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

[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

 

[santino27]

"I finished Pentiment last thursday. The game has left such a wonderful mark on my soul. So much so that I got my first tattoo, act 1 Ursula, a few weeks ago as she affected me in ways I had not expected. Huge thank you to jesawyer for leading and writing a beautiful game hothambone for the beautiful art direction (in particular for the art now on my body), and everyone else at Obsidian who worked on the game.A tweet can not rightfully explain how thankful I am for this game. It has inspired me to create art and to live fully. I must also add, not to spoil anything, the calm interludes, like dinner with Brother Sebhat and the mothers and children, the Christmas feast, and the beautiful music and songs, filled my heart with such joy.This piece of art is another reminder of why one ought to live."



Humanity was a mistake.

 

[Dark Souls II]

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

He talks like someone who thinks funko pops are "cute" and drinks IPAs from local microbreweries. And people actually play the games this faggot makes?

 

[Oberon]

soy.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.rpgsite.net/interview/1...idian-future-book-film-recommendations-cheese

“I want to make more games. I don't know how many more I got in me.” – Josh Sawyer on Pentiment's second anniversary, and what's next​

Last week, Pentiment from Obsidian Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios celebrated its 2nd anniversary. Pentiment was one of the biggest surprises for me back in 2022, and a game we at RPG Site enjoyed a lot. The narrative-driven murder mystery adventure RPG set in 16th-century Bavaria has since been ported to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, gotten a plethora of merchandise, a vinyl soundtrack, and it remains a game I revisit often.

Exactly two years after it debuted on Xbox and PC back in November 15, 2022, I had a chance to talk to Josh Sawyer about Pentiment, game design, Obsidian Entertainment's workflow, his work on Avowed, vinyl soundtracks, choice and reactivity in Obsidian games, cheese, movie recommendations, books, and much more.

This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.


RPG Site: So for those who don't know you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Obsidian Entertainment right now?

Josh Sawyer: My name is Josh Sawyer. I'm studio design director at Obsidian. I'm also a game director. I've been in the industry for 25 years. I started at Black Isle Studios in 1999. I worked briefly at Midway San Diego, but for the last 19 years I've been at Obsidian. Notably, I've directed Fallout New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity I and II, and Pentiment.
RPG Site: So what exactly does a studio design director do?

Josh Sawyer: That's a good question. It varies. At Obsidian, it's an advisory position, so I don't really tell people what to do, although I do tell them what I think they should do.

So I will look at the projects and talk to either individual designers or the director about specific design features or directions.

Anything from system design to narrative to UI/interface, things like that, and I give feedback. I also asked them questions like what are you trying to accomplish with this? What is your intended audience? How do you think they're going to react to this? But it is their choice what to do with my advice. So it's largely an advisory position which is why I'm able to also direct games. Because it's not a full time job really.
RPG Site: In the past you mentioned how after Pillars of Eternity II you kind of were in burnout for a long time and you needed a break. I want to know what a day in your life looks like right now, and how it differs from just after Pillars II shipped when you were in that burnout phase.

Josh Sawyer: So in the post Deadfire phase, I was not doing a lot of direct work. I wasn't doing any direct work really, so I was focusing more on playing. You know there were DLCs for Deadfire that were being developed with Brandon Adler as the director of those. The Outer Worlds was in development at that time, so I was playing those games and getting a lot of feedback on them. But I really wasn't in a mental position to come up with new ideas for games or much less do work on them or direct anything. That’s not the case now. So I am, you know, like I'm helping on Avowed. I am in an advisory role still, but I did a little bit of writing on Avowed. I've helped out with some system design and things like that.

Basically, wherever they needed help. I am doing more hands-on work there and then just thinking and talking about ideas for future projects.

RPG Site: Speaking of future projects, why do you think studios or publishers looking for pitches are never clear enough with what they want and don’t want? This usually ends up with people who have nice ideas and concepts, but those get shot down because a publisher might not want an isometric game or a traditional CRPG.

Josh Sawyer: In my experience so far, I mean working with Xbox, we haven't really had that problem as far as I can tell, which is great. Thank you, Xbox. I think it just comes down to people not being clear about expectations. If a publisher wants pitches and we ask them “What do you want to see?” They shouldn't be vague about that. They should say “we do want to see RPGs. We don't want to see SRPGs. We do want to see pitches with romance. We don't want to see pitches with an isometric perspective.” Because if you define that box then you save everyone a lot of time.

I certainly in the past have been in situations where they're not clear and we pitch and they're like “Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great, but now let's talk about what we like. We have a license and we want you to use it for something.” It's like, why did we put together this pitch in the first place?

So thankfully I haven't really experienced much of that lately. Hopefully I will not in the future but that's usually what it comes down to. Is just people not being clear about boxes that you're working in and expectations on each side.
RPG Site: Today is Pentiment’s second anniversary. I want to know how you feel about it right now looking back at the reception. Did you expect it to get this big where you have people sharing FaceApp memes, vinyl soundtracks selling out, people getting into The Name of the Rose because of it, and more.

