New Psychogeographic RPG made by former devs of Disco Elysium at Longdue Studio

[Lagole Gon]

Hey guys. I'm making a game.
It's a Psychochemical horror about a depressed french man facing his homosexuality in late stage capitalism France.

Working title: Ry Zer0.

No proper combat though. Because your only enemy... is yourself.

 

[Necrensha]

Hey guys. I'm making a game.
It's a Psychochemical horror about a depressed french man facing his homosexuality in late stage capitalism France.

Working title: Ry Zer0.
No proper combat though. Because your only enemy... is yourself.

The eggplants are very subtle!

 

[Lagole Gon]

Hey guys. I'm making a game.
It's a Psychochemical horror about a depressed french man facing his homosexuality in late stage capitalism France.

Working title: Ry Zer0.
No proper combat though. Because your only enemy... is yourself.

The eggplants are very subtle!

Thanks. It was inspired by Cleve's stories about his work for Sir-Tech.
A classic piece of Codexian literature.

Spoiler

Cleveland Mark Blakemore:​

I just wanted to add, for those semi-autistic people who are on this thread who have trouble recognizing hyperbole, that there wasn't really a waist-deep pile of sex toys in the bathroom in Max Phipps apartment. Here I'll tell the literal truth about Max Phipps bathroom instead of the colorful version ...

When you entered the already cramped bathroom, there was always a vibrator behind the sink faucets. Why a man needed to keep a vibrator in the open in his bathroom, I'll never understand.

The bathroom was already cramped. Max Phipps had picked this as a place to store a padded sex couch (elevates a man's ass who lies on it stomach first) with metal railings in here around the same size as your typical Sears weight bench. So in order to be able to sit on the toilet, you had to push this bench backs towards the wall so that it now blocked the door to exit.

But wait, I have not got to the best part yet. Max always had a series of strapped bondage gear and strap-on paraphernalia that was drying over the shower curtain rod. It is like he had to have some massive cleanup each night after some wild gay bacchanalia he conducted in his apartment. I will give the man one thing - he was concerned with hygiene because the place smelled very strongly of the bleach that all this stuff was soaked in before it dried out.

So once you were seated on the toilet, it was impossible to simply turn your head to the left even an inch because there was usually a 9 inch rubber dildo hanging at nose level on the strap-on right in front of your face on the curtain rod.

You might try to think to yourself ... This is an absurd situation, I'll just try to make the best of it, perhaps read something, keep my head to the right and pretend I don't see any of this stuff. There was the strange occasional bump to your left shoulder that was like something in a horror movie, you just knew it was the rubber dildo poking into your back on that side but you sat there quietly ignoring it. You would reach for the stack of literature that was piled to one side beneath the sink ... let's see if we can find something here ...

NAVY COCKS COME ASHORE ... skip ...
MANLOADS : SUMMER COMING UP ... skip ...
BOYS AND TOYS AND JOYS ... skip ...

.... (rifling through around thirty gay magazines) ....

... Okay ... here's a flyer from Target.

You'd turn the pages, looking at consumer items on sale ... then notice when it got to the menswear section there were a series of bizarre stains on the pages ... recoil in horror and throw it back onto the pile.

You'd think "A MAN HAS GOT TO SET LIMITS FOR THE PURPOSE OF HIS OWN HUMAN DIGNITY WHEN IT COMES TO A JOB AND THIS SITUATION EXCEEDS THOSE LIMITS. EXCEEDS WHAT IS REASONABLE TO BE EXPECTED OF ANY WELL ADJUSTED PERSON."

Feeling revulsion, you'd realize you now had to try to wash your hands whilst remaining seated, you'd twist sideways, turn on the water and reach for the hand soap bottle, also covered in strange stains ... finally you would just rinse your hands under the tap ... impulsively reach for a hand towel hanging on the rack ... think better of it, just shake your hands dry and hold them in front of you.

Max Phipps would scream from the meeting room ... "Did you fall in, Yank?!? We're waiting out here! I don't have all day."

Right, you'd think ... attempt to stand and complete the exercise without touching anything. Shuffle sideways and attempt to rinse your hands again, using your elbows to turn the taps ... shake your hands dry ... "Be right out, Max, just a minute!"

