I am a history teacher, and getting people to understand what the Holy Roman Empire is/was/continues to be is a challenge. I really enjoyed Pentiment and the possibility of more historically minded games!
As an early modern historian I agree. People are so used to the idea of the modern state as a given that they forget it only existed less than two hundred years ago. Thus people often see entities like the Holy Roman Empire as nonsensical because it didn’t fit the categories we use to describe states today.
Josh Sawyer doing videos like this is like Orson Welles talking about how he made Citizen Kane in 1941 Thank you Josh for making amazing games that will be considered part of the golden age of gaming.
Pentiment is a Great game. Always loved history and fantasy and have been waiting for a game like this. And since i am not a native english speaker i also use it to improve my english. Playing pentiment and replaying pillars of eternity and writing down every english word i still don't know 👍😀
Absolutely love Pentiment, easily my game of the year 2022. I'm from and living in Germany (although not Bavaria) but have direct family from there and Austria, and as someone who usually only gets to experience other countries and cultures in video games it was a pleasant surprise to engage with my own, albeit mostly fictional, and which for once was not about WWII. After finishing the game I've kind of went down a rabbit hole and even traveled to Nuremberg for a couple of days to visit the Albrecht-Dürer-Haus, the castle, the German national museum and a few of the many churches while I was there last spring. They had a lot of old manuscript pages laid out in the exhibitions, really beautiful stuff. Even though Dürer was (or still is) part of any art class in German schools at some point, I realized that I hardly knew most of his work besides a handful. It was a fun and educational trip and I never would have thought of visiting before playing Pentiment, so thank you. :) Great and informative talk as well, I love learning about how much preparation and research went into the game. And I for one definitely wouldn't mind another about fonts and lettering only, haha. Viele Grüße!
Outside the history aspect, which is great, I'm also enamored by the actual gameplay itself. The way it manages to feel like an in depth rpg without having to worry about stats or combat, and how it manages to feel like a strong narrative without being a book with moving pictures
Very enlightening talk! Pentiment was one of my favourite games of the past few years so it was cool to see how you guys approached the historical aspects of it.
Pentiment proved you can make a great game with deep meaning and not have be some AAA funded, rushed release, dlc-filled slop. I'd love to see more devs go this route in the future.
Thanks so much for uploading this - I was so sad I couldn't justify going to Prague to see it irl, and it's always a delight to see your thought process and transparency behind the game. I love the split you make between "adaptation" and "fiction" and the different research pedigrees each derive from - I've been thinking about a lot recently about "adaptation" as a generative process for historical story-worlds and the wizardry of game world design, and your thoughts here have helped clarify mine!
Just wanted to say thank you for Pentiment. You and everyone that made it put so much love and care into every aspect and created something truly wonderful. One of the best of all time.
Been waiting for this upload since you alluded to it on Twitter! I and many others cannot fully express our appreciation for you, Josh, as an artist, a thinker, and a teacher. Thank you.
Unfortunately the game isn't available in Russia, so I had to find "ways" to obtain it, but once it's possible to get it properly, I'll pay my credit to this great work! An impressive presentation too.
OMG ED KERN SHOUTOUT AT 36:06!! Professor Kern was one of my favorite history professors at Lawrence, I just graduated recently. It's so cool to see another LU grad doing cool stuff. You're a big inspiration to many in my class!
Hi Josh, I just wanted to tell you that I'm from the Czech Republic, very close to Austrian border. I absolutely loved Pentiment, it's the most impactful game I played last year! Gave it a couple of gos and I'm going to do another run this year. The story is amazing. Please keep making games like that and I'll keep on buying them!
I really loved this game and have been working my way through many of the titles you name as a reference. In the name of the Rose was great if a bit challenging for me at times but it rekindled my joy in audiobooks, and Night in the woods was a great game I played with my partner. This game also made me go back and reread the Pillars of the Earth just to have the better perspective of how the monastery is laid out visually in my head.
Thanks for the talk, Josh. Very interesting and I definitely hope you get more chances to do historical fiction in the future. Looking forward to learning of whatever game is next for you!
Thank you for posting these talks on UA-cam - I follow you on Twitch, but I normally don't have time to stay for a whole stream and I would hate to miss interesting discussions like this.
Thank you for doing a session of this talk on YT,Josh. Pentiment's story is something else,I remember having goosebumps when I realized that the game's tone gradually shifted. Also,it's been a very long time since Hotel Dusk for Nintendo DS that a game's character personalities shine even without voice over work.
