Pentiment - Josh Sawyer's historical mystery narrative-driven game set in 16th century Bavaria

[whydoibother]

 

[Roguey]

I've been recently thinking that a person who has no children nor family, nor can readily get himself (for women it's far easier) laid, when in his 40s has no place being a game developer. What message could he possibly have, what could he possibly surprise me with, what could he teach me?

Games are supposed to be entertaining, not teach you things or have a message. Sawyer is quite aware this particular game will be entertaining to very few people.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I've been recently thinking that a person who has no children nor family, nor can readily get himself (for women it's far easier) laid, when in his 40s has no place being a game developer. What message could he possibly have, what could he possibly surprise me with, what could he teach me?

Games are supposed to be entertaining, not teach you things or have a message. Sawyer is quite aware this particular game will be entertaining to very few people.

You misunderstood my post entirely.

 

[Harthwain]

And use shorter sentences.

Yeah, break the wall of text a bit.

 

[Junmarko]

Watch me compare this non-game slop to AoD. Checkmate codextards, wrong forum if you dont like slop.

Hey VaultDweller, AoD on Slop Pass when? lol

Infinitron: 1
Anti-slop codextards: -1
Vault-bigot: -100

lollll

You're losing it mate.

 

[Sarathiour]

tl;dr: it's anti-Christian

Sawyer makes his opinions obvious in this game because he's incapable of subtletly and nuance, but I don't see much meaningful argumentation here other than "I don't like it because the dev disagrees with me"

Well, we are speaking hypothetically here because no one bothered playing what appear to be a turd, but I can't think how you average californian dev could even fathom a society where religion and Christianity play a predominant part, and given sawyer subtilty, this will only be a collection of strawmen.

Because the bulgar can't get it, let me try to make a comparaison : it would be like making a game following the step of a silicon valley dev who's trying to find out the culprit beyond a recent spread of self-reported rape taking place in their gated community, and meeting upon the first minute :
- Mikael, a putin apologist.
- Christopher, a devout traditionalist chrisitian.
- Adolf, who got some spicy take about the bankers.

You know, your average Californian resident.

 

[Roguey]

Plot summary's up on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentiment_(video_game)#Plot

Spoiler

Sawyer lied, there is a canon murderer. It's just that it's impossible to actually implicate him in acts 1 and 2 so anyone you accuse is innocent.

 

[Junmarko]

The butthurt ITT is predictably intense.

Good job, Josh, you awesome bastard.

Impressive that you don't even know what "butthurt" means.

The prophecy is true:

More specifically, though, just pay attention to how CERTAIN CODEXERS discuss a game. If Morgoth happens to mention that a game isn't woke, for example, then it's safe to assume that the game features more fags than a freight container loaded with Chinese cigarettes. Generally speaking, if CERTAIN CODEXERS become apologetic, defensive, and/or scornful when CERTAIN TALKING POINTS are broached, you know the jig is up.

 

[taomcio]

tl;dr: it's anti-Christian

But that page you erase is not from Bible - it's first page of Name of the Rose (in latin) which first sentence is quote from Genesis

 

[Hellion]

Just finished it on Game Pass. You can't accuse the gypsy as the murderer, 0/10 worst game ever.


Seriously though. I get that ripping on Sawyer is almost a meme and a fetish by now, but I kinda get this whole "passion project" spiel. The man is a european history autist and he did put an insane amount of research into this game - he even includes a bibliography section in the endgame credits as reference for future reading. Some of the Roman stuff he references, I've only just recently encountered myself while studying for my PhD.

In the end it probably comes down to the eternal "storyfag vs gameplayfag" debate. This certainly is a niche game that gameplayfags will hate with a passion, and perhaps rightly so. It is by no means an RPG (then again it never was marketed as such) or even an Adventure game for that matter. Also, the fact that your choices only affect pretty secondary elements in the grand scheme of things make this almost a Telltale walking simulator with a few extra steps and an unusual art style. But the story it wants to tell is well-crafted enough, so if someone cares about that first and foremost, or for the "AESTHETICS" or "THE EXPERIENCE" or "GAMES AS ART" or whatever you want to call it, he'll definitely enjoy Pentiment. But this is the game Sawyer wanted to make, for better or for worse, and he did, so, kudos to him.

My main gripes with the title are that
1) the murder mystery aspect was a bit of a let-down especially since the real mastermind behind everything is only revealed in the end (and of course you can't accuse that character at any point during the game), even though the actual murder investigation premise was interesting enough,
2) there are quite a few instances of "we're in Medieval times and women sure have it badly, yet they must suffer silently, oh if only men didn't hold all the power" dialogue that feels shoehorned,
3) as mentioned, the gypsy walks out completely unharmed in the end

 

[Alex]

Plot summary's up on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentiment_(video_game)#Plot

Spoiler

Sawyer lied, there is a canon murderer. It's just that it's impossible to actually implicate him in acts 1 and 2 so anyone you accuse is innocent.

Against my better judgement, I ask, is it possible to not implicate anyone at all but realise you don't have enough evidence instead?

I would almost say that at least Sawyer is not dumb enough to actually have no real murderer in the game, but I am guessing this is used to show the player how his prejudices interfere with the truth without actually giving them the option of finding the truth... which might be even worse.

 

[Roguey]

Against my better judgement, I ask, is it possible to not implicate anyone at all but realise you don't have enough evidence instead?

