![]() If I had been outside, I'm pretty sure I would have responded the same way." Petteri Sulonen I think it's entirely understandable how the fans have responded. Kurvitz would later defend his time taken off work as being what he was legally entitled to under UK labor law, and described the development of Disco Elysium as particularly grueling on himself and Aleksander Rostov, with Tuulik noting in his interview that the final crunch on Disco Elysium was particularly difficult for Rostov, and the artist himself stating he suffered adverse psychological effects from it for a long time after. Keenan was similarly frustrated with long sabbaticals taken from other senior members, describing an "coterie" of developers favored by Kurvitz at the expense of others at ZA/UM. Kurvitz then supposedly informed one of those writers that he had never even read the sample, and had actually just dismissed it out of hand. ![]() "I think the two month vacation to top everything off was really difficult for myself and some others to swallow."įinal Cut writer and editor on the original game Justin Keenan echoed Tamsalu's frustrations with Kurvitz' mercurial nature, describing an incident where Kurvitz requested writing tests from writers at ZA/UM who had already worked on the Final Cut, told Keenan they were insufficient, and requested that he inform those writers they would not have main writing team duties on the sequel project. "We needed processes, we needed to work on the studio culture, all kinds of policies," Tamsalu explained. Tamsalu, a childhood friend of Rostov and member of the art team on the original game, attests to Rostov and Kurvitz "checking out" of the studio for a lengthy sabbatical during a critical time-ZA/UM grew rapidly from 30 to 100 employees in 2021. Tuulik, as well as ZA/UM lead artist Kaspar Tamsalu and Disco Elysium writer/editor Justin Keenan, described the situation at the company as being fluid and confused after the shipping of Disco Elysium, with Kurvitz, Rostov, and Hindpere taking a sequence of sabbaticals during a period of extensive growth and change. "I don't think he understood that to lead is a burden, not a privilege." Tuulik continues: "The Thing with Robert is that he has this natural charisma, he's an incredibly magnetic person… but it's easy to confuse this with leadership skills. It's not strange to hear that, because I've heard these crooked estimations before. ![]() ![]() When presented with a 2019 Rock Paper Shotgun interview where Kurvitz claimed to have written "about half of the million words in Disco Elysium," Tuulik responded, "I don't think that's true. "I think Robert has this uncanny ability to conceptualize things that already exist in a way that they seem completely fresh and new."Īt the same time, Tuulik is critical of Kurvitz' management style and stance toward the press. No one comes close to Robert's storytelling ability. Tuulik still has a fondness for Disco Elysium's early days: "It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but it's also the funnest thing I've ever done in my life." He also expresses even further nostalgia for his first tabletop sessions in the Elysium setting DM'd by Kurvitz, and still praises him as an artist: "I played Dungeons and Dragons maybe with five, six different Dungeon Masters. I don't think he understood that to lead is a burden, not a privilege." Argo Tuulik ![]()
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