Thank you for the wonderful upload! Have been a fan of your work since Fallout:New Vegas. Its so interesting to see how you made use of your expertise in setting things straight for Pentiment, incredibly solid foundations. Kudos to you and everyone at Obsidian i hope you guys continue to make wonderfully thoughtful games.
Thank you for the great talk! I would be very interested to hear more about the mechanics of Pentiment and how these helped (or hindered :) this history and fiction mix.
I just got the game the other day and eager to try it; unrelated but POE 1 and 2 are my favourite CRPGs ever. I hope you will be able to make another game in beloved Eora! You were chosen by the gods to do so!
I'm a relative of Natalie Zemon Davis and I was sooooo tickled by the Martin Guerre reference. We are doing a memorial for her this coming summer and I will be encouraging the whole family to check the game out! I truly loved it, best game I ever played.
I studied art history in college, some of the most fun classes I took were just like this video. also as someone who wants to write historical fiction someday, this is invaluable. thanks, man.
This make me want to see Josh stream Tactics Ogre Reborn, seeing how Matsuno had a lot of real historical events inspirations (even going all the way to late 20th century) despite being a fully fictional world
A fortunate stroke of serendipity led me to this video (I didn’t know you had a UA-cam channel 😅), to no one’s surprise, it’s fantastic. I played Pentiment as soon as it launched, to say I was utterly captivated by the - mainly - Nuremberg Chronicle art style, the story itself and the plethora of real-life obscure things I learned about years ago (e.g. the Philobiblon, herbs used by apothecaries and the fun section of the game where you must grab some jars of them, etc.) that were included in many sections of the video game is quite the understatement, all of it had an impact on me that few video games have had on me (I’ve been a gamer since I was a kid, I used to play Halo, Metroid Prime and co. in English when my native tongue is Spanish [without video games, I probably would’ve never become fluent in English, I am a firm believer that their educational value is immense]). ❦ Years ago, during the worst stage of my life, I spent more than two years away from any truthful positive thought, to distract myself from focusing on the negative feelings I ceaselessly had, I ventured into many rabbit holes that pertained to historical stuff, I began being an autodidact in ancient languages such as Classical Latin, Old Norse, Náhuatl, etc., I started devouring PDFs about medieval art, calligraphy, rhetoric, etc.; my parents made me be an avid reader and philomath as a kid but time passed and I abandoned such a custom, however, I returned to it during my most heartbroken days as a form of therapy and boy did it help, not only did I manage to overcome my depression, I became a much better man. Fast forward to the launch of Pentiment, I had already achieved obtaining a professional degree to then become a teacher of some of the aforementioned subjects in a nice school I was once a student of, the launch of the game coincided with one of my happiest days in recent memory because I was able to regain contact with an old friend of mine during that morning. As I progressed through the game while I pulled an all-nighter given how enchanted I was by it, many of the things I stumbled upon made me reminisce about those dark days but, instead of feeling sad, I felt fulfilled, I could revisit those moments during a vastly better present being fully aware of how far I had gotten to in life and how much better my life was overall, my own - good and bad - experiences combined with the quality and attention to detail of the game made me feel like my past was acknowledged, for that I will forever be grateful to you and your colleagues, you all poured your heart into this and it shows. Video games are art and I consider Pentiment to be your magnum opus, Joshua, the good thing about that is that you still seem quite energic and interested in your craft so I am confident in stating that you’ll quite likely keep sharing with us more excellent works, I am looking forward to that, in the meantime, I hope that others out there like me can allow themselves to venture into this great experience.
Pentiment shows that given 100% artistic freedom, someone with Mr Sawyer's baggage can craft a hell of a game. I would still contribute to a crowdfund if Mr Sawyer is the designer from the very beginning and that everything happens on his own terms, unlike the conditions that led to project Eternity.
Great video Joshua! One quick question about Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. Were you using this game as inspiration, or was it entirely based on other sources? I just wanted to ask, as it felt very similar in many aspects to Pentiment while playing, in immersion, timelapse story, dark background mystery that is resolved towards the end, a life work of an artist, this time around an architect.
The spoon in the hat reminds me of the Witcher 3 villain Gaunter O' Dimm who shoves a spoon through a random guy's head in a tavern. Maybe unconnected but funny coincidence in that case.
