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

[Infinitron]

Making of Pentiment Noclip documentary:

0:00 - Intro
2:48 - Project Origins
12:18 - Prototype
22:16 - Time & Setting
29:02 - Historical Costumery
33:12 - Protagonist Andreas
37:47 - Animation
45:17 - Reactivity & Gameplay
55:14 - Historical Challenges
59:38 - Typeface
1:05:46 - Marginalia
1:09:45.- The Final Act (SPOILERS)
1:13:23 - Launch & Reception
1:20:13 - Credits

 

[don_tomaso]

I think I like Josh. He seems creative and chill.

 

[Cohesion]

I think I like Josh. He seems creative and chill.

Like a grandma.

 

[don_tomaso]

Yes, like a sexy grandma. He is kind of good lookiing for his age, right?

 

[Modron]

Yes, like a sexy grandma. He is kind of good lookiing for his age, right?

Hey Josh.

 

[don_tomaso]

Hey, can I get a dev tag plz?

(I am josh, you know it be true)

 

[don_tomaso]

In my anus, if possible.

 

[KVVRR]

Making of Pentiment Noclip documentary:

0:00 - Intro
2:48 - Project Origins
12:18 - Prototype
22:16 - Time & Setting
29:02 - Historical Costumery
33:12 - Protagonist Andreas
37:47 - Animation
45:17 - Reactivity & Gameplay
55:14 - Historical Challenges
59:38 - Typeface
1:05:46 - Marginalia
1:09:45.- The Final Act (SPOILERS)
1:13:23 - Launch & Reception
1:20:13 - Credits

Pretty good video. I particularly enjoyed the part where they go over the animation and artstyle, it shine light upon some things that I noticed before and didn't think about at the time (like why art from that time looks the way it does) and the way they went over animating this selling the look. It's funny that they also mentioned that other game animated on a similar style that was posted pages ago in this very same thread.
Kinda want to go back and play the game again now, I still don't think it's for me but I might enjoy it more now that I have a better idea of what's happening and can take it a bit slower.

 

[Renfri]

Instead of playing Pentiment, you should just read Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. The book is clearly biggest source of inspiration for the game. Both products are made by autistic person, but Name of the Rose is clearly better. Pentiment was worth of what I paid which was basically nothing, it's just alright.

 

[asper]

Re-reading Name of the Rose while playing Pentiment. Having fun with both.
Book is excellent, game is good if you like narrative choose-dialogue option games. The setting and story are its strong points, gameplay is just the dialogue.
Can recommend still.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Tom Selleck]

>be 19
>be viennese
>be enraptured by your country's vast history and medieval traditions
>trawl museums, cities, ancient buildings, anything you can in your spare time
>study hard, get good grades
>get into the University of Vienna, undergraduate in Medieval Studies
>stay up late, have in-depth wine-fueled german discussions about the Hapsburgs and Babenbergs
>get lectured to in English about an interactive software experience with no resolution by a sleeve-tattooed Californian millionaire with a vocal fry who looks like a middle-aged lesbian, who has fetishized german culture and language
>this is where i always wanted to be
>life's good

 

[Infinitron]

>be 19
>be viennese
>be enraptured by your country's vast history and medieval traditions
>trawl museums, cities, ancient buildings, anything you can in your spare time
>study hard, get good grades
>get into the University of Vienna, undergraduate in Medieval Studies
>stay up late, have in-depth wine-fueled german discussions about the Hapsburgs and Babenbergs
>get lectured to in English about an interactive software experience with no resolution by a sleeve-tattooed Californian millionaire with a vocal fry who looks like a middle-aged lesbian, who has fetishized german culture and language
>this is where i always wanted to be
>life's good

 

[Infinitron]

On the 19th of June 2024, video game developer Josh Sawyer held a talk at Vienna University Library on the creation of “Pentiment.“ After the talk Josh answered questions in an extensive Q&A session.

To further explore some of the game’s rich historical references check out Vienna University Library's curated list of "Companion Pieces to Pentiment @UB Wien": https://bibliothek.univie.ac.at/virtu...)

Josh Sawyer is a game developer and Studio Design Director at Obsidian Entertainment in Irvine, California. After studying history, he began his career at Black Isle Studios in 1999. Sawyer is renowned for his work on narrative role-playing video games, including titles in the "Icewind Dale" and "Neverwinter Nights" series, and as Project Director of "Pillars of Eternity" and "Fallout: New Vegas."