Josh Sawyer: No, I mean I did believe before it launched that if it could find its audience, that that audience would like it. I thought that that audience was smaller than it turned out to be. I never had an expectation that this was going to be like a mainstream game that everybody loved. So no, I didn't expect for it to get as much notice and I didn't expect that people would still be, and I actually Search for I was looking for a specific thing on YouTube and I filtered by Pentiment for the last month, and there's a lot of let's plays where people are doing playthroughs for the first time, and posting it on YouTube, which is really cool. So seeing people come back to play it or play, you know, like a second or third time, and see different outcomes is very awesome. I am glad that it found its audience and that the audience turned out to be bigger than I expected.
RPG Site: I’ve lost track of how many playthroughs I’ve done of it across different platforms where I kept buying it, and seen friends play it on Discord. I still feel like there’s more to the game that we all haven’t seen yet, like a small animation that I hadn’t seen before. Do you think every little reference or secret the team put into Pentiment has been found out now?

Josh Sawyer: I think so. I don't think there's anything that really pops into mind. Like, oh, wait, no one noticed this yet. I think there's a lot of stuff that's very subtle that most players don't see, or only a very, very small handful of players see, and a lot of it is things that also we added later. There are background things like Sepp Hubner. He's always drinking, like, literally everywhere he is. He's always drinking so if you go to the outskirts, I can't remember the outer farms I think they're called, and there's a time of day you can go there where he's up on the roof working and you can see him working on the roof and he'll stop and he has beer like on the roof that he's drinking.

When the town mob forms, he's kind of at the back, but he's still drinking while the mob is in the clearing. So there are little things like that that I doubt most people notice, but we had a lot of fun putting them in.

RPG Site: Pentiment was built using Obsidian’s OEI tools and Unity. We discussed this last time I spoke to you, and you mentioned how every time there’s a new project at Obsidian, the tools evolve. You add to it depending on what the project needs. Have you been involved in OEI in Avowed specifically since you said you are more hands-on with it or at least more hands-on than I expected?

Josh Sawyer: Yes and no. So again, my role on the project is just supplemental. It's kind of like one of those things where it's like, hey, we don't have the bandwidth for this dialogue or we need a rewrite or additional character or whatever, and I'll dive in. But I'd say that any changes on OEI tools for Avowed were pretty much driven by that team.
It's their project and they're doing it day-to-day. I will say there was one change I think that came over from from Pentiment which was being able to group nodes which visually for navigating was really helpful, and also put in notes like you can put in little almost like post it notes which are really useful to help other designers understand what you're trying to do with things. Those features came over, but those are more general. I don't speak to anything Avowed-specific because I didn't do that much work on it.
RPG Site: When Pentiment was deep in development, did you and the team expect it to reach a point where you have the vinyl soundtrack selling out multiple times and people asking for physical releases which finally happened? A lot has even changed for Pentiment since I spoke to you for its 1 year anniversary.

Josh Sawyer: I think it's a game that I never expected to have widespread appeal, but I did feel that for the people that liked it, there is a high chance they would like, really, really love it. It's sort of a mix. I'm sort of surprised, but not that surprised. I'm surprised by the number, but I'm not surprised that there are people that got super passionate about it because, you know, I, I and the team put a lot of passion into it and so I think that shows, especially with a small team, you get something that feels very unique in its viewpoint.

A lot of small games are like this with small teams. They're kind of like maybe you love it, maybe you hate it. But if you love it, there's a chance that you really love it because that team was able to really crystallize something very personal and specific to them that you can't find somewhere else and so I think that that happened with Pentiment, and I'm really grateful for it.
RPG Site: Going back to the physical release, the vinyl soundtrack, mugs, and more merchandise, I wanted to know if there are any plans to do a full artbook for the game?

Josh Sawyer: I don't know if I can speak to that. I will say that from my perspective, I don't know of any plans for that. There may be discussions happening outside of my realm of experience. I think a full artbook would be great. I don't know.

RPG Site: When we last spoke, I mentioned how Pentiment was amazing on the Steam Deck and how it would be great to have it on Switch or iPad. You mentioned how it would be great for more people to play it back then. Fast forward to today and it has been ported to Switch and PS5. How involved were you and the team in the ports?

Josh Sawyer: We did them. I mean the team did the ports. I will say that I was involved at a high level, but I didn't have to do a lot of or really any specific work. It was mostly on Brett Klooster, who is our lead programmer, and Alec Frey, who mostly managed making sure the assets were in the right format. Nintendo and Sony have very specific requirements for those things as of course does Xbox. Every platform has specific requirements for how things are presented.

But it was mostly Brett and Alec that put in a lot of time and effort. And then of course, Xbox did testing and well, Xbox did testing and then also Nintendo had testing and Sony had testing. For the most part, thankfully, because the game is not that complex, it mostly went over fine. There were a few performance related things on the Switch. Mostly in the 3D scenes, which are very minimal. Just to make sure that it ran well, but I don't think players have ever noticed. It's something like how we crossfade scenes or something like that. It's really subtle. I've never seen a player comment on it, so it's one of those things that, you know, Brett just saw it, he said: “How about if we change this?” I said that sounds fine and he did it.
RPG Site: I was curious if there was any change to if you were thinking about tweaking the interface or something to make it more readable in handheld mode, but the game is Steam Deck Verified so it was already good on the smaller screen right?

Josh Sawyer: It was Steam Deck verified and we had already put in text scaling, high contrast, and a bunch of other things. We tried to safeguard, you know, it's very common now for games to come out where there are complaints about text size on different platforms, especially for a game that is almost all text, so we try to be very cognizant of that.
RPG Site: Back when it was released on PS5, I laughed when I saw my monitor’s 120hz mode enabled on booting up the game. I didn’t know it had 120fps support, but that led to some let’s say interesting discussions online. Can you explain what happened there with the 120fps on PS5 and Xbox?

