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A few tips that I strongly recommend once you start playing disco elysium:

-when you start, you’re given a choice of how many points you want to put into your basic stats, out of four. The fundamentals of your personality. Since you don’t have a lot of experience I recommend 4/4/2/2. Smart and empathetic, but maybe not the strongest or most dexterous. There are benefits to choosing otherwise, but this is the most straightforward and easiest of the character setups.
-Don’t be afraid to fail a skill check. There is almost always another way around if you fail, and the vast majority of the time you will be able to retry later. sometimes “succeeding” a check gives an objectively worse outcome than failing. And some of the best and most memorable moments of this game only come about by failing, rather than succeeding. Giving a cold girl a hat and demanding a bite of a sandwich are the best examples of this.
-Don’t be afraid to say the nuttiest poo poo possible. The people of martinase are shockingly adept at rolling with your insanity and sometimes you might even be able to get extra information or resources from someone that they wouldn’t otherwise give by saying or doing something crazy enough that it that throws them off balance. The only person who won’t put up with you acting like a complete nut job is in the last hour or so of the game.
-Time *only* progresses as you speak to people or examine objects you’re holding. Don’t be afraid to wander around and take as much time as you like. Even if someone is pointing a gun at your head and threatening to pull the trigger you can talk, examine your environment and think as much as you like. Actual, serious events occur as you make them. This is *especially* important in the game’s most violent climax.
-Kim will defend and support you almost no matter what. He is your keystone. Do not try to anger or disappoint him. Unless your want to because it’ll be funny (it can be very funny).
-“Thoughts” are this game’s version of specialized skills. You receive the initial thought through dialogue or actions, and you assign it to a thought slot. (You can increase your number of slots with each level if you like) and with a certain amount of time it will manifest. Maybe it will give benefits, maybe it will give you unique choices or opportunities you wouldn’t have otherwise, or maybe it will give nothing but flaws. There’s no way of knowing until you assign it to a slot and work until you complete it. I strongly recommend against going online and looking at a guide because the uncertainty and almost randomness are what makes this game so incredible. If you assign a thought and complete it, and then remove it, it’s gone permanently and you cannot get it back on that playthrough.
-you have two sets of stats that will take damage or heal as you work, Health and morale. Health’s maximum increases by boosting your endurance stat, morale by increasing your volition stat. Both are important, and both will kill you if you let them fall to zero. But there are drugs that will let you recharge them, even if you take a hit, physical or emotional, that would have killed you. Money is scarce in the game but if you don’t have something else you definitely want to but it never hurts to stock up on those healing items. Having 2-4 of both on hand will be a life saver. Even in the most difficult parts of the game. Either way, you definitely will not need more than 5/10 in either skill, unless you want to make nothing but bad decisions and suffer the consequences which, again, you can do if you’re so inclined.
-The man you’re playing the game as is hosed Up. And if you choose certain dialogue options your own brain (and the game) will force you to do or say reprehensible things. Do not confuse depiction with endorsement. Just because your character is an emotionally traumatized substance abuser does not mean the people who wrote and developed the game agree with what he does or says. Horrible misogyny, racism, sexism, and outright facism will come about if you choose certain dialogue choices. You can choose to make The Detective a better man than he once was, or hell, lean into it even further if you think it’ll be funny or entertaining. Either way it is possible to complete the game as a sad man who is trying to be better than the person he was before or as a guy who is certain that the apocalypse is coming and is it’s harbinger, or as a big shot big dick charismatic wonder, or as the most meth smoking racist piece of poo poo you can imagine. Your choice.
-Cuno might seem like an obnoxious little poo poo, but he has depths to him, and it is significant that you explore those depths. Noti to solving the murder, but as a character exploration.

A list of things I recommend you do, without spoilers. These will make sense as you reach them:
-Point the gun at Cunoesse, but do not fire. It will tell you drat near everything you need to know about her.
-Kim has a secret that will influence how you view him, but the only way to see or understand that secret is if you talk extensively with a handsome man on a balcony, complete the thought he gives you, and then speak with Kim. Or, find a working pinball machine, but that’s another secret.
-the second half of the entire game area opens up on day three, new areas, new characters, and more information on the case. On day 4 you can travel to a long abandoned computer factory and meet a man enjoying the view with his son. Speak to him exhaustively and you will unlock a thought called the *sigh* “Wompty-Dompty Don centre.” It is easily one of the best thoughts in the game and makes drat near everything easier.
-at one point you will find a pay phone, keep dialing random numbers until IT happens.
-you can get the boots, but not with Kim around.
-very late in the game you will visit an island. Be sure to take a nap there, and then head to the eastern sea. You will see one of the best and most brutal bits of writing I have ever seen in video games.
-if you keep wearing the hideous necktie it will eventually start talking to you. Articles of clothing beginning to speak to you is perfectly normal and has a big payoff in the climax.
-when you get The Photo of The Corpse, you can ask the Scab Leader about his opinion on it. The result is very, very uncomfortable, but also tells you everything you need to know about the Scab Leader.
-moving through The Smoker On The Balcony’s dialogue line will eventually let you meet a representative of the moralintern. Once you finish speaking to that representative you will understand why I dislike liberalism.