You would pull the ass-pounder bench back against the toilet so you could open the door, trying to use the inside of your wrists to turn the knob, then exit back to the meeting where Phipps would talk for hours and hours without ever making a point or even conveying any real information. He would usually grow so shrill and enraged his face would flush bright red and the veins on his forehead would bulge as he indicted the movie and television industry for never recognizing the true extent of his talent and reminding us all again how lucky that peasants like we were even exposed to his social strata for any reason, claiming to know a wide variety of famous people he hobnobbed about with who led superior glamorous lives that we should never know. All the while Philip Moore would sit silently at his side nodding his head, tears of joy and love in his eyes hanging on Max's every word. He might occasionally insert a confirmation to Max ... "You got it that time, Max!" or "Max, once again you have nailed it!" or "Max, we are lucky to even have you!" (Imagine Philip Hoffman in The Big Lebowski as the rich man's butler toady except a hundred pounds lighter and with the build of Pee-Wee Herman.)

This was part of the requirements for the job. This wasn't just one day. This was the "team meeting" twice a week and after it was over I was never really certain what had been discussed, coming away with no useful semantic information about anything.

Those of you who think I have lied about any of this should know what I have done is exaggerate for effect in many places, like claiming that his apartment was waist-deep in dildos. That is simply not the truth, it is however so funny it conveys the truth.

 

[Terenty]

Wake me up when Kurvitz announces his new game

 

[GhostInTheHell]

Some interesting developments relating to Longdue studios (Riaz Moola).

1. https://x.com/mixedmartialarx/status/1857451477033234551
2. https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/a...hird-blocking-him-from-working-on-a-new-game/

Argo Tuulik (former writer on Disco Elysium, now working at game dev collective Summer Eternal) has been sued by Riaz Moola.
The same is probably true for Dora Klindzic (former writer on Disco Elysium, now also working at Summer Eternal) as she is also an addressee of the letter from Riaz Moola's attorney (https://x.com/mixedmartialarx/status/1857451492887650537/photo/2) and mentioned as a defendant in the claim form.

Riaz Moola owns Longdue Ltd (https://find-and-update.company-inf...cers/B5DQ8GeIfn7KmfqWLHNPIk5RjEw/appointments) (and CoGrammar (aka HyperionDev, apparently some scam-like coding bootcamp) which is the entity where the legal threats come from. This is confirmed by Argo who states he never signed a contract with Longdue Ltd itself (https://x.com/mixedmartialarx/status/1857546153979469996).

Longdue, who are making an unannounced title, had said before "that it is working on a Disco-inspired RPG, with a "dozen strong" staff that includes some former members of Studio ZA/UM (...) Longdue has not disclosed which former developers from Studio ZA/UM are part of the team". (https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/t...a-a-spiritual-successor-psychogeographic-rpg/)
Longdue indeed has a pretty weak claim to be a ZA/UM successor studio.
Turns out from what Argo Tuulik has now released on Twitter, that it was likely just Argo Tuulik and Dora Klindzic doing some consulting work for Longdue (and for Dark Math), This has worked out well for Riaz Moola as Longdue who can now make that claim that they had at that time former members (plural) of ZA/UM.

The legal Claims Form which is shown partially at Argo's twitter post https://x.com/mixedmartialarx/status/1857451492887650537/photo/3 (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gcb-SghX0AAlAgF?format=jpg&name=large) shows the allegations made by Riaz Moola:

"Defendants [Argo and Dora] were each engaged by the Claimant [CoGrammar Limited (=Riaz Moola)] pursuant (...) contracts. Ds' consultancy contracts with C terminated on 30 September (...) giving one week's notice to terminate their contracts. Ds have acted (...) the Court threaten to continue to act, in breach of (reasonable and (...)) post-termination non-compete covenants contained in their contracts. C seeeks (...) injunctive relief to restrain Ds from breaching the non-compete covenants (...)

It is unclear whether Argo or Dora even showed up to defend themselves. The requested injunction was apparently issued by the UK court.

It appears from this, that in a total lapse of good judgment, Argo and Dora may have signed a consulting contract under UK law (a bad idea in itself), which contained a broad non-compete clause!
Such clause (which would be less likely to be enforced by the court if they had taken the status of part-time employees instead of "consultants") has the obvious effect of limiting their ability to work in the gaming industry entirely going forward for a certain period of time (April 2025).
Including preventing them from working at Summer Eternal, their new game development cooperative.