Josh Sawyer: I can't remember the specifics, but it was just like a mistake. It wasn't that we intended to cap it on Xbox or something. There's like a different workflow and it's funny because people made a big deal out of it. It's a 2D game where the characters are animated at 15 frames a second. So I'm like, I don't really think this is, you know, making that significant of a deal, but it became this weird console war thing. Then we patched it and then both platforms were running at 120. It's fine. There's a different pipeline for enabling certain things to make it run at different frame rates, and it was just a mistake. It was a simple mistake and it got fixed really quickly.

RPG Site: Going back to the Pentiment vinyl for a bit, which I think has sold out multiple times, I ended up getting it in a subsequent pressing, but there’s clearing a frothing demand for more of the world of Pentiment. Do you feel like doing more with it? I remember you said before that you were pretty happy with it.

Josh Sawyer: I do think an artbook for Pentiment would be great, because I think that Hannah and the other artists on the team that contributed did an amazing job.
The game excels at it's art and I think that would be great. As far as more games like it, I'm not opposed to it, but it's not like I really want to do it and I gotta do it.

With the vinyl, it's very funny because a lot of game soundtracks come out on vinyl. We really put a lot of effort into obviously the music from Alkemie, also from Kristin Hayter, but then the look and the feel on the liner notes, and like I personally spent a lot of time on that. Our internal team spent a lot of time on that.

The painting on the front, that oil painting by Benjamin Vierling was a huge effort and getting like the gold because, it's a gold pour and the disc just looks incredible, and it feels so fitting for something about illuminated manuscript. I kind of knew from the beginning.I remember when. The first two runs happened. I'm like, that's not enough. You guys have to have to make more, and there are a few people that were kind of naysayers and said game soundtracks don't sell that well on vinyl. I'm like this one I think is gonna sell well. And they're like, yeah, but your game is really small. And I'm like. I don't think it matters that the soundtrack is really good. And this format is so striking, especially with the gold discs. I think it's just gonna. People are gonna go kind of crazy for it. And so they have. But every time it's underestimated what the demand is gonna be, Did it actually sell out again? Like a third time? Is it sold out right now?
RPG Site: I got it on the second print run.

Josh Sawyer:I know that on the third time they were like, okay Now we're gonna order like I don't remember several hundred. I'm like, OK, and then it didn't sell out right away. So if it is sold out now, I'll laugh.
RPG Site: Ok, it says it's in stock now.

Josh Sawyer: So if you're reading this, you can get a pentiment soundtrack but it did take 3 pressings.

RPG Site: One of the reasons I asked about doing more with Pentiment is because you’ve spoken about how the Pillars games were crowdfunded and that there was a limit to what you could do with them. You've previously mentioned how they had some compromise, but Pentiment didn’t have that. Was there something you couldn’t do in Pentiment that you’d like to do in a potential sequel? Maybe not storywise, but as a concept?

Josh Sawyer: You know, I'm pretty happy with it. I do really feel like there are always practical compromises for time. I do think that the idea of art without compromise is not really a true thing. You're always compromising. There are limitations to medium. There are limitations to all sorts of things and that's not bad. I don't feel like anything was compromised. There were certain things where I said we're going to have to not do as much of this and do more of that, but I don't think there's any sort of like features or scope things. If anything, the only thing I would say is it'd be good to have more reactivity, right?

You know, like more significant things that happen and change, which is really just a matter of scope, I think rather than and that's something that we always try to do on Obsidian games.

I feel like whether we're doing something like a big high profile game that has like hundreds of people on it or a thirteen person project, choice and reactivity are always going to be a thing that were we try to find new ways to really engage the player and make them excited about making choices and seeing the decisions and making that scope feel really impressive.
RPG Site: So outside of games, hypothetical situations, would you want to be involved if there was a new media adaptation of Pentiment happening like a TV show or a board game?

Josh Sawyer: It's not my purpose here. I like making games. I like spending my time focusing on making games and helping other people make the games they want to make. If people are interested in things like adaptations, novelizations, graphic novels like whatever, cool, that sounds awesome. Of course, I would like to advise on that, but that's not where I see myself spending my time. I want to make more games. I don't know how many more I got in me, but I want to spend my time really focusing on those.

I have been informed by people here that there have been inquiries about doing stuff with Pentiment, which is great. So that'd be cool, but I want to keep making games myself.

RPG Site: One of the funniest things related to Pentiment online is your FaceApp edits for The Name of the Rose. I’ve had friends see those and get interested in the movie or the book. I wondered which would be better to start with and decided to wait until I get to interview you again to ask about it. Do you recommend Pentiment players read The Name of the Rose or watch the movie first?

Josh Sawyer: The book is a very challenging book. It's kind of surprising because I think it's one of the top 20 best-selling books, like novels of all time, which is kind of incredible. It's been translated into a lot of languages, but it's a very dense book. It's not short and it's really thick with historical references and also a lot of a lot of things that are not in the translated language. So things that are in Latin, things that are in Hebrew, like all this stuff. So if you're not comfortable with, like really taking that as it comes, it can be very daunting. In fact, there's a book called The Key to the Name of the Rose that's kind of like a primer for people who are just not, as you know, informed about history because it's such a challenge.

