Thread by @JamrockHobo

Last week I got to see some exclusive footage of ZA/UM's post-Disco Elysium project Zero Parades.
Below is a quick write-up about what stuck out to me, positively and negatively.
🧵 1/11

Disco’s Skills, Checks, Thoughts, and HP/Morale mechanics all underwent some reworks and return in a new guise.

Instead of storing emerging Thoughts in your Thought Cabinet, you now have the choice to either reinforce or suppress them in the Conditioning menu.
2/11

Approving or punishing a thought grants you distinct bonuses & penalties. I think it’s an interesting mechanic because it's more interactive & involves more player choice than DE’s thought storage. It also feels closer to how our real psyches deal with emerging thoughts.
3/11

The number of skills has been reduced compared to DE and they have been adjusted to a professional spy’s skill set, rather than Harry’s more general human capabilities.
4/11

Skill checks now have a Pressure mechanic that lets you increase your chances of success but fill your Fatigue gauge. Again, an interesting change because it adds more player agency and risk analysis to simple dice rolls.
5/11

Instead of depleting counts of HP & Morale you now have to keep your Fatigue, Anxiety & Delirium from ticking up.

While all these mechanics are obviously inspired by DE, they don’t seem to be changed for the sole purpose of not copying DE. (I have seen worse in Disco-likes)
6/11

Besides the old Disco mechanics, there’s also a "new" one: Dramatic Encounters. They’re meant to add octane to the slow, text-based game flow by forcing decisions at fixed stages of your mission. Overall, however, they seem to do the same as DE’s tribunal, but miniaturized.
7/11

As for the overall aesthetics of the game, it looks crisp and stylish. The colors are just abstract enough to not immediately be surreal. Anton Vill’s artworks blend in surprisingly well with the otherwise clean lines of the UI.
8/11

The core of a narrative-focussed game will always be its writing. Here, Hershel, who is otherwise a fleshed-out protagonist, seems to have inherited way too many of the well-recognizable suicidal neuroticisms, musings and quirks of Disco’s Harry.
9/11

Regarding the game’s worldbuilding, I don’t think they understand the concept of the "End of History" that they quoted repeatedly. ZP's dynamic, multipolar world of communists, "technofascists" & some others all awaiting an uncertain future and "imminent doom" is the exact opposite of the "End of History". The term was coined after the fall of the Soviet bloc to describe the global hegemony of liberal democracy as the final resting state of political & economic evolution. (It was, of course, a controversial concept at all times.) In ZP, it just seems to refer to a general political sadness and 90s vibe.
10/11

Lastly: While I have some genuine praise for its mechanics & aesthetics, ZA/UM’s Zero Parades aims to be a narrative-driven game. It stands and falls with its writing.
And yet, there are some dialogue options that can single-handedly make someone uninstall the game.
11/11 🧵