Esoteric Ebb

At first glance, Esoteric Ebb looks like a tongue-in-cheek fantasy clone of Disco Elysium: attributes as parts of your personality, no separate combat system, and political convictions instead of an alignment. But in practice, it goes way beyond simple imitation. The premise is simple: the ancient city of Norwick is about to hold the first democratic elections in its history. Everyone's already on edge, and then someone blows up the local teahouse. You're the one sent to investigate — a young Cleric in the service of the state. As so often happens, what seemed like a minor incident soon turns out to be tied to politics and the fate of the entire world. (Not a spoiler: the voices in your head tell you as much in the very first scene.) The investigation is the backbone of the story, but it mostly works as an excuse to explore the world. And the world is worth exploring. The setting is defiantly weird: the gods are dead, magic is fading, and society is entering a new era — one of bureaucracy, elections, and political ideologies. The game strikes a great balance between the strange and the familiar: it speaks the language of classic heroic fantasy, but uses it to tell a completely new story. What I loved most is that the game pulls off with Norwick exactly what Disco Elysium did with Revachol. It's a small, intimate game — you only get a couple of districts to explore. But because every character, place, and object has its own backstory and fits firmly into the setting, you genuinely feel like you're seeing just a small piece of something much bigger. The world is alive and huge — you just don't get to see all of it. One last thing: the writing. Almost all of the gameplay comes down to interactive dialogue, and it works only because that dialogue is genuinely fun to read. The game also avoids the trap so much "ironic" fantasy falls into: jokes for the sake of jokes. Yes, it's written in a light, comedic tone, and the world is a whimsical place — you can meet an ancient drunken sphinx, or one of the world's greatest spellcasters, who happens to be a giant snail. But there are no fourth-wall breaks or tired meta-humor. Every eccentric character belongs to this world and has a real story behind them. So when the game sets the comedy aside and goes for real drama, you believe it.

Stop me if you've heard this one. You're a law enforcement officer, you wake up after being dead for a day or two, you need to solve a whodunnit mystery together with a very helpful sidekick, the world around you is eerily familiar and still a little off, everyone seems to have an opinion on politics, and these damn colour-coded voices in your head just won't stop arguing, with you or with each other. Oh, you stopped me a while ago? It's Disco Elysium, you say? Yes, quite close and obviously inspired by it, but...no, this is a different beast. For one, it's using D&D terms and names and mechanics loosely adapted to a more freeform storytelling game. The combat is much more open-ended, a choose-your-own-adventure type of deal. You don't roll 2d6 like in Disco, you roll a single d20. You still get to equip trinkets with diverse effects, show everyone how cool you are by changing your helmet (but it always stays on) and rummage in the trash looking for apples and loose change. The writing sets this game in a league of its own, arguably equal with Disco Elysium and highly entertaining for different reasons. It is much more humorous and earnest and tongue-in-cheek than Disco's ever was, and yet much like Disco it treats decidedly serious themes like racism, sexism, intent versus effect, the hard choices of rulers and the search for purpose, and that's before you get to the politics. You see, there's an election happening in 5 days, the very first election in the city as a matter of fact, and it will DEFINITELY change the city in some way. How will it? Who should you vote? Who's everyone else gonna vote? Should you get in good with them by being a two-faced smarmy 'apolitical' slitherer, or do you shout your choice of AGRARIANS loud and proud from the rooftops every chance you get, even though they were subsumed by a much more successful party, you hipster? Ask EVERYONE what they're going to vote! The newspaper stand boy! The angel with a halo full of eyes! The black cat! The ages-old tree! This politics stuff is REALLY important! Really, the only criticisms I could think of would be the miles of (entirely optional) exposition and background lore, that only really pop up in dialogue if your stats are high enough. They're not exactly relevant to your quest at all and you don't even need to look deeply into them. One writer/designer was responsible for this all, having developed the world and the principles of it over years of work. I'm endlessly thankful he was noticed and managed to secure a publisher, because Esoteric Ebb is certainly up there with its inspirations and mentors Disco Elysium and Planescape: Torment as one of the finest stories in an RPG. I am not ashamed to say that it made me laugh uncontrollably, tear up, and fall deep in thought. Well done, Christoffer. You made a masterpiece.

