You wake up in a morgue. There is a zombie somewhere in the dim periphery, bumping into wooden tables. And for some weird reason, there are thousands of rotting apples surrounding you. And technically, you are supposed to be dead at this point.
This is the opening of Esoteric Ebb, released by Raw Fury and almost entirely solo developed by Swedish indie developer Christoffer Bodegård over an eight-year period. It’s an absolute fever dream of weird fantasy, tabletop mechanics and the chaos of politics. Influenced heavily by games like Disco Elysium and Dungeons & Dragons, the game is heavy on its narrative and bold choices that need to be made.
A City on the Brink of Change
The premise of Esoteric Ebb sets the tone for everything that follows. You play as Ragn Hemlin, a cleric of an ancient, dead god. You aren’t some chosen hero destined to save the world. You are an Urthguard, a glorified government goon in the sprawling city of Novik. Your god founded the city, but he is dead for decades now and bureaucracy has taken over.
Your mission is simple. In five days Norvik has its first ever democratic election, a tea shop explodes right in the heart of the city. You are sent to clean up the mess and investigate. But before you can even get started, you end up dead and for some reason revived in a morgue. Completely lacking any official help or backup, you must unravel a political conspiracy that absolutely no one wants you to solve. With the help of your Goblin sidekick Snell, you dive into an adventure full of fundamental choices and consequences.
The setting of Norvik is immediately sucking you in. The city feels like a classic Dungeon & Dragons campaign, influenced by the works of Terry Pratchett. Shady fantasy creatures talk politics on street corners, others drown their sorrows in taverns. New ideas and ideologies are in constant conflict with the believes of the dead gods. It’s a world that feels incredibly alive and lived-in, full of magic and politics.
But it’s no wonder, the excellent writing makes everything feel alive. From absurd, fever dream like situations to genuine tension in other scenes and dialogues. The impending election feels like a ticking time bomb. Time moves forward primarily when you talk to people and investigate clues. You have five days, but you can also pull an all-nighter if you are willing to risk the game’s exhaustion system. The mystery of the tea shop explosion is just the tip of the iceberg, grounding the weirdness in a classic detective story.
Standing on its own feet
If you look at Esoteric Ebb, you can not deny the similarities to ZA/UM’s 2019 Disco Elysium. It features the same isometric perspective, heavily text-based gameplay and internal monologue driven by your own character’s stats. But where Disco Elysium is surreal, noir meditation on failure and political ideology grounded in a fictionalized version of our own world, Esoteric Ebb is a chaotic tabletop session run by a Dungeon Master who loves fantasy tropes, but twists and turns them in a way where things get exciting.
It tackles heavy themes, such as capitalism, feminism and the fall of religion, but wraps them in a comedic and weird wrapper that feels closer to the works of Terry Pratchett or games like Planescape Torment. You aren’t dissecting the fall of communism like in Disco Elysium you are trying to figure out who to endorse as a mayoral candidate in the upcoming selection and what their baggage and secrets are.
The game doesn’t shy away from its inspirations. The morgue awakening instantly reminded me of Planescape Torment’s beginning and a lot of situations you face in the game, reminded me of situations I also faced in my TTRPG campaigns over the years. Esoteric Ebb isn’t just a copycat though, it finds its own voice through the density of its humor and lively world. I found myself laughing out loud and shaking my head in disbelief a lot during my time with the game because of the sheer absurdity of some of its situations and the in moments where my decisions heavily backfired. It’s the situational comedy that got me good, thanks to the mix of high-fantasy elements and often dry and mundane bureaucratic reality.
You Are What You Skill
In the center of Esoteric Ebbs gameplay system stands its attribute system. Instead of a massive list of discrete skills, everything is based on your core Dungeon & Dragons style ability scores: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. But here is the kicker, these attributes talk to you. And their personalities drastically change based on how many points you invest in them.
However, dumping all the stats into something like Strength doesn’t mean that you are just a stupid brute brawling your way through the streets. High strength means to respect authority and respecting the hierarchy of power. If you put everything in intelligence, you are reacting like a selfish and full of himself asshole, looking down at people who are more stupid than you.
It’s an interesting take on the classical tabletop attributes. Instead of just influencing how good you are in something, they heavily influence who you are and how you look at society and on humanity. All of these stats follow their own agenda and feed the player with right and wrong information. It is up to the player to believe and evaluate what the attributes tell you. Every conversation feels like a discussion with yourself and not just with the NPC you are talking to. It’s a constant pull of internal decisions of your psyche.
