Reviews

[Boeroer]

Hello, it's review time for Pentiment. I'll start with this bit (IGN, 10/10 points):

https://www.ign.com/articles/pentiment-review

 

Also  short overlook from Klobrille (on Twitter):

 

[Pidesco]

Mine is preloaded and ready to go.

[Wormerine]

That’s much higher scores that I expected - most of stuff I have seen have been “that’s cool, but not for me”. 
Can’t wait to see if it IS for me, or if I will have to reach to my inner snob and pretend it’s for me  

Edited November 14, 2022 by Wormerine

[InsaneCommander]

I'll probably want to finish one of the games I'm playing before starting this one, but I'm definitely buying it.

[Keyrock]

I've got it pre-loaded on xXxBOxXx but I won't get to play it until I get home tomorrow afternoon.

[Tale]

I guess first round of congrats to the team are in order. My gamepass pre-load is ready and it'll probably interrupt the many other games I'm juggling around aimlessly.

[Sven_]

German reviews also encouraging so far. Gamestar actually IS from Bayern (their location is Munich), though, naturally, their editors are from all over the country.  

Is the (Steam) preorder actually a discount, e.g. will the game be more expensive when it's fully launched? edit: Doesn't matter. Bought. 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Sven_

[xzar_monty]

I was surprised by how cheap it was. The reviews also look encouraging, I must say.

[Sven_]

Have only played the (fairly linear) beginning so far and am looking forward for more.

Two gripes though: I wish you could turn off / mute the scribbling sound of the ink pen. It's a neat stylistic choice at first, but gets a tad annoying (at least to me) fast. Plus make it less of an added "hassle" and faster to fast forward dialogue. The first click upon initiating a dialogue makes the ink pen write faster. It's only when the pen is finished filling the dialogue that a second click moves dialogue forward / makes it advance. As there's no VO anyway, I'm not going to wait for every dialogue to, er, "finish". And engaging in / advancing dialogue is the name of this game.

Can I just else appreciate though how great this is. 20 years ago this game wouldn't have existed and remained a pipe dream. 12-15 years ago it would have been a shoestring indie project from a garage developer at best. Just a decade ago, this would have been a Kickstarter. One that likely wouldn't even have met its funding goals, as it isn't a BG-clone. But here they are to hopefully entertain us.

The times, they are a-changin'.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Sven_

[Wormerine]

1 hour ago, Sven_ said:

Have only played the (fairly linear) beginning so far and am looking forward for more.

Same. After reading some reviews I was worried that ascetic nature of the presentation will make it difficult to get into, but I was fully drawn in. It helps that as some raised on European history and an art degree at least a decent amount of stuff rings a bell, or it at least is conceptually familiar. It's been also much funnier then I expected.

There are also a detail that I am wondering if I am getting it right - all titles refering to god/trinity (God, Lord, Christ) seem to be left blank and then filled in as if for players benefit. I am wondering if it's refering to a long tradition of not using God's name and the subsequent erasure of the tetragram from the written scriptures.

[bugarup]

Tried to buy it through M$ Store, understood why nobody uses it. I wonder if I Pentiment and, say, buy Pillars for someone as a gift on GOG, will it still technically count as piracy?

[Sven_]

Two things I'd like (RPG) developers to take from this:

- games don't need to have quests travelling the world, hell, there and back again. There's huge promise in the concept of having finite sets of characters, as well as locations. And showing how they grow and change throughout the day, the months, the years. In particular in games about player choice. 1990s instant classic "Day Of The Tentacle" was all about showing the same location and "changing" it throughout the ages.

I'm actually reminded of "The Last Express" though, a game set solely aboard the legendary Orient Express. It involes a unique art style, mystery, murder and a historical setting as well. Albeit mixed with "real-time" events, giving the illusion of living NPCs moving through the train as you move as well (to lessen frustration, the game has a feature that allows to go back in time in case you've screwed up or missed something). The Last Express' sense of place is still pretty unique today, despite being released in 1997.

