For a murder solving game, Elysium Disco gives you few detective tools to work with unless you count wild assumptions and inappropriate remarks at the wrong time. There is one notable exception, however: Visual Calculus, an “intellect” skill that allows Harry to recreate mental visions of the past, including entire crime scenes. At first it seems like just a bit of extra flourish, a bit of an ace researcher thrown into a morass of confused emotions and impulses. And yet, it turned out to be the most influential skill in the game for me and, by extension, for Elysium Discoa walking apocalypse of the main character, Harry Du Bois.
Visual calculus is objective and free from the destructive, duplicitous fantasies that arise from virtually every other personality trait. What he says makes sense because it only says what the trained eye can see – and when you pass skill checks, you are often given information that, to exploit a genre cliché, generates recent lines of inquiry. A few moments in Elysium Disco are equally satisfying.
Photo: ZA/UM via Polygon
Like everything else in Elysium Disco (and Harry’s life), you can overdo the visual calculus. When he contemplates the broken arches near the apartment convoluted, for example, Visual Calculus sends him down a rabbit hole of speculation about what happened, coming up with information he could not possibly have known. The most egregious example occurs when Harry and Kim interrogate Klaasje about halfway through the main storyline.
To continue the investigation, you must check her bedroom window for evidence of the shot that killed Lely, and if you pass the Visual Calculus check, the skill will identify three potential angles from which the shot could have come. Logic (yours, not Harry’s, at least I haven’t seen it) dictates that it couldn’t have come from the boardwalk across the river, and yet the investigation prompts a recent sidequest that sends you investigating three potential null locations. Sure it’s not required, but you wouldn’t know it on your first playthrough. Poor Harry. I’m trying so challenging and there’s no answer in my face.
But this is Harry’s story in microcosm. His entire life is a series of failed jobs and desperate attempts to remain significant, most of which end in failure. However, like visual calculus tests, when they are successful, they are a game changer.