And it doesn’t just stop there. The game uses a digital D20 system for its hard checks. The die roll will show up on screen and will show if you succeed or fail in some situations.
And true to its tabletop origin, failure is often way more exciting than succeeding and it is up to you as the player to react to the consequences.
Magic, Mechanics and The Questing Tree.
While the narrative and the dialogues are certainly the main draw of Esoteric Ebb. It is an RPG through and through. The game handles its progression and abilities through the so called “Questing Tree”, which functions as a quest log, skill tree and a mind map, from your typical detective and crime stories.
As you progress through the different quest branches, they take root in your mind. It visualizes how your actions shape your character. If you continually side with a certain faction, your tree grows in a way that unlocks abilities suited to the views and playstyle of these factions.
And then there is the magic system. As a cleric, you have access to different spells. In order to do so, you need to find scrolls in the world. Spells have a big impact on the game. You can use magic to detect secrets, read minds or force someone to tell the truth. It opens up new options in your investigation and dialogues.
There is also combat in Esoteric Ebb, but only as a last resort. Clerics in Norvik are taught that violence is a last resort. Combat encounters are turn-based encounters, that are also highly narrative-driven. You do not switch over to a battle screen and just choose attacks and skills and sometime and item, combat is also encountered through dialogue and dice roles. A roll can determine between life and death. A critical success or failure feel fundamental. But because the game is so flexible and weird with its attributes, combat encounter are rare and the amount of non-violent solutions are plentiful.
The Politics of a Dead God
Beneath all the bizarre encounters and humor, Esoteric Ebb has a lot to say. The central mystery of the tea shop explosion only acts as a gateway into a surprisingly nuanced exploration and commentary on political ideologies and the void left by the dead gods.
Norvik is a city in transition, from a theocracy to a democracy and the growing issues and questions that come with this transition.
The god who founded the city is dead, but his institutional power remains. And you as the player represent that power. You are a walking relic of an old an absolute belief, trying to police a city that is looking to a modern future full of change and hope. The factions you interact with, from striking works to corrupt bureaucrats to radical arcanists, all have different views and ideas on what the city should become.
The game doesn’t preach a right way to deal with these questions and views. It is up to you as the player how to engage with the people and factions and if you follow your beliefs or change your views yourself and by that influence the outcome of the election.
The game doesn’t hold your hand and none of the factions are good or evil, its all a messy grey area.
Art and Atmosphere
Visually Esoteric Ebb is a treat. Similar to Disco Elysium it uses a isometric perspective with a dialogue window that opens up on the right side of the screen. The art is stylized and looks slightly painted. The streets of Norvik are dense with detail, from the neon glow of magical signs to the grime and dirty lower tunnels. It looks like a classic CRPG supported by a modern engine.
The character portraits are a true highlight. They convey a lot of personality, which supports the heavy text driven narrative. It translates well into how the characters feel and react, and supports the weird fantasy creatures you encounter throughout the city.
Sadly, the game isn’t fully voiced like Disco Elysium, so be aware that there is a lot of reading in Esoteric Ebb. The writing, however, is fun and snappy, and there is a lot of exciting and branching dialogue. You always wonder where a conversation will end up and how your attributes will chime in and provide you with good ideas, false information and their own points of view, which you can either agree or disagree with.
Esoteric Ebb (PC)
Esoteric Ebb is a chaotic and brilliant narrative indie RPG. Christoffer Bodegård has crafted a million-word masterpiece that doesn’t need to hide behind its influences like Disco Elysium. It brilliantly captures the the messy and unpredictable magic of a Dungeons & Dragons session gone completely off the rails with its wild humor and genuinely compelling political intrigue. The true star of the game is the attribute system, where your stats act as competing and highly opinionated voices in your head. Whether you are arguing with NPCs or yourself or navigate your way through the bureaucratic nightmare of the city of Norvik, the writing remains harp, snappy, weird and fun. Beginning with your death and a seamlessly unspectacular crime scene at a tea shop, it is up to you to define the future of Norvik between its struggle of old beliefs and the beginning of a new democracy. If you crave for some weird fantasy that actually has something to say with an exceptional narrative and weird and fun situations, Esoteric Ebb is an absolute must play this year.