The film does simplify a lot of things and it doesn't go into as much depth but I do think it gives you the flavor. There's also a miniseries adaptation that does go more in depth. Personally, I don't think it's as good. It kind of does some weird stuff. It's interesting if you're a Name of the Rose head, check it out. There is some cool stuff in it, but I would say if you just kind of want a primer and then you want to play Pentiment, just watch the film with Sean Connery and Christian Slater and F. Murray Abraham. It's great.
RPG Site: Back in 2022, you posted a picture of the bookshelf, which had physical books which inspired Pentiment. Since we just discussed The Name of the Rose, the movie, think of this as your closet picks for The Criterion Collection. Can you recommend some books and movies that you think your fans would enjoy? In relation to Pentiment and in general.

Josh Sawyer: In relation to Pentiment, I do think The Return of Martin Guerre is a very interesting book. It's not super long. It's by Natalie Zemon Davis, who unfortunately passed away maybe two years ago. I think it was right before Pentiment came out, but there's a very strong parallel in Return of Martin Guerre with Martin Bauer in Pentiment which I think is very interesting.

I would of course recommend Name of the Rose, but also Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel, who is one of our first consultants on the game. You know, a world renowned scholar specializing in manuscripts. So I would recommend that as well, and then the last one I would say which I find very interesting is The Faithful Executioner by Joel F. Harrington, and that is about the imperial executioner in Nuremberg. Even though execution is only part of Pentiment, there's a lot of interesting things in there about social attitudes towards justice and punishment that I just found really fascinating. So those are three books.

Then films, it feels like cheating to say, Name of the Rose, so I won't say Name of the Rose, but I'll say Andrei Rublev which is much harder to get through than Name of the Rose. Name of the Rose is relatively quick moving. It's got action and it's got sex. It's got all sorts of stuff. Then I guess Andrea Rublev has a little bit of sex too, but it's very slow paced. It's like three plus hours long. It's black and white.

The structure of Andre Rublev was actually a big inspiration for the structure of our story even though Name of the Rose is the inspiration for the theme and stuff like that.

Then let's see what other movies that I think would be good. There's actually a documentary series. Look up Ruth Goodman and I think their BBC specials. There's one on life on a Tudor Monastery and there's another one that's like life in a medieval castle or something like that. Those are both really great.

This is a little bit of a cheat, but I’ll just throw it in there. So Natalie Zimon Davis, when she wrote The Return of Martin Guerre, she wrote that after she was a historical consultant for a film, Le Retour de Martin Guerre, like a French film with Gérard Depardieu. The film is also very entertaining so I'd recommend watching that.

And then what other, like good history jam? Another slow paced one would be The Mill and the Cross directed by a Polish director whose name I can't remember, but it has Rutger Hauer. It has Michael York. It has Charlotte Rampling, and it's very slow paced, but it's about the creation of The Procession to Calvary by Bruegel the Elder. It was used as visual inspiration for the windmill that Lenhardt Müller has that looks over the valley. And that's very interesting because it's about the creation of the painting, but also about 16th century Dutch society and how the Spanish Catholics interacted with the Protestants there, and it's very interesting, but it's also very, very slow paced.

RPG Site: When we discussed Pentiment’s 1 year anniversary, you gave me an interesting anecdote about the character design behind Samuel Grau, the landsknecht. Can you give me another fun anecdote from Pentiment’s design that you haven't mentioned before anywhere?

Josh Sawyer: I think there was something with Lorenz Rothvogel about his expression, which is a specific kind of asshole smirk, and I don't know if it came before or after, but it was kind of Jason Alexander as George from Seinfeld, and it was like a very specific kind of very irritating and condescending smirk. And that's kind of what informed Lorenz Rothvogel’s appearance.

Let's see what's another one. We did realize, unintentionally, that Brother Mathieu is kind of like an alternate universe of Kim, from Disco Elysium because they're both kind of like small gay glasses wearing men. And so he became kind of this alternate universe, Kim, which everyone really liked.

Oh, and then actually another one that I can say is Caspar’s sort of overall age and size and height relationship was inspired by Young Masbath in Sleepy Hollow. So in the film with Johnny Depp, like maybe 1/3 of the way through the film, there's a boy whose father has been killed by the horseman and so he becomes not like an apprentice, but like a little helper. I gave that as a reference of how tall Caspar should be and about this age because they're close in age close in height. And so I wanted that sort of physical relationship between them.
RPG Site: Last year, I asked what you'd want to make if you, hypothetically, had unlimited time and budget: Fallout New Vegas 2, Pillars of Eternity 3, or Pentiment 2, and I think that question got picked up by tons of outlets with headlines like "Josh Sawyer wants to do Pillars 3". I wanted to know how you feel about that specific question now. Would you still want to do Pillars 3?

Josh Sawyer: I don't know. I feel like now Avowed is where the Pillars universe has kind of gone. And it'll be interesting to see where the audience picks up on that, and maybe that's where the Pillars universe kind of goes in the future. So I think there's a lot of different possibilities of what to do in the future. I do think that I am more interested in doing original IP necessarily, than existing IP. But we'll see where the future takes me.
RPG Site: Did you end up finishing Pikmin 4?

Josh Sawyer: No, I did not finish Pikmin 4. I just started playing it and I need to pick it up again.

RPG Site: For my last question I’d usually ask about your favorite coffee, but I know you’re not a coffee person. You do like your cheese. Is Red Dragon still your favorite cheese and can you give us a recommendation for some cheese you like?

Josh Sawyer: My favorite cheese is still red dragon. That's the top. I would recommend, it's hard to get outside of the US, but Hook's creamery has a really good 10 year, 12 year, 15 year, and 20 year cheddar. If you like really aged cheddars, you can't get much better than that.

