The Disco Elysium-inspired isometric RPG Rue Valley from Serbian team Emotion Spark Studio has been approved by key developers of the cult detective series, as revealed by the Human Can Opener podcast.
Image source: Owlcat Games
Disco Elysium’s lead game designer Robert Kurvitz, art director Alexander Rostov and writer Helen Hindpere informally consulted with the Rue Valley team during their visits to Belgrade.
According to Emotion Spark creative director Marko Smiljanic, the first thing Kurvitz told him during a face-to-face meeting was the importance of voice acting for a text-heavy game.
The developers of Disco Elysium couldn’t perceive it as players, and Rue Valley gave them this opportunity
Smiljanic was initially afraid to admit to Kurvitz that Rue Valley was inspired by Disco Elysium, but the game designer reassured him: “I realized that we created a platform for writers to earn money.”
Kurvitz and Hindpere subsequently played the Rue Valley demo, with the former impressed by the neatness of the dialogue system (“we had the Spaghetti Monster, and this is all clean and beautiful”) and the latter “feeling at home” after Disco Elysium.
Disco Elysium opened the eyes of indie developers that complex stories can be told without a AAA budget
Meanwhile, Rostov would come to Emotion Spark alone to “examine every nook and cranny” of Rue Valley’s art, and give the team advice, such as making characters cast shadows on themselves.
We are unlikely to see a sequel to Disco (at least from the original team), the projects of the studios-heirs of ZA/UM are far from release, and a piece of Disco Elysium continues to live in Rue Valley. It has no release date, but there is a demo on Steam.