Uh oh. I’m a super slow reader, does it auto progress or do you tap to continue?
Protondb informed me that if you change the name of one DLL, it runs on (non-Steam Deck) Linux. I did, and it did. So weird. How do these guys figure this stuff out?!
(And great to know that it’s verified on Steam Deck!)
You click/tap to continue to the next set of text, based on what I’ve done. Or, it is certainly slow enough that I had plenty of time to read, even wait a bit, before clicking to move on. But I’m also a decently fast reader.
I’m loving what I see of the game so far, before I was interrupted by my cat asking for her evening treats. I like that choices or dialogue that will have a later impact have banners that inform you after you’ve made the choice. Makes me wonder what I’ve gotten myself into each time.
Only played for an hour or so, but so far really enjoying it. There hasn’t been any real game yet, just walking around and talking to people. It’s all been on rails so far, as I haven’t been able to stray from the path. Enjoying the story, the art, and the background info it’s providing. It’s very well done, music is sparse, so you spend a lot of time listening to background sounds and the pen-on-parchment noise that so people will hate.
Definitely not a game for most people, but it looks like if you like adventure-type games and history, this could be a lot of fun.
Dialogue speed change didn’t work for me, I assumed it was bugged. I’ll try again
On the PC, if I click while the script is writing, it jumps to the end of the script and waits for the second click to go to the next wave of dialogue. I can’t say how it works on other platforms but that makes it possible to move ahead if you find it too slow.
I don’t have any issue with the speed of it, though. It gives me the opportunity to voice the characters in my head, if I so choose, or to jump through if I’m eager to move along. They seem to have worked out a good balance.
I do appreciate the lack of music. I read books in silence and games that have a focus on reading, like Pentiment, mesh well when they offer the same style.
My only concern right now is that I’ve yet to figure out if I should do my usual thorough exploring or behave like I think Andreas would based on his background.
I didn’t notice the writing speed until I read this thread. I am not very far yet, so this will probably change, but I just enjoy the art/atmosphere so much that I don’t notice things like that.
I think the writing speed is good. I also like the little touches like holy words being held in reverence and appearing later, or the typos being corrected. The standard speed works well for me.
I’ve enjoyed the choices you can make about your character. I wonder how much they will influence the game. What has everyone chosen? Being Belgian, one of the choices was natural for me.
I chose:
Residence: Italy
Hobby: Bookworm
Studies: Medicine
Subjects: Logician and Orator
Seeing how your background and choices build up to influence your success in dialogue, like when trying to convince someone, really lends weight to what you say and do at every step of the way.
I chose the same options except I went with Hedonist for a hobby.
I haven’t gotten a chance to dive in on this, but it seems right up my street.
In the meantime, though, this was a really cool read on the fonts of Pentiment, which were custom-created by Lettermatic for the game.
Been playing this quite a bit. The characters and writing are very well done and it’s easy to become attached to them.
The twist at the end of the second part of the game really took
I just finished the final act. Some thoughts below (no story spoilers, though I blurred it anyway).
Like The Forgotten City and Immortality, I think this game had amazing characters and story, but ultimately failed to really push the narrative as far as I wanted. I think all three deserved better endings. We need more games that really try to push the medium more (like the crazy story in Inscryption, for instance). I realize that making games is complicated and takes a lot of time and effort, but there was so much potential in those games with not enough payoff in the end.
That being said, like those other games I mentioned, it is still a great game. I really loved the characters and the world of the game and was sad to be ripped away from it so soon (took me about 14 hours to finish). I think that the narrative could have been further developed, though I guess we should be happy that the game was made at all. I really REALLY hope that many people buy/play the game and that some kind of sequel or related game gets greenlit.
Was about to write a ‘when does this get good?’ post, but then played another hour and it got good.
I am only a handful of hours in and already badly regret some of the decisions I have made in this game. I started out wanting to be a nice guy to as many characters as possible, but I make decisions emotionally and then get almost everyone offside.
It’s one thing I love about Pentiment: there’s not just one decision that goes into determining if something else happens down the road. There can a dozen different decisions that have an impact. That means that, although there’s an optimal path, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to manage it by acting the same way to everyone in every instance.
Put a couple of hours into this today and finished the first day. Looking forward to playing on! A couple of things:
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The journal has some messy bugs, particularly on the glossary section where I’m seeing entries duplicated or clashing with each other. Some pages do correct themselves when new entries are unlocked though. It’s a shame that this was missed in testing since they had no real commercial pressure to develop or release this. I’m sure it will get cleaned up in a patch but oh well…
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I’ve seen a couple of occasions where when an NPC is speaking their dialogue will be “erased” and then rewritten in a new font. At first I thought it was a bug, but then it happened again when I spoke with Til the shepherd, and I suspect it’s intentional - when Maler learns something about a character (in Til’s case, that he can read), the font changes as Maler’s estimation of the character’s standing in the world is itself changed by new information. What do you guys think about this?
Yes! I love how the game uses the writing to express more about the characters. Imagine how flat it would be just reading it in a default style. It’s very well done.
I suspect there’s more to the fonts and the way the script is presented than even this. The number and type of errors in the script seem to be indicative of education, temperament, or just their current emotional state, for instance. Using colour for emphasis, or splatters or shaking text to reflect extreme anger or agitation, is brilliant.
Anyone see a write-up on the meaning of all the script nuances? I like that it comes across naturally without having to read a description to understand it, but it might be good to review what they wanted it to express vs. what I interpreted after my first game.
I’ve only passed through Chapter 1 into Chapter 2, now about 6.5 hours into it. I feel that I could have done more in Chapter 1 if I understood the use of time a bit better. When the game suggested I go eat or sleep, for instance, I would do so until I realized those were times I should have accomplished other tasks first.
I haven’t played very much of the game yet at all (hopefully later today!) but in the (somewhat spoilerish for the early game) BTS video Obsidian and Josh Sawyer made about the making of Pentiment (which I now see you posted up-thread!), the font style is (I’ll blur it) Andreas’s perception of the character he’s talking to. So the font is either Andreas’s perception of that person’s standing in society, or it may reflect real and actual changes in that person’s class or status over the time of the game. I think the amount of misspelling and erasing is also reflective of status, perhaps?
(That’s probably not any kind of spoiler, really, but just out of caution…)
Friends Per Second interview Pentiment director Josh Sawyer
@Bobtree That’s a great interview. Thanks for posting.
@triggercut Yep, the font style aspect is one of the more obvious features. It’s the subtle parts, like the errors, that I wonder if mean more than they do on the surface. Maybe that’ll come clearer in the rest of the game.