- historical scenarios can work. That's nothing new, but there's only so many elves, zombies,  space ships, power armors and more recently cyberpunk gear you can deal with before growing tired. (Admittedly, in a CRPG setting, even zombies could be somewhat fresh again -- see Dead State a couple years ago, but that's another topic entirelly.  )

Edited November 15, 2022 by Sven_

[Boeroer]

8 hours ago, Sven_ said:

Two gripes though: I wish you could turn off / mute the scribbling sound of the ink pen. It's a neat stylistic choice at first, but gets a tad annoying (at least to me) fast. 

There were some reviews which mentioned this a well. Maybe there will be a patch that fixes this (if enough players share this opinion).

[Sven_]

24 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

There were some reviews which mentioned this a well. Maybe there will be a patch that fixes this (if enough players share this opinion).

I've actually been getting used to it by now.   There's also a few neat touches in the audio conveying emotion and character, so... But you could likely make it optional comparably easily.

I really like the game's audio design. Not sure if whether that was in parts a budget choice -- but that there's no permanent soundtrack makes the game world feel pretty "naturalistic" despite the stylized art. The ambient sound is pretty good in general.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Sven_

[Pidesco]

The music that I've heard so far is pretty great.

[Pidesco]

The opening dream sequence reminded me of the dialogues philosophers use to write to put forth their ideas. 

[Wormerine]

13 hours ago, Sven_ said:

- historical scenarios can work.

Or a real life scenario in general. Though I suspect it is mechanical flexibility which comes with fiction (edit. Read: fictional settings) that makes fiction (edit: them) so common. I think the trick is that if you base your game on history/part of real life you need to look at it's real life counterpart and then find a way to gamify it, rather then come up with mechanics and then slap a theme on it. Not that it is something not worth exploring - art is about communication, so I think games could only benefit from finding way to express new stories and concepts rather then adjusting the stories they tell to their gameplay they already came up with.

Edited November 16, 2022 by Wormerine

[algroth]

2 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Or a real life scenario in general. Though I suspect it is mechanical flexibility which comes with fiction that makes fiction so common. I think the trick is that if you base your game on history/part of real life you need to look at it's real life counterpart and then find a way to gamify it, rather then come up with mechanics and then slap a theme on it. Not that it is something not worth exploring - art is about communication, so I think games could only benefit from finding way to express new stories and concepts rather then adjusting the stories they tell to their gameplay they already came up with.

For what it's worth, this game is fiction still, just historical fiction. I'd say it definitely shows there's ways of making more realist fiction intriguing and engaging, which are an area that videogames tend to shy away from far more than many other artistic media do.

[Wormerine]

7 hours ago, algroth said:

For what it's worth, this game is fiction still, just historical fiction.

Indeed. I expressed myself poorly. Original post edited.

There is something I have been thinking for a while now and would be curious what you folks think.

In previous post I suggested that if games learn to better tell stories it would be better as an artform. What I am asking myself is if storytelling is game's strength. While a lot of art does focus on some form of storytelling not all does.

Music, for example, is mostly a non-narrative medium. Music CAN tell a story - Strauss' Symphonic Poems are an obvious example, and there are of course songs, which music is written to enhance usually already written poem. There are also Operas which have plot, but I think it is safe to say that if one judged those by the quality of their "writing" in a literaturaly sense they wouldn't have gained much acclaim.

Most of music is plot free - it doesn't mean it's not expressive nor doesn't say anything, quite the opposite, but story, plot or settings are just not things music really benefits from due to its nature.

What I am wondering is if gaming is similar. Sure good writing and nicely directed cutscenes can be compelling but is it really doing what games are best at? Isn't it how the game plays that is (and should?) be a primary way of communication? I think that while a well chosen theme for a game can make it easier to engage (the same way modern composers will often add titles these days which may/may not have actual relevance to pieces creation, in attempt to make it easier for the audience to connect with their piece) how much significance does a setting, theme or story really has?

That line of thinking might of course lead to conclusion that games like Pentiment are bad as their way of communicating doesn't come from gameplay - though at the same time act of watching a game is still a unique experience, different from watching a film. So perhaps it's a bit more complicated as that - "old" arts (plays, writing, music, paintings) are much more focused though even in those one can see attempts to merge arts together. Perhaps games are just a melting pot of different artforms, and games can lean into whatever they find useful.

