How much can you do in 47 minutes? Well, it all depends on the situation. Eugene, the main character of the Rue Valley game, has a lifetime to live. After all, he knows for sure that at exactly 20:47 the sky will burst into flames and sweep away the whole world with a bang. How does he know that? Well, the fact is that he has already died many times along with the entire universe, reopening his eyes at exactly 20:00, 47 minutes before the end of the world. But how can you avoid a burnt offering if you are trapped not even in the day, but in the hour of the groundhog, and this hour begins again and again on the therapist’s couch?
Even at the stage of announcements, Rue Valley was dubbed a clone of Disco Elysium. Conclusions were suggested to be drawn from the screenshots and the trailer, and if we take these sources, then everything is really reliable. Yes, this game is perfect for fans of the Elysee Disco, as well as for fans of CRPGs in general. However, a comparison with a story about the adventures of a depressed alcoholic can be disastrous for Rue Valley. I’ll come back to this aspect later, but in this review we’ll first figure out what’s going on in this game.
![Rue Valley, скриншот из игры]( "rue-valley-01")
The Spartan character creation screen is actually a cover-up, but a beautiful one.
The modest charm of backwater psychotherapy
The main character, Eugene Harrow, is found on the couch of Dr. Fink’s therapist. Dr. Fink, of course, is not an ordinary shrink. For his unique method, the patient had to come to a motel in a deserted American backwater, with all this much-loved tumbleweed romance. The desert is not that arid, it often rains here, favorably reflecting the neon signs of the motel and gas station. Stuck in the middle of nowhere is the best way to describe Eugene’s situation. However, after about an hour of real time and 47 minutes of game time, Eugene will be convinced of the ironic unity of space and time.
After leaving the doctor’s office, which is one of the motel rooms, we, as a player, have no tasks other than to check into this very motel. This elementary everyday action is not the fact that it will be easy for the character, because Chad-dummer, as one can characterize the external image of the main character, may well have serious communication problems. If Harry Debois was an eccentric, strange, crazy, but cool guy, then Eugene Harrow is a gray loser, consisting of shyness and self–flagellation.
And it will be all the more difficult for him, because very soon he will hear a terrible roar, and a blinding flash will light up the sky, after which Eugene will open his eyes and find himself on the couch in front of Dr. Fink 47 minutes ago. And it will happen many more times.
![Рю Вэлли, скриншот из игры]( "rue-valley-06")
However, the road is mastered by walking! Walking to bed.
We’re free to do whatever we want, trying to break out of the vicious circle, while dealing with Eugene’s mysterious mental anguish. This is the subtext of the game. The theme of growing above one’s paddocks is very popular in modern culture, including in video games. For example, a similar story, also unfolding on deserted American highways, was played out in Heading Out. However, it seems to me that there is another layer here, referring to the hallucinogenic worlds of Philip K. Dick. In addition to doubts about the reality of the universe and his own role in it, the main character can take mysterious purple pills (remember that for English speakers, purple is the color of madness), which Dr. Fink will give out in a number of extreme situations. Maybe this distant relative of the matrix Morpheus just mixed the blue and red pills?
I have all the time in the world!
The mechanics of interacting with time are taken directly from Disco Elysium: the clock is ticking only in dialogues or active actions working as a dialogue. And in the same way, time can be mercilessly killed by reading all kinds of fiction, or, alternatively, stuck in a smartphone. After all, this is our time and our days. But all this is much more interesting within the framework of the concept of a time loop. You can spy on a number of characters and collect dossiers on them, because their actions will be identical from loop to loop. What’s even more interesting is that not all the characters here are prisoners of this temporal anomaly, which should lead to the unraveling of the story.
![Rue Valley, скриншот]( "rue-valley-11")
You shouldn't always be happy about the dream at the end of the tunnel.
A more realistic setting has a very positive effect on this. Yes, there is no deep ent here, as in DE, but it’s for the best. What happens in Disco Elysium, in terms of the functioning of the universe, is not very clear to me even after two playthroughs, and when the entire plot outline of the game is based on the need to understand what is happening, the confusing cosmology does not help in any way.
