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

[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.

 

[Infinitron]

Podcast with some Estonian academic: https://www.tartupood.ee/podcast-ta...enthal-early-modern-period-game-design-and-ai

tARTu hääl #122
Josh Sawyer and Meelis Friedenthal - early modern period, game design and AI
27.06.2024
01:40:38

In the first English-language episode of the "Voice of Tartu" podcast, game designer Josh Sawyer (Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, Pentiment) and writer and scientist Meelis Friedenthal (The Willow King) meet. Together they will talk about the early modern period, the game Pentiment and its connections with the development of modern information society and AI.

The podcast was made possible thanks to the International Literary Festival Prima Vista, which was part of the main program of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024. Prima Vista, this year's theme was “Better and Worse” Futures. Josh Sawyer spoke at Prima Vista's Grand Futurological Congress. Meelis Friedenthal was one of Prima Vista's daily writers and one of the keynote speakers at the International Science Fiction Researchers' Annual Conference.

 

[luj1]

>get lectured in English about interactive software by a sleeve-tattooed Californian who looks like a middle-aged lesbian, who has fetishized German culture and language

This is the real tragedy

 

[luj1]

Josh needs to hit the gym again after this vacation

Do you keep an audio archive of his farts too? I mean you seem to know everything about him, are you his boil?

 

[Dark Souls II]

This thread getting bumped reminded me that this "game" exists. I feel physically sick. It's one of the few computer programmes that I feel disgusted at. What a repulsive piece of software. There are a lot of bad games out there, but even the most bottom of the barrel goyslop like Call of Duty, Assassins Creed or Baldur's Gate 3 is honest with the player about what it is - a fodder for the goyim. It's like eating at McDonald's - you know what you get. Pentiment is like going to a Michelin star Italian restaurant and being served microwaved canned ravioli past its expiration date. Pentiment first pretends to be an RPG, which it is not. It makes you select character backgrounds, which don't matter. So it is not an RPG then, you think, but maybe it's at least a cool adventure game about being a 16th century detective. But this is also a lie - there is no detecting here whatsoever, collecting evidence doesn't matter, you can point at suspects but it doesn't matter at all. You cannot succeed or fail. So you think to yourself: well it's not an RPG and it's not a detective game, but it's at least a game... right? Wrong. The "gameplay" in Pentiment is this: you can click on a potato, a sausage, or bread. You decide which food item to click on to advance dialogue. Then you have the choice to click on one of the two remaining items to advance dialogue further. Finally, only one item remains. You have the choice to click on the last item to finish the dialogue.

In a desperate attempt to avoid admitting that you were cucked by "playing" this thing, you might start to think that it's not a real game, but at least it's a decent visual novel. It is not, by any means. It has nothing that a good visual novel would have. It has not a single memorable character, location, dialogue or scene. I am ashamed that I ever pirated this software. To my defense, this elaborate Newgrounds dot com flash animation that should never be made in the first place has a way of luring you into a The Emperor's New Clothes type of mental stunlock. For the first hour or so, Pentiment pretends to be many things - a game, an RPG, a detective adventure. Then it never becomes any of this things, and you are left bamboozled - is it a practical joke? Surely this can't be all there is to it? They would never release something like that, would they? The real game is about to start any second now, right? And then it ends. Thankfully, it ends, but the trauma carries on.

 

[3 others]

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.

That was a very enjoyable video. There obviously was lots of passion put into Pentiment, although the decision to make the game into a point and click walking simulator remains an odd one. The visual flourishes, the sense of being there in that time and place, and the dialogue are good enough to offset how lightweight this game is mechanically. I haven't read The Name Of The Rose, but the artist main character and ambiguous murder mystery remind me of Orhan Pamuk's pre-Nobel My Name Is Red, set in Suleyman the Magnificent-era Istanbul.

The act of playing Pentiment wasn't that enjoyable, but in light of that it still left surprisingly fond memories. The trivial cookie cutting minigames and endless jogs around town (which I guess are the "gaming" part of Pentiment) get lost to the mists of time, leaving room for an actually good interactive historical story. Maybe the most remarkable thing about Pentiment is how much it conveys to you about life in reformation-era Central Europe without it ever feeling like you're about to sit down for a lecture. I certainly learned a lot. The devs take some liberties in shoehorning modern feminism in some interactions, but generally life in Tassing is played very straight.

I wish Pentiment would have had the confidence to lean in even further to the theme of not being able to do/witness everything within the time constraints. Playing it at first, I generally just did the things that were on the agenda for that day but it quickly became apparent that Pentiment has that common gamey leniency of allowing you to do all the stuff except those that explicitly pass the time onwards. That leads to you having to run around the town hotspots every morning/afternoon/evening to see what's changed if you want to experience the story to the fullest extent. And this is diluted even further in the 3rd act which I think scraps all time pressure completely. Sometimes us gaymers must be protected from our own worst impulses. I know the story tells me I'm late from the Abbey but I'll just stop by at the Mill to see if the miller has anything new to say since there are no consequences for not doing so... C'mon Josh, give us the full The Last Express experience.

Some minor notes
- I really liked the 'specialization' perks which were as much of a hindrance as they were an advantage. Showing off your Latin knowledge easily comes across as obnoxious to everyone around you etc.
- The final third with the sudden shift to Miss Resting-bitch-face was kind of amusing because she easily gets big conversation minuses, so the only way to get people to do something you (you, the player) want is to reverse-psych them by suggesting the opposite.
- Also in the 3rd chapter I found out that I have no idea how to be flirty if playing a woman. Judging from the conversation options, maybe the writers didn't either.
- The interludes in general, and especially those where Andreas appears as character inside a book were gorgeous.
- Not a fan of the ending