Another cheddar that I will recommend is Old Quebec. Old Quebec cheddar is quite nice, and that's easier to get.

 

[Oberon]

https://www.rpgsite.net/interview/1...idian-future-book-film-recommendations-cheese

“I want to make more games. I don't know how many more I got in me.” – Josh Sawyer on Pentiment's second anniversary, and what's next​

Last week, Pentiment from Obsidian Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios celebrated its 2nd anniversary. Pentiment was one of the biggest surprises for me back in 2022, and a game we at RPG Site enjoyed a lot. The narrative-driven murder mystery adventure RPG set in 16th-century Bavaria has since been ported to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, gotten a plethora of merchandise, a vinyl soundtrack, and it remains a game I revisit often.

Exactly two years after it debuted on Xbox and PC back in November 15, 2022, I had a chance to talk to Josh Sawyer about Pentiment, game design, Obsidian Entertainment's workflow, his work on Avowed, vinyl soundtracks, choice and reactivity in Obsidian games, cheese, movie recommendations, books, and much more.

This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.


RPG Site: So for those who don't know you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Obsidian Entertainment right now?

Josh Sawyer: My name is Josh Sawyer. I'm studio design director at Obsidian. I'm also a game director. I've been in the industry for 25 years. I started at Black Isle Studios in 1999. I worked briefly at Midway San Diego, but for the last 19 years I've been at Obsidian. Notably, I've directed Fallout New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity I and II, and Pentiment.
RPG Site: So what exactly does a studio design director do?

Josh Sawyer: That's a good question. It varies. At Obsidian, it's an advisory position, so I don't really tell people what to do, although I do tell them what I think they should do.

So I will look at the projects and talk to either individual designers or the director about specific design features or directions.

Anything from system design to narrative to UI/interface, things like that, and I give feedback. I also asked them questions like what are you trying to accomplish with this? What is your intended audience? How do you think they're going to react to this? But it is their choice what to do with my advice. So it's largely an advisory position which is why I'm able to also direct games. Because it's not a full time job really.
RPG Site: In the past you mentioned how after Pillars of Eternity II you kind of were in burnout for a long time and you needed a break. I want to know what a day in your life looks like right now, and how it differs from just after Pillars II shipped when you were in that burnout phase.

Josh Sawyer: So in the post Deadfire phase, I was not doing a lot of direct work. I wasn't doing any direct work really, so I was focusing more on playing. You know there were DLCs for Deadfire that were being developed with Brandon Adler as the director of those. The Outer Worlds was in development at that time, so I was playing those games and getting a lot of feedback on them. But I really wasn't in a mental position to come up with new ideas for games or much less do work on them or direct anything. That’s not the case now. So I am, you know, like I'm helping on Avowed. I am in an advisory role still, but I did a little bit of writing on Avowed. I've helped out with some system design and things like that.

Basically, wherever they needed help. I am doing more hands-on work there and then just thinking and talking about ideas for future projects.

RPG Site: Speaking of future projects, why do you think studios or publishers looking for pitches are never clear enough with what they want and don’t want? This usually ends up with people who have nice ideas and concepts, but those get shot down because a publisher might not want an isometric game or a traditional CRPG.

Josh Sawyer: In my experience so far, I mean working with Xbox, we haven't really had that problem as far as I can tell, which is great. Thank you, Xbox. I think it just comes down to people not being clear about expectations. If a publisher wants pitches and we ask them “What do you want to see?” They shouldn't be vague about that. They should say “we do want to see RPGs. We don't want to see SRPGs. We do want to see pitches with romance. We don't want to see pitches with an isometric perspective.” Because if you define that box then you save everyone a lot of time.

I certainly in the past have been in situations where they're not clear and we pitch and they're like “Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great, but now let's talk about what we like. We have a license and we want you to use it for something.” It's like, why did we put together this pitch in the first place?

So thankfully I haven't really experienced much of that lately. Hopefully I will not in the future but that's usually what it comes down to. Is just people not being clear about boxes that you're working in and expectations on each side.
RPG Site: Today is Pentiment’s second anniversary. I want to know how you feel about it right now looking back at the reception. Did you expect it to get this big where you have people sharing FaceApp memes, vinyl soundtracks selling out, people getting into The Name of the Rose because of it, and more.

Josh Sawyer: No, I mean I did believe before it launched that if it could find its audience, that that audience would like it. I thought that that audience was smaller than it turned out to be. I never had an expectation that this was going to be like a mainstream game that everybody loved. So no, I didn't expect for it to get as much notice and I didn't expect that people would still be, and I actually Search for I was looking for a specific thing on YouTube and I filtered by Pentiment for the last month, and there's a lot of let's plays where people are doing playthroughs for the first time, and posting it on YouTube, which is really cool. So seeing people come back to play it or play, you know, like a second or third time, and see different outcomes is very awesome. I am glad that it found its audience and that the audience turned out to be bigger than I expected.
RPG Site: I’ve lost track of how many playthroughs I’ve done of it across different platforms where I kept buying it, and seen friends play it on Discord. I still feel like there’s more to the game that we all haven’t seen yet, like a small animation that I hadn’t seen before. Do you think every little reference or secret the team put into Pentiment has been found out now?