[xzar_monty]

22 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

In previous post I suggested that if games learn to better tell stories it would be better as an artform. What I am asking myself is if storytelling is game's strength. While a lot of art does focus on some form of storytelling not all does.

Games are not an art form, they are games. They would be an art form if the player was just a recipient, not a participant in shaping how it all turns out. A work of art is finished when it gets to its recipient, whereas a game will only begin at that point.

Games don't have to have any story (think poker, chess, or a million others), but if they do, they can potentially be superb at it. Think of BG2, PoE or Deadfire. For me, the excitement of those games relied on the story. Nothing against the battles, gaining XP and all that, but the story was the main thing. This is demonstrated by the fact that once I played the game to the end and knew the story, much of my interest was gone. I don't replay much, although it does happen.

The storytelling in the games mentioned above is not particularly great if you compare it to good literature; it is somewhere at the genre fantasy level, I'd say, but the fact that you can shape the story makes it more interesting, to me, than reading books like that, which I never do anymore.

I'm all for games with (hopefully good) stories; in fact they tend to be the only games I play. Disco Elysium was a very story-heavy game, and it's the most enjoyable game of these recent years for me. I think it's just wonderful. It didn't matter one bit that there wasn't a single classic battle encounter in it (or perhaps just one, if you count that one thing...).

I am very excited about Pentiment, which I haven't played yet, at all, although I installed it yesterday.

Edited November 16, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Wormerine]

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Games are not an art form, they are games. They would be an art form if the player was just a recipient, not a participant in shaping how it all turns out. A work of art is finished when it gets to its recipient, whereas a game will only begin at that point.

(...)

The storytelling in the games mentioned above is not particularly great if you compare it to good literature; it is somewhere at the genre fantasy level, I'd say, but the fact that you can shape the story makes it more interesting, to me, than reading books like that, which I never do anymore.

 

Interactivity in a narrative is a funny thing - I do think I have been liking Obsidian's work more then the competition partially because at some point they managed to figure out how to incorporate player choice into the core of the narrative (I don't feel that way about BioWare games - I don't think watching those would be that much different then playing them).

Your opening point, though, is very thought provoking. I do question, though, how much input players really have. I don't think player's input have transformative quality - everyone's experience of playing the game will be unique, but not different - in the same way people may take out different things from a book/film/music but they all experience the same thing. Is playing a game truly that much different then consuming other medium? I honestly, don't have a stance now. Will be thinking of it as I play.

Edited November 16, 2022 by Wormerine

[xzar_monty]

33 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

Your opening point, though, is very thought provoking. I do question, though, how much input players really have. I don't think player's input have transformative quality - everyone's experience of playing the game will be unique, but not different - in the same way people may take out different things from a book/film/music but they all experience the same thing. Is playing a game truly that much different then consuming other medium? I honestly, don't have a stance now. Will be thinking of it as I play.

There is a fundamental difference. It is true that people take different things from, say, a movie, but the movie is the same for everyone. The game, however, is different for each player, and each separate game for the same player is also different. A game is not a fixed entity. People don't consume games, either, they participate in them, which also highlights this fundamental difference.

Games may have artistic qualities -- for instance, chess pieces can be really quite beautiful and a marvelously crafted rook, for example, may be regarded as a specimen of Xth century Chinese design -- but the game itself, as an entity, is fundamentally different from a work of art.

[Wormerine]

27 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

The game, however, is different for each player, and each separate game for the same player is also different. A game is not a fixed entity. People don't consume games, either, they participate in them, which also highlights this fundamental difference.

I suppose that is true.

I am thinking of live performances - one performance of Hamlet or Beethoven will vary greatly from another but those are differences in actors/musicians interpretation, or characteristics of a venue rather then consumers participation. I can also think of some pieces of music with random element (pages can be played on any order) but that's more of an Avant Garde and still strictly in control of composer/performers.

Thanks for the conversation.

[UrbaNebula]

18 hours ago, Boeroer said:

There were some reviews which mentioned this a well. Maybe there will be a patch that fixes this (if enough players share this opinion).

Edited November 16, 2022 by UrbaNebula

[UrbaNebula]

OK, I dunno why my text isn't appearing in my post: