibes go, both The Lighthouse (Willem Dafoe) and The Long Dark are where we’re aiming—cold, isolating, intense, destabilizing. It’s not all frozen doom though. This scene from Jaws (1975) is another of our touchstones.

In terms of plot and characters, experiences and people in our real lives directly influence and inform both. Nothing about this game was made without oversight and input from people who have authentic, relevant lived experience, which is important when you’re writing a narrative game about serious real-life issues, like addiction, [BIG NOPE], poverty, [THINGS]-related PTSD, homelessness, and [OTHERS]. 

Is our narrative team composed of extremely damaged people with incredibly dark pasts? Yes, but there’s me too. Thank you for noticing.

Our last questions come from Attila, and are so:

Q : From how I have read so far, the mod will end in the protagonist losing all his sense of self, before being reduced to the utter homeless nightmare that is him in the base game. But isn’t that kinda fucking hopeless? Even to disco standards? EVEN after the death of Elysium?
Aren’t we, the player, the universal force that helped Harry turn the tides in his favor? Didn’t we decide his destiny to live in a homeless shack or finally pick himself up back together? The theme of despair was always present in base game as well, but the hook and sinker was the chance for a better tomorrow.
So I ask again, what is the point in piloting another drunk hopeless degenerate when you can’t even change their fate? To be canon compliant?

I call bogus. Especially when Locust city decided to break canon and go off of the narrative that Harry did not, in fact, take Cuno along with him at the end of the game. It simply doesn’t matter.

A : Welcome to prequels, my esteemed friend. I’ve been told there are several ways to get to Rome besides the Via Appia, and that the city itself isn’t as interesting as the sights you’ll see on the way.

This mod is very much an origin story, but we do have several endings plotted. The events take place during the winter preceding Harry’s arrival, and our protagonist will be in the state we’re accustomed to when they meet in Disco Elysium…but you get to decide how his story ultimately ends.

For my Sacred and Terrible Airheads, or those who had a casual conversation with a city recently, you might notice this also applies to base DE too.

We’re all gonna die! Yoohoo!

PS : Our Project Apparatchik vehemently rejects the presumption that there is *any* canon ending to Disco Elysium, but I maintain that whatever you, specifically, think is canon goes. Sure, Cuno followed Harry to the precinct and all other endings are fake. The Lion does not concern himself with artistic intent.

Q : This is my biggest conundrum. The second would be linearity.

Base Disco had multiple endings. Part of the appeal and central theme of Elysium was deciding how you end the cop’s story. How much do you figure out, who do you take with you during the final hours? How many people can you save during the tribunal?

DCA having one singular ending would feel like a step back from what DE was able to establish.

A : All we’ll say is this: very early on, we decided on elements that we, as Disco fans, would consider critically necessary for any game hoping to call itself a Disco-like, and one of those elements is multiple endings—choices that actually do matter. Another is an inevitable, Tribunal-like climactic event. So, no worries, we’re on it.

And that’s all for today’s questions, which is good, because we’re really bad at keeping secrets. Andrew also sent an e-mail that had no questions. He just wanted to be nice, and we appreciate it. Tune your RSS feeds to two weeks from now to hear about what changed from the original pitch deck, and happy Star Wars day to the nerds who celebrate.

Shaking the shack,
Skullhead McShay
Professional Goobster, Amateur Serious Person™.