In Pentiment, we can’t help petting the dog, talking to every NPC, and looking up the historical context.
Pentiment is a mystery that can compete with the best. In this game, you play as Andreas Maler, an artist in the town of Tassing in 16th-century Bavaria who is working on his masterpiece. You go to the local monastery every day to improve your craft. On the way, you see the same people, walk the same paths, and get closer to the people in your community. It’s quiet and simple, like a peasant’s life.
Then it won’t be. Pentiment is a murder mystery, after all, and the thing that starts it all throws the whole village into chaos. Who could have done something like that? Who wants to be so violent, and more importantly, who has the stomach for it? You decide to answer these questions, and as you figure out what’s going on, you’ll do certain things.
Good Pets!
Do you want to pet the dog? Thank goodness, yes. Some of the pets of the people who live in Tassing can be found relaxing in front of their homes in Pentiment. Every animal in a video game makes you want to pet it, even though, like real animals, they might not like it. But we have to try, you know? So, when you see fluffy little guys hanging out, you immediately run toward them.
Getting to pet the little furry friends feels like a blessing and a small treat. It takes up a little bit of your time—the animation takes a few seconds to finish—but it’s worth it. Obsidian knew exactly what we wanted and gave it to us with a smile.
Hello, Tassing!
How can you play an adventure game or an Obsidian game with a story if you don’t talk to everyone you meet? In all the years we’ve spent looking for lore, if there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that we just have to be nice to whoever stands in front of us.
That means you have to find everyone and ask them every question you can. We hope we’re not wearing out the people we’re talking to, but if we are, hey, at least it’s for a good cause.
Who Am I, Really?
Andreas can be almost anything you want him to be. This makes us all worry about making the mini-characters. Andreas’s background has a few set options, but you can mix and match them however you like. This includes where he comes from (which affects how familiar he is with cultural landmarks), what he studied in college, and how he approaches his job. All of these things have an effect on how he acts and talks to the people around him.
Your Andreas, who may have studied law, knows about inheritance and property, but he probably feels a little out of place when he has to cut up a body. Depending on where he’s from, he may also speak different languages. All of these things make it hard to make a mini-character, which can be stressful.
Wait, What Does That Mean?
God bless Pentiment for making it easy to find historical facts and contexts. When you see words in red, it means that they have specific meanings that you can quickly look up.
This can be very helpful if you don’t know about a certain custom or myth, but after a while, you’ll be opening the encyclopedia for every highlighted word. Some don’t even give you definitions. If you highlight any form of the word “God,” you go to a page with strange drawings, which fits with the idea that God is hard to understand. You will look anyway, because you can’t help it.
Who’s Coming To Dinner?
In the real world, Andreas doesn’t have to worry about things like having to decide what to eat for dinner every day, like most of us do. He does, however, have to deal with a different source of stress. That is, he seems to be a very popular guy in Tassing, and everyone wants to eat with him.
Sure, being so popular seems cool, but when it comes to what we’re trying to do here, it quickly becomes stressful. For example, if you have dinner with one family, you can’t see the other family for the rest of the day. This could mean you miss out on important information. For people like us who like to finish things, this can be hard to imagine. So we worry about which characters to eat with as if it were a matter of life and death instead of, you know, just another chance to hear some juicy town gossip.
Sorry To Bother You
There’s a split in the road in front of you, but there’s one problem: someone is standing there. Also, the controls can be a little finicky when you’re cycling through the buttons, especially if you’re using a controller, so you may talk to someone a lot when you’re just trying to leave.
You have places to go, but you’re stuck in the same thing. It’s like being in a real conversation that you’re trying to leave: you can’t move, and it seems like you keep hearing the same thing. But don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.
Go Everywhere, Every Day
People move around based on their daily schedules, so you’ll probably end up going from place to place to see what you can see. Sometimes, someone else will tell you a little bit about a place or what they are doing. But sometimes you’re there by yourself, wandering muddy forest paths or creeping around old Roman buildings.
But you do it every day, maybe even more than once, because you never know where a new clue might be hiding. What kind of amateur detective would you be if you didn’t do everything you could? Drift Boss is a distance game where you must drift like a crazy.
Ooooh, Scandalous!
The people here are close and very Christian, and they try to keep scandals of all kinds to a minimum. Andreas is an artist and a well-traveled nomad, and it’s possible that he knows a lot about evil, occult teachings. Or he could just be a strange guy who says strange things. In either case, it’s fun to give him a modern twist and turn him into a scandal.
He’s not rude, but he is a little cheeky. None of the people in the town, including the Brothers, Sisters, and Fathers of the Church, are ready for your smooth talk. Or your strange actions. Give it your all! Or, do a second run that is complete and utter chaos to see how weird you can get. At some point, we all try it.
Audience Of One
Brother Rudeger, one of the monks, will be singing on the first day of your strange journey. His voice echoes through the vaulted ceilings and fills the empty room with a beauty that seems to come from another world.
It makes sense to take a minute or two to watch him sing. Even without sound, it’s clear that Rudeger is in his element from the animations that go with him. So try to enjoy this little bit of peace as long as you can because tomorrow will be worse.