Josh Sawyer: I think so. I don't think there's anything that really pops into mind. Like, oh, wait, no one noticed this yet. I think there's a lot of stuff that's very subtle that most players don't see, or only a very, very small handful of players see, and a lot of it is things that also we added later. There are background things like Sepp Hubner. He's always drinking, like, literally everywhere he is. He's always drinking so if you go to the outskirts, I can't remember the outer farms I think they're called, and there's a time of day you can go there where he's up on the roof working and you can see him working on the roof and he'll stop and he has beer like on the roof that he's drinking.

When the town mob forms, he's kind of at the back, but he's still drinking while the mob is in the clearing. So there are little things like that that I doubt most people notice, but we had a lot of fun putting them in.

RPG Site: Pentiment was built using Obsidian’s OEI tools and Unity. We discussed this last time I spoke to you, and you mentioned how every time there’s a new project at Obsidian, the tools evolve. You add to it depending on what the project needs. Have you been involved in OEI in Avowed specifically since you said you are more hands-on with it or at least more hands-on than I expected?

Josh Sawyer: Yes and no. So again, my role on the project is just supplemental. It's kind of like one of those things where it's like, hey, we don't have the bandwidth for this dialogue or we need a rewrite or additional character or whatever, and I'll dive in. But I'd say that any changes on OEI tools for Avowed were pretty much driven by that team.
It's their project and they're doing it day-to-day. I will say there was one change I think that came over from from Pentiment which was being able to group nodes which visually for navigating was really helpful, and also put in notes like you can put in little almost like post it notes which are really useful to help other designers understand what you're trying to do with things. Those features came over, but those are more general. I don't speak to anything Avowed-specific because I didn't do that much work on it.
RPG Site: When Pentiment was deep in development, did you and the team expect it to reach a point where you have the vinyl soundtrack selling out multiple times and people asking for physical releases which finally happened? A lot has even changed for Pentiment since I spoke to you for its 1 year anniversary.

Josh Sawyer: I think it's a game that I never expected to have widespread appeal, but I did feel that for the people that liked it, there is a high chance they would like, really, really love it. It's sort of a mix. I'm sort of surprised, but not that surprised. I'm surprised by the number, but I'm not surprised that there are people that got super passionate about it because, you know, I, I and the team put a lot of passion into it and so I think that shows, especially with a small team, you get something that feels very unique in its viewpoint.

A lot of small games are like this with small teams. They're kind of like maybe you love it, maybe you hate it. But if you love it, there's a chance that you really love it because that team was able to really crystallize something very personal and specific to them that you can't find somewhere else and so I think that that happened with Pentiment, and I'm really grateful for it.
RPG Site: Going back to the physical release, the vinyl soundtrack, mugs, and more merchandise, I wanted to know if there are any plans to do a full artbook for the game?

Josh Sawyer: I don't know if I can speak to that. I will say that from my perspective, I don't know of any plans for that. There may be discussions happening outside of my realm of experience. I think a full artbook would be great. I don't know.

RPG Site: When we last spoke, I mentioned how Pentiment was amazing on the Steam Deck and how it would be great to have it on Switch or iPad. You mentioned how it would be great for more people to play it back then. Fast forward to today and it has been ported to Switch and PS5. How involved were you and the team in the ports?

Josh Sawyer: We did them. I mean the team did the ports. I will say that I was involved at a high level, but I didn't have to do a lot of or really any specific work. It was mostly on Brett Klooster, who is our lead programmer, and Alec Frey, who mostly managed making sure the assets were in the right format. Nintendo and Sony have very specific requirements for those things as of course does Xbox. Every platform has specific requirements for how things are presented.

But it was mostly Brett and Alec that put in a lot of time and effort. And then of course, Xbox did testing and well, Xbox did testing and then also Nintendo had testing and Sony had testing. For the most part, thankfully, because the game is not that complex, it mostly went over fine. There were a few performance related things on the Switch. Mostly in the 3D scenes, which are very minimal. Just to make sure that it ran well, but I don't think players have ever noticed. It's something like how we crossfade scenes or something like that. It's really subtle. I've never seen a player comment on it, so it's one of those things that, you know, Brett just saw it, he said: “How about if we change this?” I said that sounds fine and he did it.
RPG Site: I was curious if there was any change to if you were thinking about tweaking the interface or something to make it more readable in handheld mode, but the game is Steam Deck Verified so it was already good on the smaller screen right?

Josh Sawyer: It was Steam Deck verified and we had already put in text scaling, high contrast, and a bunch of other things. We tried to safeguard, you know, it's very common now for games to come out where there are complaints about text size on different platforms, especially for a game that is almost all text, so we try to be very cognizant of that.
RPG Site: Back when it was released on PS5, I laughed when I saw my monitor’s 120hz mode enabled on booting up the game. I didn’t know it had 120fps support, but that led to some let’s say interesting discussions online. Can you explain what happened there with the 120fps on PS5 and Xbox?

Josh Sawyer: I can't remember the specifics, but it was just like a mistake. It wasn't that we intended to cap it on Xbox or something. There's like a different workflow and it's funny because people made a big deal out of it. It's a 2D game where the characters are animated at 15 frames a second. So I'm like, I don't really think this is, you know, making that significant of a deal, but it became this weird console war thing. Then we patched it and then both platforms were running at 120. It's fine. There's a different pipeline for enabling certain things to make it run at different frame rates, and it was just a mistake. It was a simple mistake and it got fixed really quickly.

RPG Site: Going back to the Pentiment vinyl for a bit, which I think has sold out multiple times, I ended up getting it in a subsequent pressing, but there’s clearing a frothing demand for more of the world of Pentiment. Do you feel like doing more with it? I remember you said before that you were pretty happy with it.

