Discuss Your Bavarian Adventures

[Keyrock]

Early going, but I'm really enjoying this game so far. The art style is fantastic.

I purposely avoided most information on the game to go into it blind. I'm not sure where the story is going to go, but I went with Rapscallion, Occultism, and Rhetoric with an aim to do some blasphemous scheming if the opportunity presents itself. I'm not going to openly defy the church, but I won't let them push me around either and I'm not above undermining them from the shadows. What could possibly go wrong?

Edit: I managed to convince Sister Illuminata to let me keep the condemned French book because I was eager to help her and I am a skilled orator. I don't know what the book is because I chose Italian as my travels choice, hence I can't read French, but I feel devilish for convincing a nun to turn a blind eye to her duty. 

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Keyrock

[Wormerine]

Enjoying it as well, though only finished the first day. Went with workoholic Flanders. I find it rather natural that artist wouldn't want to anger church, as they tended (and still tend) to be major source of work. He has some ideas, but is careful when and to whom he voices them.

The game already passed a very important quality test:

[Wormerine]

I played a bunch more and finished act1. Ha! Nice to see Disco Elysium reputation put to good use. JS didn't gush over it for nothing. I failed every single one of those.... :-( Actual spoilers below so be weary:

Oh God, no, what a disaster.

I didn't expect for time limit to be so tight. I maybe managed to do maybe 60 percent of what I was hoping to discover? Two threads I explored fully turned out clearly not right threads (though gave me a good idea of town). I didn't touch one thread at all, and discovered enough about the last (Ferenc) one to incriminate but not to discover what it was really about. In desperation I ended up shifting blame unto him - he's been a jerk and potential bad influence though I feel letting Prior take a blame would probably be the fairest option - he is at the end of his life afterall, and true culprit alludes us. But he is such a dear old man. I don't feel great about myself.

I am pretty sure I also managed to piss off almost everyone I could. My attempts to stay nice with the abby fell apart on the last morning, when I woke up late after an ecapade into library and found out that judgement day now. Spend morning aggresively push every avenue I have left hoping to turn another stone.

[Keyrock]

I got into all sorts of deliciously scandalous tomfoolery.

 

I broke into the library at night. I made out with a nun. I got some juicy gossip, including dirt on Ferenc. I made a deal with a thief. I had a grave dug up.

Things are going shockingly well for me so far, but I've been on the edge of disaster several times.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Keyrock

[Wormerine]

Uuu, you manage to do things that I didn’t. 

I didn’t raid the nun, but I saw two priests making out when sneaking into library. I decided to leg it - bad call, perhaps I could have blackmail some info out of them

[kirottu]

I tried to make my Andreas into a Da Vinci sort of guy. So I took bookworm, medicine, logician, and latinist.

The time limit to solve first murder was brutal. I'm pretty sure I ended up blaming the wrong guy, but he was the only one I had even some evidence against.

Oh, and I was six hours in when I realized you can actually click on Andreas though bubbles. 

[Keyrock]

I'm playing my character as the mischievous kind. He's very talented and smart, but he doesn't apply himself. Things have always come easy to him and rather than maximize his own potential, he'd rather go out and get drunk, womanize, break into places he shouldn't be and look at things considered taboo. He's curious and bright, but he has a poor work ethic. This fits in perfectly with Andreas having dropped out of university.

Edit: Finished Act I.

 

I implicated Ferenc. I'm by no means certain he did it, but he's far and away the suspect I had gathered the most evidence against and he had motive, opportunity, and the potential murder weapon.

Lucky seems like an obvious red herring given the argument, his gruff nature, and his great strength. He does have potential motive, but I didn't get to dig deep enough in the time given.

Matilda had motive and opportunity and she's strong enough to have done it, but she seemed earnest and forthcoming when I questioned her. Of course, it's possible she's a good actor, but I believe she didn't do it.

I didn't get a chance to do much digging on the old widow. She had motive but I'm not sure she had the strength. She seemed overjoyed, but genuinely surprised when I told her the baron is dead. Like with Matilda, she could be a good actor, but I doubt she did it.

Martin is sus as ****, but I don't think he's a murderer, just a thief and all around scumbag. Also, the chapter house seems like a very unusual place for him to kill the baron if he were to do it. Had the murder taken place in the guest house I'd be much more suspicious of Martin. Also, had this been a situation where Martin got caught stealing and he panicked and killed the baron, I could buy that. However, this was clearly a premeditated murder, the baron was killed purposely by someone who set up and thought this out.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Keyrock

[kirottu]

I got died. 

[ShadySands]

Game is making my degenerate metagaming tendencies itch

I went Basel, Hedonist, Law, Occult, and Orator

Edited November 18, 2022 by ShadySands

[Keyrock]

I'm conducting my second investigation and applying what I learned in the first one.

Don't do anything that moves the time forward until you've exhausted everything you can do without moving the time forward. This is especially important this time around since the time limit is even shorter.

