The Process

Characterization: The Archivist

The librarian, the trivia-lover, the know-it-all who wants to impress with his wealth of knowledge and only communicates with obscure references. Disco Elysium’s storytelling hinges on what type of character-build the player wants to settle with. There’s the supernatural investigator, the alcoholic strong-man, the theory-driven detective and everything in between. It’s a game that rewards the player with a personal perspective of the overall narrative rooted in their beliefs, attitudes, and choices; kinda like a depressing personality test. For Encyclopedia, they are the first-step that helps players get oriented with the world of Disco Elysium.

Encyclopedia is the giver of lore; they explain everything about how the world of Disco Elysium works. Rooted with a wealth of historical information, useless trivia, and interesting tidbits, Encyclopedia always ensures that the player is well-informed about their circumstances. When I first played the game, Encyclopedia was my guiding hand; the intellectual detective with a love for solving-problems and being boring. They explained how Revachol is a bastardized capital divided into vassals, how the RCM is nothing more than a volunteer militia, and how the world may inevitably degrade into pixelated ashes; a real-existential friend. Even though they can be a real smart-ass sometimes and would throw me into useless tangents, they were nonetheless informative and useful. The friend who finds joy in the learning-process and shares it with others who may not even give a damn. They want to know everything and share everything.

Sound Design: Less is More

I figured to interpret Encyclopedia’s highlight of the game; the lore behind Dolores Dei. A disturbing and fascinating treasure trove of this mythical entity. I knew that this required a monologue worth to give a full perspective of who Encyclopedia is. Encyclopedia loves knowledge for the sake of knowledge; they will run their mouth tasting all the bits of information. However, there are also things that they dislike; that the meaning behind the information may not be worth returning too. I figured a combination between Wheatley from “Portal 2” and Jeremy Clarkson would be the amalgamation I wanted to create. I channeled that energy as if I was talking to a friend about my favorite video-game (which at this point would be Fallout New Vegas, again). That same level of bouncy excitement was what I wanted to express through this performance.

You can’t truly create a character until they interact with someone else. For this case, that was two: Inland Empire and the MC. I’m aware that there are multiple skills that argue with Encyclopedia at this point in the game, but to keep it concise, I wanted to include Inland Empire, who has a lot to say against Dolores Dei. With so much happening already, voice-wise, I figured to put ambience on the waysides. The soundtrack from the game (Saint-Brune 1147 from “Sea Power”) is already so powerful, that to add any more sounds to mix would detract from this character-centric moment.

Conclusion: Last Stretch

And that would complete Round 5 for the Disco Elysium skills. This skill in particular was a big doozy, with half of it coming to acceptance about the performance and the other actually figuring out how the whole mix would work out. I’m glad that I got this one out; Encyclopedia, while I may call them an annoying smart-ass at times, they are endearing as well. Next up is Round 6, the final four, and this will really be a test to see how much I’ve learned, in terms of voice-acting and audio-editing.

February 3rd 2025