Josh Sawyer: I do think an artbook for Pentiment would be great, because I think that Hannah and the other artists on the team that contributed did an amazing job.
The game excels at it's art and I think that would be great. As far as more games like it, I'm not opposed to it, but it's not like I really want to do it and I gotta do it.

With the vinyl, it's very funny because a lot of game soundtracks come out on vinyl. We really put a lot of effort into obviously the music from Alkemie, also from Kristin Hayter, but then the look and the feel on the liner notes, and like I personally spent a lot of time on that. Our internal team spent a lot of time on that.

The painting on the front, that oil painting by Benjamin Vierling was a huge effort and getting like the gold because, it's a gold pour and the disc just looks incredible, and it feels so fitting for something about illuminated manuscript. I kind of knew from the beginning.I remember when. The first two runs happened. I'm like, that's not enough. You guys have to have to make more, and there are a few people that were kind of naysayers and said game soundtracks don't sell that well on vinyl. I'm like this one I think is gonna sell well. And they're like, yeah, but your game is really small. And I'm like. I don't think it matters that the soundtrack is really good. And this format is so striking, especially with the gold discs. I think it's just gonna. People are gonna go kind of crazy for it. And so they have. But every time it's underestimated what the demand is gonna be, Did it actually sell out again? Like a third time? Is it sold out right now?
RPG Site: I got it on the second print run.

Josh Sawyer:I know that on the third time they were like, okay Now we're gonna order like I don't remember several hundred. I'm like, OK, and then it didn't sell out right away. So if it is sold out now, I'll laugh.
RPG Site: Ok, it says it's in stock now.

Josh Sawyer: So if you're reading this, you can get a pentiment soundtrack but it did take 3 pressings.

RPG Site: One of the reasons I asked about doing more with Pentiment is because you’ve spoken about how the Pillars games were crowdfunded and that there was a limit to what you could do with them. You've previously mentioned how they had some compromise, but Pentiment didn’t have that. Was there something you couldn’t do in Pentiment that you’d like to do in a potential sequel? Maybe not storywise, but as a concept?

Josh Sawyer: You know, I'm pretty happy with it. I do really feel like there are always practical compromises for time. I do think that the idea of art without compromise is not really a true thing. You're always compromising. There are limitations to medium. There are limitations to all sorts of things and that's not bad. I don't feel like anything was compromised. There were certain things where I said we're going to have to not do as much of this and do more of that, but I don't think there's any sort of like features or scope things. If anything, the only thing I would say is it'd be good to have more reactivity, right?

You know, like more significant things that happen and change, which is really just a matter of scope, I think rather than and that's something that we always try to do on Obsidian games.

I feel like whether we're doing something like a big high profile game that has like hundreds of people on it or a thirteen person project, choice and reactivity are always going to be a thing that were we try to find new ways to really engage the player and make them excited about making choices and seeing the decisions and making that scope feel really impressive.
RPG Site: So outside of games, hypothetical situations, would you want to be involved if there was a new media adaptation of Pentiment happening like a TV show or a board game?

Josh Sawyer: It's not my purpose here. I like making games. I like spending my time focusing on making games and helping other people make the games they want to make. If people are interested in things like adaptations, novelizations, graphic novels like whatever, cool, that sounds awesome. Of course, I would like to advise on that, but that's not where I see myself spending my time. I want to make more games. I don't know how many more I got in me, but I want to spend my time really focusing on those.

I have been informed by people here that there have been inquiries about doing stuff with Pentiment, which is great. So that'd be cool, but I want to keep making games myself.

RPG Site: One of the funniest things related to Pentiment online is your FaceApp edits for The Name of the Rose. I’ve had friends see those and get interested in the movie or the book. I wondered which would be better to start with and decided to wait until I get to interview you again to ask about it. Do you recommend Pentiment players read The Name of the Rose or watch the movie first?

Josh Sawyer: The book is a very challenging book. It's kind of surprising because I think it's one of the top 20 best-selling books, like novels of all time, which is kind of incredible. It's been translated into a lot of languages, but it's a very dense book. It's not short and it's really thick with historical references and also a lot of a lot of things that are not in the translated language. So things that are in Latin, things that are in Hebrew, like all this stuff. So if you're not comfortable with, like really taking that as it comes, it can be very daunting. In fact, there's a book called The Key to the Name of the Rose that's kind of like a primer for people who are just not, as you know, informed about history because it's such a challenge.

The film does simplify a lot of things and it doesn't go into as much depth but I do think it gives you the flavor. There's also a miniseries adaptation that does go more in depth. Personally, I don't think it's as good. It kind of does some weird stuff. It's interesting if you're a Name of the Rose head, check it out. There is some cool stuff in it, but I would say if you just kind of want a primer and then you want to play Pentiment, just watch the film with Sean Connery and Christian Slater and F. Murray Abraham. It's great.
RPG Site: Back in 2022, you posted a picture of the bookshelf, which had physical books which inspired Pentiment. Since we just discussed The Name of the Rose, the movie, think of this as your closet picks for The Criterion Collection. Can you recommend some books and movies that you think your fans would enjoy? In relation to Pentiment and in general.

Josh Sawyer: In relation to Pentiment, I do think The Return of Martin Guerre is a very interesting book. It's not super long. It's by Natalie Zemon Davis, who unfortunately passed away maybe two years ago. I think it was right before Pentiment came out, but there's a very strong parallel in Return of Martin Guerre with Martin Bauer in Pentiment which I think is very interesting.