I would almost say that at least Sawyer is not dumb enough to actually have no real murderer in the game, but I am guessing this is used to show the player how his prejudices interfere with the truth without actually giving them the option of finding the truth... which might be even worse.

As I understand it, you can solely present evidence that exonerates people without making a judgment call on who you actually believe did it, but someone's going to be found guilty regardless of what you do.

 

[Delphik]

tl;dr: it's anti-Christian

Boo fucking hoo.

 

[Quillon]

 

[Dadd]

Those tattoos were done with soy-based ink.

 

[Harthwain]

1) the murder mystery aspect was a bit of a let-down especially since the real killer is revealed in the end (and of course you can't accuse that character at any point during the game), even though the actual murder investigation premise was interesting enough,

While I liked Disco Elysium, I found the ending to be really weak (especially in comparison to the rest of the game), because

Spoiler

the person responsible for the murder is unreachable and appears automatically at the end.

It is sad to see that yet another "murder mystery" went down the same path, considering that the initial idea was sound enough, at least from what I could gather when reading about it at the time.

 

[Wunderbar]

It's just a recent trend of subverting one's expectations regarding specific genre tropes. Knives Out did a similar thing (it was directed by the same person who did Star Wars TLJ).

Nooo, you can't have a straightforward whodunit story, there must be some quirk or subversion!

 

[Jenkem]

men just play this instead:



it's better, has an interesting setting, meaningful c&c and a higher all-time concurrent player base than pentiment

 

[gerey]

2) there are quite a few instances of "we're in Medieval times and women sure have it badly, yet they must suffer silently, oh if only men didn't hold all the power" dialogue that feels shoehorned,

Yeah, a truly passionate European history autist. Not like his sole goal in exploring European history is demonizing Whites and shitting on their legacy like all the other Californians cucks.

People despise Soyer for a good reason.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

It really sounds like one ought to play this game instead.

 

[HeroMarine]

men just play this instead:



it's better, has an interesting setting, meaningful c&c and a higher all-time concurrent player base than pentiment

Wishlisted it.

 

[Hellion]

Some clarification regarding the "real killer", GIGA-SPOILERS ahead:

Spoiler

While investigating the possible suspects, you essentially find that all of them have a solid motive, a possible time window for the murder, as well as a valid murder weapon (ie one old lady who hated the murder victim for good reason has a broken cane in her home, one nun who had been violently assaulted by the victim in the past has a bloody shovel in her workplace and claims it is bloody due to her killing rabbits, etc), so theoretically any one of them could be the killer.

However, what you also discover and is revealed in the end-game is that all these suspects were sent letters by a mysterious figure (named the "Thread-Puller" by the protagonist) who wanted the victims dead for a grander reason and thus made others commit the murders by telling all suspects that "you should kill this guy because he ruined your life".

So I guess this means that, even though the real abettor and mastermind of the whole scheme is revealed in the end, pretty much every suspect you choose to be the perpetrator might tehcnically be the correct choice if you investigate it properly enough.

It should also be stated that you have a certain amount of time to conduct your investigations so you can't investigate all suspects in a single playthrough, you pretty much select the 1 or 2 you want to focus on and pursue their leads.

 

[Strange Fellow]

It's just a recent trend of subverting one's expectations regarding specific genre tropes. Knives Out did a similar thing (it was directed by the same person who did Star Wars TLJ).

Nooo, you can't have a straightforward whodunit story, there must be some quirk or subversion!

What was so subversive about Knives Out? The twists were typical of the genre. It went a bit overboard with misleading the viewer, but it's hardly the only murder mystery to do that.

 

[jackofshadows]

Spoiler

So I guess this means that, even though the real abettor and mastermind of the whole scheme is revealed in the end, pretty much every suspect you choose to be the perpetrator might tehcnically be the correct choice if you investigate it properly enough.

Spoiler

But I'd thought the mastermind is the killer, no? Turns out the killer is someone among the initial suspects but you cannot actually learn that for sure?

 

[Hellion]

Spoiler

So I guess this means that, even though the real abettor and mastermind of the whole scheme is revealed in the end, pretty much every suspect you choose to be the perpetrator might tehcnically be the correct choice if you investigate it properly enough.

Spoiler

But I'd thought the mastermind is the killer, no? Turns out the killer is someone among the initial suspects but you cannot actually learn that for sure?

Spoiler

I initially understood that the Mastermind is the actual killer (as in, grabbed the murder weapon and did the actual deed, then framed someone else). But I've been rewatching the endgame sequence and it turns out that the Mastermind wants the victim dead and essentially convinces every suspect separately that they must kill the victim.

We don't get a definite confession (far from it, they all claim they are innocent until the very end) or a glaring clue that says "out of the 5 suspects, THIS is the REAL killer". But whomever you end up selecting as the culprit based on your investigations and deductions is the "real killer" as far as the story is concerned, so every choice is technically the right one.

And, of course, at no point during the game do we have an actual choice to investigate or accuse someone of being the Thread-Puller, until we reach the endgame.

During the game's acts there are 2 murders and 1 murder attempt total. Murders one and two are instigated by the Mastermind and carried out by the suspect we select. The murder attempt is carried out by the Mastermind, but there are no suspects in this case and we eventually find out the resolution during the endgame sequence.