While the game highly encourages playing at your own leisure to find your way through the game, playing through any and all kinds of dialogue to mould your detective in a path of your choosing, this presents many problems. This game has lots of achievements, with all but one being actually missable. Therefore, playing in a very specific way, with a very specific build, using very specific conversation choices, we can gain every achievement in just two full playthroughs. Two playthroughs are required due to just a few conflicting achievements that interfere with each other. We will do the vast majority of the achievements in the first playthrough, making our second playthrough just cleaning up the last few by making alternate choices and trying to get through as fast as possible.
This game features a character creation tool to design your detective in a way you feel like playing. However, this is very anti-achievement focused due to certain skills needing high enough ranks in order to unlock certain dialogue, updating tasks in game or most importantly, unlocking achievements. Tasks are exactly like a journal in any other RPG, designed like quests, they can be both main or side quests. This game features clothing that acts like equipment in similar RPG's, providing skill boosts to the stated skill and that also sometimes lowers another skill. We will be using clothing extensively to boost skills to the required levels to meet certain skill checks or allow dialogue to be heard. Skill checks are a requirement that acts like a locked gate; if you have the proper skill level, then that gate is unlocked for you. There are many of these in the game, some are active skill checks that you must select, others are passive that happen automatically - these can pass or fail and you will see this reflected in the dialogue box.
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This game also features a day/night cycle, with time only advancing when we actively speak with npc's in game, each dialogue chosen advances time by about 21 seconds. This may not seem like much, but dialogue is very heavily focused in this game and days will start passing by pretty quickly while following the guide. Each day starts between 7:30 am - 8:00 am and most npc's in game start to sleep at 22:00 pm, varying with each npc.
With that said, this guide is based off a very specific character build that utilizes clothing skill boosts in game to meet skill check requirements, and only spends skill points when mentioned. I repeat, DO NOT spend skill points unless I say to do so. Skill points will slowly trickle in as we progress through the game, in fact, we don't get many until we make quite a bit of progress during the first day to make sure we are meeting achievement requirements. I will be using skill points as needed to boost skill levels in order to either progress through a quest and/or meet a favourable skill check to help us move along and/or progress towards an achievement.
Disco Elysium also uses the standard save system, with an additional quick save that overwrites the previous quick save for convenience. There is also a backup quick save for safety. The maximum save file limit is roughly 65-70 manual saves and once reached, ABSOLUTELY MAKE SURE YOU DELETE OLD SAVES!!!! Otherwise you may not notice the game stops saving if you aren't paying attention. Another important thing to remember is make sure you DO NOT talk with npc's and exhaust dialogue that I haven't told you to do, as this will advance time in the day and you could end up ending the day at a different point than in the walkthrough, preventing you from being able to accomplish a task the walkthrough is guiding you through.
The fast travel system unlocks on Day 3 when you make it to the fishing village but is generally very buggy as it doesn't always work properly, not showing up and allowing you to choose to travel anywhere. If it doesn't show up you can save and reload to try and get it to show up, otherwise you will have to run on foot.
One of the key mechanics in the game is the Thought Cabinet which can be thought of like passive skills. There are twelve cabinet slots total, three are unlocked right away but the other nine must be purchased with skill points. I will list which thoughts are to be used and when to unlock a new slot as we go.
Money is very scarce in the game and you will be required to be careful on what you spend it in on in order to prevent yourself from being unable to pay for a room at the hotel each night. This guide will lay out what you should be purchasing and provide ways to boost money with some key choices to cover the costs of the hotel and/or purchases needed. Always make sure to periodically hold down 
to highlight interactable objects for things I point out to loot and flick the 
to highlight things as well while running around to find bottles, once I point out to do so. I'll list the controls here fully for reference:
: Interact
: Close menu
: Open menu/journal
: Interact with items in the "Interact" category of journal/inventory
: Highlight lootables, cycle menus
: Interact, cycle menus
: Zoom In
: Zoom Out
: Dialogue Navigation
: Dialogue Navigation
: Heal Health
: Heal Morale
: Pause Menu
: Change Target to loot
: Movement
One last thing I felt was necessary to mention. I have listed all conversations with npc's in a numerical format with each choice I made. This involved hundreds of saves/reloads to make sure I listed the exact path I took in each conversation. That being said, I did my best to make sure they are all accurate and in the order I did them myself, however, some may be missing a number that doesn't match what you see. Therefore, do your best to make sure you are always quick saving before speaking with someone in case something doesn't make sense on what you should choose next and don't advance the time of day ahead to far. These choices are minor and may confuse you if the dialogue doesn't match the choices I listed, so just be safe and keep saving.
3. Day 11. Walkthrough overview
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