I would of course recommend Name of the Rose, but also Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel, who is one of our first consultants on the game. You know, a world renowned scholar specializing in manuscripts. So I would recommend that as well, and then the last one I would say which I find very interesting is The Faithful Executioner by Joel F. Harrington, and that is about the imperial executioner in Nuremberg. Even though execution is only part of Pentiment, there's a lot of interesting things in there about social attitudes towards justice and punishment that I just found really fascinating. So those are three books.

Then films, it feels like cheating to say, Name of the Rose, so I won't say Name of the Rose, but I'll say Andrei Rublev which is much harder to get through than Name of the Rose. Name of the Rose is relatively quick moving. It's got action and it's got sex. It's got all sorts of stuff. Then I guess Andrea Rublev has a little bit of sex too, but it's very slow paced. It's like three plus hours long. It's black and white.

The structure of Andre Rublev was actually a big inspiration for the structure of our story even though Name of the Rose is the inspiration for the theme and stuff like that.

Then let's see what other movies that I think would be good. There's actually a documentary series. Look up Ruth Goodman and I think their BBC specials. There's one on life on a Tudor Monastery and there's another one that's like life in a medieval castle or something like that. Those are both really great.

This is a little bit of a cheat, but I’ll just throw it in there. So Natalie Zimon Davis, when she wrote The Return of Martin Guerre, she wrote that after she was a historical consultant for a film, Le Retour de Martin Guerre, like a French film with Gérard Depardieu. The film is also very entertaining so I'd recommend watching that.

And then what other, like good history jam? Another slow paced one would be The Mill and the Cross directed by a Polish director whose name I can't remember, but it has Rutger Hauer. It has Michael York. It has Charlotte Rampling, and it's very slow paced, but it's about the creation of The Procession to Calvary by Bruegel the Elder. It was used as visual inspiration for the windmill that Lenhardt Müller has that looks over the valley. And that's very interesting because it's about the creation of the painting, but also about 16th century Dutch society and how the Spanish Catholics interacted with the Protestants there, and it's very interesting, but it's also very, very slow paced.

RPG Site: When we discussed Pentiment’s 1 year anniversary, you gave me an interesting anecdote about the character design behind Samuel Grau, the landsknecht. Can you give me another fun anecdote from Pentiment’s design that you haven't mentioned before anywhere?

Josh Sawyer: I think there was something with Lorenz Rothvogel about his expression, which is a specific kind of asshole smirk, and I don't know if it came before or after, but it was kind of Jason Alexander as George from Seinfeld, and it was like a very specific kind of very irritating and condescending smirk. And that's kind of what informed Lorenz Rothvogel’s appearance.

Let's see what's another one. We did realize, unintentionally, that Brother Mathieu is kind of like an alternate universe of Kim, from Disco Elysium because they're both kind of like small gay glasses wearing men. And so he became kind of this alternate universe, Kim, which everyone really liked.

Oh, and then actually another one that I can say is Caspar’s sort of overall age and size and height relationship was inspired by Young Masbath in Sleepy Hollow. So in the film with Johnny Depp, like maybe 1/3 of the way through the film, there's a boy whose father has been killed by the horseman and so he becomes not like an apprentice, but like a little helper. I gave that as a reference of how tall Caspar should be and about this age because they're close in age close in height. And so I wanted that sort of physical relationship between them.
RPG Site: Last year, I asked what you'd want to make if you, hypothetically, had unlimited time and budget: Fallout New Vegas 2, Pillars of Eternity 3, or Pentiment 2, and I think that question got picked up by tons of outlets with headlines like "Josh Sawyer wants to do Pillars 3". I wanted to know how you feel about that specific question now. Would you still want to do Pillars 3?

Josh Sawyer: I don't know. I feel like now Avowed is where the Pillars universe has kind of gone. And it'll be interesting to see where the audience picks up on that, and maybe that's where the Pillars universe kind of goes in the future. So I think there's a lot of different possibilities of what to do in the future. I do think that I am more interested in doing original IP necessarily, than existing IP. But we'll see where the future takes me.
RPG Site: Did you end up finishing Pikmin 4?

Josh Sawyer: No, I did not finish Pikmin 4. I just started playing it and I need to pick it up again.

RPG Site: For my last question I’d usually ask about your favorite coffee, but I know you’re not a coffee person. You do like your cheese. Is Red Dragon still your favorite cheese and can you give us a recommendation for some cheese you like?

Josh Sawyer: My favorite cheese is still red dragon. That's the top. I would recommend, it's hard to get outside of the US, but Hook's creamery has a really good 10 year, 12 year, 15 year, and 20 year cheddar. If you like really aged cheddars, you can't get much better than that.

Another cheddar that I will recommend is Old Quebec. Old Quebec cheddar is quite nice, and that's easier to get.

When is this nigga going to finally make his Darklands clone

 

[Dark Souls II]

Joshie, I know you read this, I will give you a hint. If you want to make games, start by adding a little thing called gameplay.

Take something like Pentiment, put it in the Pillars of Eternity engine, add combat and choices (things that constitute "gameplay"), let me side with the chad miller dude and roundhouse kick the peasantry into the mud. Add cool action music to the fight sequences, and keep all the potatos and sour cream in the game, but turn them into items that are usable in combat (remember Josh, clicking on a piece of bread to advance a dialogue is NOT gameplay). In general, check the game called Felvidek and try to make something more like it - a game that's actually fun and memorable.