I’ve been excited about Esoteric Ebb, Christoffer Bodegård’s isometric Baldur’s Gate 3–meets–Disco Elysium-style RPG, for a very, very long time now. It caught my eye sometime in 2023, and I’ve made a point of playing every new iteration of its demo that has dropped since then. In the meantime, I’ve been doing my best to patiently wait for its impending release.
Then I saw the news: on February 25, Bodegård announced that Esoteric Ebb would be dropping at quite possibly the worst time: March 3. Come on, man. Slay the Spire 2 comes out two days after, and I’d just installed Resident Evil Requiem (which, apparently, the internet does not care about spoiling). This feels like a scientifically engineered plot to make me pick favourites.
So, when the game was actually out and I fired it up for the first time, I panicked. Breezing through the stat allocation prompts of its opening character creation process, I dumped everything into strength and charisma, but it wasn’t enough. I needed more. Naturally, I decided to deduct some points from my constitution stat so I could plug them into the attributes I cared about. Who needs health anyway?
©As I finalised my stats and kicked off my playthrough, a message appeared from Christoffer Bodegård himself. “It’s been a journey to put this together. I hope you have a good time… and make sure to save often. You literally have NO health.” Pff, whatever, man. I’ve played the demo a bunch. I know what I’m in for. A -2 on all constitution-related rolls means nothing to me. After all, I’m a certified Gamer™. Esoteric Ebb is just Dungeons & Dragons, and I’ve played countless D&D sessions. I know the rules of this game like the back of my hand, and my little quest to uncover the mastermind behind the local tea shop explosion will be a piece of cake if I can just brute-force through every combat encounter and conversation with high stats, right?
I’m currently on Esoteric Ebb’s third in-game day, and I can confidently state that my playthrough has been an absolute disaster. Starting with 6 total health was a great enough hill to climb on its own, but failing every single constitution-related stat check has led to me dying, on average, about three times in every conversation—and don’t even get me started on combat.
I am a charisma-fueled glass cannon. I can talk my way out of almost anything. But the second that “almost” part occurs, I am fucked. Instant death, every time. It has, however, been the hardest I’ve laughed while playing a game in years. Maybe ever, actually. That’s why I decided it would be fun to start keeping track of all the stupidest ways I’ve died so far. Enjoy.
Pet a bird (it bit me, dealt 1 damage). Pet it again (it bit me again, dealt 3 damage, and I died). Hugged a man in an attempt to be manly (took 4 damage after a dwarf compared it to a scene in a young adult romance novel). Told a dommy mommy orc woman that I love her (took 3 damage, died of embarrassment).
©Tried to perform a traditional goblin salute. Realised said salute was actually very racist to goblins. Attempted to save it by doing jazz hands (took 2 damage, died from embarrassment a second time). Triggered a trap (got set on fire). Triggered the same trap again (burned to death the second time). Clenched really hard (context here wouldn’t help, but doing so dealt 2 damage).
A dwarf headbutted me, and his friends then laughed (not sure if the mockery or the headbutt caused it, but I took 5 damage). Pet a sleeping griffon (this pissed it off, took 10 damage). Pet a crab (it used Guillotine and OHKO’d me). Said the word “abussy,” in reference to a hot half-tiefling, half-demon barmaid (got called cringe and took 2 damage. I literally died from cringe.)
I have nobody but myself to blame for all of this. Chris did warn me, and I did it anyway. But, in my defence, Esoteric Ebb makes the dumbest choices in every scenario the most appealing option. The autosave is very generous, and the writing is so good. Sometimes I’m upset when the dice rolls go my way, because the dumbest outcome always feels like a canon event in my playthrough. When a game makes even dying feel this good, you know it’s doing something right.
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