Is Disco Elysium the closest to a True Detective Game?

[Blitzkrieger]

add info: True Detective is an American anthology crime drama

[Hopper-King]

that's super interesting.

there is sorta a similarity, but i think it all end at "call of cthulu".
true detective mentions the king in yellow a fair bit,
which is a figure adopted into the cthulu mythos.

the system closest to disco is the "basic roleplaying" system that "call of cthulu" uses.
disco features a detective dealing with horrors from the unknown.

though these are all loose associations,
especially since i have mechanics in one hand and lore in the other,
there is a vague similarity between disco, call of cthulu, and true detective.

edit: oh, the hardcore completion achievement is called "true detective",
so there's that too.

[GuffBall]

Originally posted by Hopper-King:

that's super interesting.

there is sorta a similarity, but i think it all end at "call of cthulu".
true detective mentions the king in yellow a fair bit,
which is a figure adopted into the cthulu mythos.

the system closest to disco is the "basic roleplaying" system that "call of cthulu" uses.
disco features a detective dealing with horrors from the unknown.

though these are all loose associations,
especially since i have mechanics in one hand and lore in the other,
there is a vague similarity between disco, call of cthulu, and true detective.

edit: oh, the hardcore completion achievement is called "true detective",
so there's that too.

For me the link to Call of Cthulhu is very vague as DE doesn't go into the whole cosmic horror aspect. Indeed in my first play through I felt that my character had redeemed themselves.

[Hopper-King]

oh, i was referencing "the killer" being driven to madness from living near in the cryptid.
and then loosing his mind completely when the cryptid walked toward him in the end.
"creatures from the beyond" driving people to "madness" seems very hp lovecraft.

i also think harry encountered the cryptid when he partied in the marsh,
before losing his memories.
like harry, "the killer" talks like his psyche is split, and he obsesses over the.....
klaasje woman, or however it's spelled, the same way harry does with "doloris dei".
i don't think harry needed redemption, but he got it via the lost memory.
otherwise, harry was done with being a cop. would've never "found" himself along the way.

[Me]

The developers did in fact cite True Detective as a source of inspiration. I think the commonality is mostly in how being a detective affects and destroys your private life, which is a theme in both the show and the game.

Originally posted by Hopper-King:

that's super interesting.

there is sorta a similarity, but i think it all end at "call of cthulu".
true detective mentions the king in yellow a fair bit,
which is a figure adopted into the cthulu mythos.

Fun fact: The King in Yellow predates Lovecraft and the Cthuhu-mythos. Lovecraft nicked the name and concept from Robert W. Chambers book "The King in Yellow".

[Hopper-King]

definitely. you could even go further, and say;
pretty much all of lovecraft is lord dunsany filtered through chambers' style.
hp was never known as a "good writer", but if you're a fan of high concept,
it's hard not to like his work, even if symbolically.