Sometimes, maybe more often than I realize, while playing a game, there comes a moment when I enjoy it so much that, for a brief yet very long moment, I feel nothing but pure delight and enjoyment. It’s so fleeting, but its mark is so enduring. I end up finishing the game and looking back at that moment and how it made me feel, wondering if it had happened more than once, or a single time, or if the whole game was one big delightful moment. Esoteric Ebb was such a game. Everyone talks about role-play in role-playing games, and we are often presented with a yes-or-no choice, with being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ throughout, but here, you are presented with what really makes the experience so special: the freedom to be anyone or no one. To be of one color, or to be of multiple colors, to mix and match your character’s ideology, and perhaps yours, the player, or to even be colorless, the kind of person who lets the events of their life and society walk over them… and is that really bad? Or good? It’s hard to find out in real life, and that’s why we need role-playing games where we can actually role-play to our hearts’ content. I loved this game. I have played many CRPGs, and I always had a good time with them, yet the writing and characters, just the life of it all, of this world and its citizens, of Ebb, its esotericism, are all so special and vibrant. To look at the moon, and raise a finger, with one wish: an ask, an ask for one friend, to not be alone anymore, is to play Esoteric Ebb.

Wow. To chyba najlepsza gra RPG w jakiej spędziłem czas od premiery Baldur's Gate 3. Oczywiście rozgrywka o wiele bardziej przypomina to co znamy z Disco Elysium niż z klasycznych cRPG-ów typu BG3 czy Icewind Dale, ale nie dajcie się zwieść. To prawdziwy roleplay z krwi i kości. Mechaniki w Esoteric Ebb oparto bowiem na piątej edycji systemu Dungeons & Dragons, choć oczywiście zostały tutaj zaadoptowane w bardzo nietypowy sposób. Wracając do sedna. Gra wymiata. Jak już pisałem bliżej jej do takiego Disco Elysium. Mamy więc tutaj przygodę typu point & click osadzoną w świecie fantasy. Historia wciąga. Eksploracja wciąga jeszcze bardziej. Całość wciąga tak, że gdy już zaczniecie to ciężko będzie Wam się oderwać. Polecam!!! ps Gra ma mnóstwo tekstu do przeczytania. Bez znajomości języka może być ciężko. Na szczęście udało mi się uzyskać spolszczenie dostępne na stronie Bazarowe Spolszczenia. Dzięki, świetna robota 👌

An interesting idea, but for me it misses the mark visually and thematically compared to its peers.

A mystery/detective story where there is one clue you need to progress to the end, and everyone you interact with either tells you nothing of consequence, or they repeat the one clue, and to find that one clue I wasted 3 hours backtracking everywhere and everything before having to look at a guide that says "oh yeah once you've completed this side quest remember to interact with the item in a certain way and then reconfigure a thing then wander to a certain location and press a button on the UI and you can continue with the plot". Combined with the largely dull characterisation of the internal voices, the relatively uninteresting and whiny protagonist, and the endless walls of front-loaded loredump that I found myself skipping through because they just went on and on and on about age X, age Y, age Z, I didn't really enjoy the game. I played through the end because I still had no idea where the plot was actually doing until the last moment, at which point I sort of shrugged.

Это отзыв от человека, которому не понравился Disco Elysium, но которому, тем не менее, очень-очень полюбился Esoteric Ebb! В отличие от Disco Elysium, с которым эту игру чаще всего сравнивают, она очень логичная! Здесь не будет внезапных поворотов в духе: «Просто задал логичный вопрос — словил инста-смерть, которую совсем ничего не предвещало». Ваши характеристики тут работают как D&D-механика, а не как извращенный садо-мазо-философский механизм! Да, здесь нет тактических боев, и это, по сути, графическо-текстовая новелла, но именно такой формат как нельзя лучше передает дух настоящего D&D-приключения! Здесь полно юмора, философии, вариантов прохождения, выборов, взаимодействий и просто уютного времяпрепровождения! Если любите D&D, то однозначно нужно играть! Запутанная детективная история приведет к интересному финалу! А по пути главный герой найдет то, о чем он больше всего мечтал! Ну и, конечно, проголосует, ведь выборы — это важно (а за кого вы, кстати, будете проголосовать, гражданин?)! Отдельно хочется упомянуть музыку, которая, будучи простой, все равно цепляет и хорошо передает атмосферу! Финальный саундтрек заслуживает отдельного места в библиотеке! Спасибо, игра, это было замечательное приключение!

DND+极乐迪斯科，西幻设定很有意思，对于我来说还挺新鲜的，虽然听说过死者交谈之类的法术。d20很爽，文本很有深度