If this is what they signed, it seems they may be good writers of games, but terrible readers of contracts.
It is also somewhat ironic that such left leaning devs would escew a status as a worker (employee) and opt for a consultancy contract, and one controlled by (colonial/ultracapitalist) UK law at that.
At the same time, Argo is seeing a grand conspiracy of counter-revolutionaries behind all of this "The Za/Moola--Riaz/UM alliance has been behind my legal struggles and silence as of late." (https://x.com/mixedmartialarx/status/1857451481336615036)

To link Dark Math Games (working on XXX Nightshift) to this, see Longdue's statement in today's PCGamer article: "Argo Tuulik was a part of Longdue’s team in the early days of Longdue’s formation, as well as previously Dark Math. However, as a studio, we have since grown in a direction that did not align with his approach."
Dark Math Games consists of Kaur Kender (producer on Disco Elysium) and Timo Albert (trailer guy for Disco Elysium). So also a pretty weak claim to be a ZA/UM successor. Argo Tuulik's involvement had not been made public before.
It seems Riaz Moola is/was somehow also in control of Dark Math in a vague way (https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/disco-elysium-successor-studios-overview/#section-longdue)

"Riaz Moola, was quoted in in the [Longdue] studio's initial press release. Moola is a tech executive and Forbes 30 under 30er, and I was previously contacted by him from a Dark Math Games email address⁠—Dark Math being the next studio on this list."

However, Argo's tweet implies that Riaz Moola may be no longer affiliated with Dark Math games: https://x.com/mixedmartialarx/status/1857451478585049319 ("baseless legal threats from zaum with whom Moola is collaborating against myself, Dora, Summer E and Dark Math Games."). That would be a scism following the scism.

TL;DR: Couple of commies try capitalism and get alienated from their labor by the bourgeoisie, blame counter-revolutionary conspiracy.

 

[GhostInTheHell]

I also noticed that it wasn't yet mentioned in this thread that Longdue Studio's narrative director is Grant Roberts, formerly of Bungie and Rocksteady.
His previous job before joining Longdue Studios was lead scriptwriter on.... Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (https://www.mobygames.com/person/57058/grant-k-roberts/). Before that, writer on Destiny 2 and some of its expansions.

 

[ropetight]

I also noticed that it wasn't yet mentioned in this thread that Longdue Studio's narrative director is Grant Roberts, formerly of Bungie and Rocksteady.
His previous job before joining Longdue Studios was lead scriptwriter on.... Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (https://www.mobygames.com/person/57058/grant-k-roberts/). Before that, writer on Destiny 2 and some of its expansions.

This one is going to be a banger!
All-star staff, psychogeography... when we can give money for this?

 

[Kev Inkline]

The fuck's "psychogeographic"?

In 1955, Guy Debord defined psychogeography as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals".

So it's basically a made up word by some guy?

 

[Habichtswalder]

Somehow missed this thread so far.

The concept that decisions shape the world is actually quite interesting. But it's very likely that they use it in an artsy, (pseudo) deep way with a lot of purple prose.

 

[GhostInTheHell]

Longdue indeed has a pretty weak claim to be a ZA/UM successor studio.
Turns out from what Argo Tuulik has now released on Twitter, that it was likely just Argo Tuulik and Dora Klindzic doing some consulting work for Longdue (and for Dark Math), This has worked out well for Riaz Moola as Longdue who can now make that claim that they had at that time former members (plural) of ZA/UM.

Called it!

IGN UK just dropped some more info
https://www.ign.com/articles/the-wi...ors-allegations-legal-threats-and-a-usb-stick

But more interesting (and probably more accurate than IGN who often rely on pure hearsay) is what Argo Tuulik shared on X in response: https://x.com/mixedmartialarx/status/1858998305386361201

It seems Argo and Dora were the only Disco Elysium veterans consulting on Longdue Games' project (https://x.com/mixedmartialarx/status/1858998337502138829)
Now that they have left, it makes Longdue's claim to somehow be a successor even weaker.

The desperation to make that claim is evident in the peculiar list of demands Riaz Moola had in order to release Argo and Dora from the broad non-compete clauses they had (recklessly) signed as consultants: https://x.com/mixedmartialarx/status/1858998327431594160
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gcx3o0NWQAEHeDR?format=png&name=large

Basically, Riaz Moola's demands would allow him to create a false impression that Argo and Dora remained involved in Longdue Games' project, despite their consulting had come to an end as of September. Freeriding on their reputation.

In an attempt to hijack Disco successors, Riaz Moola even wanted to be assigned a "C Suite" title at Summer Eternal - the very studio whose development he is trying to actively delay through these legal threats.

Still no grand conspiracy between Riaz and ZA/UM proven by Argo though.