Episode 167 - Narrative Nancy - Pentiment

Pod bless you, Andreas. Welcome back to the podcast and somehow,
despite it being the middle of the month, not our first game of
Mystery May! Today, we’re going to be talking about Pentiment, an
adventure game in which you play as an artist as he is thrust into
the middle of murder mysteries, however unlikely that might be. In
each act you collect evidence and talk to the people of the town to
gather information and do so in a way that changes the narrative of
the game and the other options available to you. One of the most
impressive elements is just this, the number of different paths
available to you and the often very minor things that can affect a
playthrough and flesh out your version of Andreas, as well as the
world in which he lives. Given the historical setting of the game,
this world building is a major part communicating the themes and
helps ease the player in the politics and other messages the game
is trying to engage with. And it is really successful at this. You
may not learn anything specifically new about the era in which the
game takes place, but you will come out with thoughts about the
peasants’ complaints against their governance, the relationship
between a religious institution and the power of the state, and
other pretty heady topics the game broaches surprisingly
seamlessly. We’re going to be talking about how the game’s art
style attempts to mimic the art that was created during that time
period, the game’s surprisingly solid writing and also the length
of time we can listen to chickens before we just give up and turn
the sound off. Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ll be
slowly rolling through our next few episodes due to things
happening in our lives outside of the podcast, but we will be
moving through four Mystery May games before anything else, and the
first of those is coming next week on Pocket. Next main episode,
however, will be on Infinifactory, so we hope you’ll join us for
that.