[algroth]

7 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Game is making my degenerate metagaming tendencies itch

I went Basel, Hedonist, Law, Occult, and Orator

Saaaaame. Jesus, this game makes me feel things due to how easy it is to screw up and just have to deal with the consequences right after. I managed to implicate someone, and my immediate reaction is, I was wrong and I want to follow new leads and see who else I can uncover. But I also think all of my reactions, my emotions and so on in response to the consequence of my decisions are an anxious mess in a really, really good way, like the product of fantastic storytelling. I think we've largely grown used to being fed a power fantasy in games, where we manage to solve the murder, to beat the bad guy, to save the day and so on, without question, that it's hard to fully accept a conclusion (to the first act anyway) like this. And it's interesting because it's opening emotions and sensations that most other games don't dare touch because they don't want to engage their audience in this manner, where there's almost a verdict or accusation about the actions *you* commit as well.

Anyway, this is great so far. It's going places...

[Wormerine]

9 hours ago, algroth said:

 But I also think all of my reactions, my emotions and so on in response to the consequence of my decisions are an anxious mess in a really, really good way, like the product of fantastic storytelling.

No kidding, I took couple days off Pentiment just to process what I have done in act1. I might get back to it tonight.

[Keyrock]

Yeah, I'm still thinking about the first investigation.

 

I'm satisfied with what I did from the standpoint of the evidence really did point toward Ferenc. Of course, my dislike of the man colored my judgement, no doubt. I have a feeling that an innocent is going to die one way or another at the conclusion of that first investigation. I suspect that if you implicate any of the other suspects you are sentencing an innocent to death and if you choose to remain silent then Piero, also innocent, dies. Clearly, someone else is pulling strings from the shadows. That doesn't necessarily make them the murderer, but someone is masterminding this for whatever purpose.

I'm deep into the second investigation and... It's complicated. I got into a crazy adventure involving an ancient cistern and learned some very interesting things.

I love that the game doesn't hold your hand and doesn't spell out for you what you did wrong or right. That's life, you don't always know if you made the right decision. Pentiment reminds me a bit of Paradise Killer in how it doesn't hold your hand, it's up to you to decide what's a real lead and what's a red herring, and you can potentially condemn innocents at the end. I'll take that over most "investigation" games where it's find all the things and then maybe you have a mind map mechanic where you have to connect things, but there's no penalty for making wrong choices, you can just keep trying until the game says "you did it, good job".

Edited November 19, 2022 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

I finished the second investigation. I was really torn up over the decision on who to accuse. Then...

 

I wound up implicating Brother Guy. I didn't feel any more strongly about his motivation and opportunity to kill Otto than Hanna or "Martin", but I thought his other improprieties were more grievous than the other 2, plus I thought it was possible he was also involved in the first murder, possibly the one penning the mysterious letters. Stuff went down and ultimately Andreas died in a fire trying to save books. Now I'm playing as Magdalene years later.[/spoiler]

Edited November 22, 2022 by Keyrock

[algroth]

2 hours ago, Keyrock said:

I finished the second investigation. I was really torn up over the decision on who to accuse. Then...

  Hide contents

I wound up implicating Brother Guy. I didn't feel any more strongly about his motivation and opportunity to kill Otto than Hanna or "Martin", but I thought his other improprieties were more grievous than the other 2, plus I thought it was possible he was also involved in the first murder, possibly the one penning the mysterious letters. Stuff went down and ultimately Andreas died in a fire trying to save books. Now I'm playing as Magdalene years later.[/spoiler]

Spoiler

I wonder if there's a way to save Andreas from dying, or if this is the way it'll always play out. I can see Hanna and Guy being defended by Lendhart but less so Martin, but maybe he too seeks shelter there.

Personally I don't think Guy is the one to be penning the letters - we already know he's incapable of that type of script from what Andreas has observed. But his motive for the murder feels the most plausible. I'm still not fully convinced that he was the one to do it either, however, and feel the 'thread-puller' was likely the killer in both instances. Still unsure as to who he could be.

 

[Wormerine]

Finished act2 precisely same as the above. I would be curious to see how the accusations are spread - I feel most people will gravitate toward the same "lesser evils". On a plus side, I finally succeeded in one speach check. Baby steps.

I must say I got really excited when duke's herald appeared and L'Homme Armé started playing. Just

 

I wonder if the protagonist switch could be avoided if I wouldn't pin both murders on two priests. But maybe Pete would still find within a reason to burn it all.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Wormerine

[Wormerine]

Finally wrapped up the playthrough.

Loved the game with only few caveats - having to run to every NPCs during every story beat to not miss something important has become tiresome after a while, especially in act3. And I found the whodunnit reveal rather awkward. I don't know, but it just didn't land for me like the rest of the game.

Still

death fakeout actually got me, though I wish there were more clues that Andreas is alive. Again feels a bit contrived for such a small community. Also no one to express shock at his survival, which felt off. Did the printer know he was alive? I am not quite clear on that.

I wasn't also a fan of having to decide what to paint on the mural one scene at a time. Just feels irresponsible to make such decisions before having a full picture of the town's history. But I am willing to attribute it to Magda's inexperience.

[Seccussion]

Created and account just to say Thank You for all people, who worked on game. Pentiment was my nr 1 game in 2022 and I just hope, that there will be another story. 
 

here is my tribute video, thank you!