The adventure game "Pentiment" (2022) is set in 1500s Bavaria. At a time when scriptoria are being replaced by printing presses, a captivating whodunit unfolds as book illuminator Andreas Maler takes it upon himself to investigate mysterious murders at Kiersau Abbey and in the surrounding town of Tassing.
---------------------------
00:00 Slide Presentation and Talk
44:30 Q&A | Moderation: Maria Frenay, Universitätsbibliothek Wien

Josh needs to hit the gym again after this vacation.

 

[BlackheartXIII]

Sawyer on the decision of including woke virtue signaling simulacres in Pentiment, (timestamped):

 

[rezaf]

Finally got around to play this.
I kinda have to agree with the pretty common notion that it's hardly a game to begin with.
The most interesting part about Pentiment for me was the art style. I haven't researched this, but I'd not be surprised if the entire pitch for the game (I'll call it that for convenience sake) was "let's make a game where the player is a character walking around on a medieval mural". If it wasn't for this "interactivity" of visibly moving your character around I'd say the game would be entirely better of implemented as an old skool Visual Novel style game.

I also liked the atmosphere itself, Pentiment gets bonus points in the same way Darklands gets bonus points from me. DL is a fairly simplistic RPG as well, which makes it's quite limited amount of content look like so much more my cleverly assembling it, but it oozes medieval atmosphere and there's nothing quite like it even today. I guess Kingdom Come Deliverance comes somewhat close, but it also takes a wholly different approach.
In it's own way, Pentiment successfully creates an historical environment that feels good. Nice.

The game itself ... there's just no gameplay to speak of. You move your character from a to b to c, and the only thing you as a player can do is decide (where to go and) which options to pick. And it isn't even always clear which choice is one of the ones with "major" impact (i.e. one that advances the clock). That's bad enough, but what's even worse is that most things you can pick actually have little to no impact in the grand scheme of things. I read that's the whole point of the game somewhere, but in my opinion that reasoning sucks. Little changes could have gone a great length, for example the game could at start randomly decide which of the culprits actually committed the murder and dole out hints accordingly, and then it would be about interpreting those hints correctly and finding out who's guilty. Instead, we have a weird version of that train paradox, where you have a couple of tracks of railroad with people tied onto them and we can redirect the train to kill either of the people, and whilst some of these people might deserve to die more than others, none were actually guilty and thus deserved to die FOR THE CRIME being investigated. Well, MAYBE someone actually was guilty, but we never really learn whether or not this is the case.

I think choice & consequence is the major shtick for the game, and considering that, I found it to be massively underwhelming.
Someone wrote in this thread the game was worth the very low price he paid for it, and I think that's where I stand, too. I do wish the game had realized a little more of it's potential, though.

 

[Alienman]

Sawyer on the decision of including woke virtue signaling simulacres in Pentiment, (timestamped):

And with that Josh defeated racism forever.

 

[Beastro]

Sawyer on the decision of including woke virtue signaling simulacres in Pentiment, (timestamped):

Issue is when everyone points to these rarities happening and then puts them all into their work which misconstrues how things were like back then.

It's the same reason why ASOIAF annoys me so much in that it takes inspirations from many horrible events from across vast spans of history, most of which took place in the Modern Era, and then crams them into a time frame which is giving people in popular concept the idea that the Middle Ages were a constant orgy of violent death and bloodshed when they weren't.

There is no issue with Saint Maurice because of what he said, it's an accurate depiction of him. The issue with "Ethiopian clergy were at this one counsel" is used to overrepresent peoples who weren't commonly seen in Europe enough to warrant their place in every bit of historical fiction being done today.

I also hold issue with his idea that you can do whatever you want with a fictional setting. Strictly speaking, you can, but the more arbitrary you are, the more the quality of the product will suffer as you bulldoze over the setting to enforce your rule.

He could say the same thing and have everyone driving Ford Fiestas instead riding horses, but we all know that would hurt the settting and it trying to establish it being a story set in the Middle Ages.

 

[Igge]

Sawyer on the decision of including woke virtue signaling simulacres in Pentiment, (timestamped):

Josh Soyer talks like a complacent urban fag, I hate him and thus his game.