If DE had a literary basis, then Rue Valley is a graphic novel in a European way, which fully justifies the stylization of comic drawings. And this work has depth, but it does not stretch over several book volumes. In some places, this is an ironic fairy tale or cartoon, which is very clearly seen in the distorted proportions of the main character’s car when he once again tries to escape from this cursed place.
The auditory component is also much more grounded. The soundtrack features guitar overdubs against the backdrop of wastelands, a bop jazz car chase and cool jazz in a bar.
Rue Valley – Blues:
Download OST Rue Valley or listen online (mp3, 126 MB)
Even elements such as the drowning out song of a lonely metalhead or the audio design of a game on a smartphone or arcade machine – all this belongs to our reality. If there is music in DE that is characteristic of the pretentious and convex characters of the story, then here the music sounds so that ordinary people from our world can listen to it.
![игра Rue Valley, скриншот]( "rue-valley-16")
Mind mapping is a popular technique. Norco had one too.
The main character himself is also much more tangible than a cool detective from another universe. Yes, he may be faceless, but he is much more human. A small detail of his image is especially touching: when our prisoner of time pulls the hood of his hoodie over his head during the rain. It’s something like a modern interpretation of the noir cape and hat!
Mental Medicine
The mechanics of “inspiration” are particularly pleasing: to obtain the necessary intentions, similar to thoughts from DE, you need to look for positive images in the surrounding reality. So, looking at different elements of the environment, Eugene can reflect and find the mental strength. What exactly will give him these mental powers is initially unclear, and this makes the search for sources much more interesting. That is, it is much more difficult to ignore points of interest with small comments, because any of them can become fateful.
By gaining a few points, you can use your mental strength for intentions, which are something like quests here. In fact, this is most often a short task with a not very obvious solution. For example, try to escape to your home from this backwater, make sure (or not make sure) that everything that is happening is the “Truman Show”, or just help fix a coffee machine. This kind of mundanity is very endearing.
Prisoner of expectations: review of Rue Valley
The main problem with Rue Valley is its similarity to Disco Elysium. Or rather, in the positioning that this game is the heir to Disco Elysium. This one is very bad for two reasons.
![видеоигра Rue Valley, скриншот]( "rue-valley-21")
Men say they're not depressed, and then they do things like this.
First of all: Rue Valley is not a CRPG. Yes, fans of this powerful genre will love it, but in fact it’s a quest that mimics a CRPG. And he doesn’t mimic very much. Yes, isometry, which, by the way, does not necessarily belong to the CRPG genre. Yes, there are perks and skills, and even character creation, but it’s all much more decorative. It’s like the combat system from Norco, which refers to JRPGs, but that’s exactly what it refers to.
Secondly: Rue Valley is not a Disco Elysium. Many comparisons are on the surface, and I’ve mentioned them myself above. But if it goes deeper, then comparison with the creation of ZA/UM will completely ruin this game. Everything that wants to be like the Elysian Disco, with the exception of the mechanics described above, is much worse in this game.
The text is weaker in literary terms. The art design is much less original, and the characters are more cliched. But the most important difference is that there is no role depth here that would allow Rue Valley to be a DnD-style party on its own.
The most depressing impression is left by the “checks”, which are clearly sewn here to look more like an older brother. It smells like an outside influence and it smells bad.
I want to emphasize once again that Rue Valley is a wonderful game. But, unfortunately, the advertising campaign forces us to approach it with Disco Elysium optics, and in this light it looks hopeless. It’s like a story about a loser fish who couldn’t learn to ride a bike.
On the other hand, many perceived DE as an e-book, safely ignoring its role-playing roots, which in themselves look very unsightly.And for such people, Rue Valley is a real gift.
It seems unlikely to me, but I want to believe that Rue Valley will acquire the same cultural weight that will bring her not only out of the shadow of her older stepbrother, but also send her on a free voyage, so that every time you will think about her when you suddenly see 20:47 on the clock…