Josh, regarding the fact that scriptoriums were less common in 1518, what about setting the story a bit earlier than that? Was that a feasible option? Would love to know what was pulling the story setting towards 1518 specifically. Thanks for the talk!
There are themes in the game about the transtion to the modern period, the tassing at the end of the game is a very diffrent one than the begining. Im guessing so they can show a more dramatic time change is why. Also events in the game are insipred by history at the time with the german peasents war, the protesant reformation is also important.
nice video josh - but wheres the 1 hour video of you cuddling that cute kitty cat of yours while you whisper fun facts about new vegas into its ears? 😊😊
Joshua what are your opinions on Chris Avellone? You are both very talented writers (although imo you are the better of the two in terms of consistently engaging and grounded characters, dialogue and worldbuilding) but I want to know your thoughts on his particularly philosophical style of writing and how you two collaborated on New Vegas (with Gonzales of course)
Josh, I gotta ask what is that painting at 16:35. I have a print of it at home I got from the Last place I worked at before the building got demolished..
Will you ever make another AAA game? There are a lot of AAA games I feel like a AAA game made by Josh Sawyer is like my ultimate game. You guys did amazing with FNV despite having less than 18 months which is absurd. I don't want to die wondering how a MS funded AAA 5-6 year dev cycle game led by Josh Sawyer could look like. I feel like you don't get the adoration you deserve from gamers and a AAA game could be it.
Napoleon killed the HRE and they didn't mention any of that in the movie (theatrical cut), I wonder what Josh thinks about Bonaparte being the one who dismantled his (seemingly) beloved HRE.
I am a history teacher, and getting people to understand what the Holy Roman Empire is/was/continues to be is a challenge. I really enjoyed Pentiment and the possibility of more historically minded games!
Have you checked out The Forgotten City? If you haven't you really should
As an early modern historian I agree. People are so used to the idea of the modern state as a given that they forget it only existed less than two hundred years ago. Thus people often see entities like the Holy Roman Empire as nonsensical because it didn’t fit the categories we use to describe states today.
Josh Sawyer doing videos like this is like Orson Welles talking about how he made Citizen Kane in 1941
Thank you Josh for making amazing games that will be considered part of the golden age of gaming.
I am from Bavaria, so i might be biased. But i wanted to say, that i absolutely loved this game.
So thaks for making it.
I could listen to this guy for hours. Very well articulated
Pentiment is a Great game. Always loved history and fantasy and have been waiting for a game like this. And since i am not a native english speaker i also use it to improve my english. Playing pentiment and replaying pillars of eternity and writing down every english word i still don't know 👍😀
Absolutely love Pentiment, easily my game of the year 2022. I'm from and living in Germany (although not Bavaria) but have direct family from there and Austria, and as someone who usually only gets to experience other countries and cultures in video games it was a pleasant surprise to engage with my own, albeit mostly fictional, and which for once was not about WWII.
After finishing the game I've kind of went down a rabbit hole and even traveled to Nuremberg for a couple of days to visit the Albrecht-Dürer-Haus, the castle, the German national museum and a few of the many churches while I was there last spring. They had a lot of old manuscript pages laid out in the exhibitions, really beautiful stuff. Even though Dürer was (or still is) part of any art class in German schools at some point, I realized that I hardly knew most of his work besides a handful. It was a fun and educational trip and I never would have thought of visiting before playing Pentiment, so thank you. :)
Great and informative talk as well, I love learning about how much preparation and research went into the game. And I for one definitely wouldn't mind another about fonts and lettering only, haha. Viele Grüße!
You’re probably tired of hearing about New Vegas but between that and Pentiment, you have given me a great deal of respect towards history.
Outside the history aspect, which is great, I'm also enamored by the actual gameplay itself. The way it manages to feel like an in depth rpg without having to worry about stats or combat, and how it manages to feel like a strong narrative without being a book with moving pictures
Very enlightening talk! Pentiment was one of my favourite games of the past few years so it was cool to see how you guys approached the historical aspects of it.
>
Pentiment proved you can make a great game with deep meaning and not have be some AAA funded, rushed release, dlc-filled slop.
I'd love to see more devs go this route in the future.
Thanks so much for uploading this - I was so sad I couldn't justify going to Prague to see it irl, and it's always a delight to see your thought process and transparency behind the game. I love the split you make between "adaptation" and "fiction" and the different research pedigrees each derive from - I've been thinking about a lot recently about "adaptation" as a generative process for historical story-worlds and the wizardry of game world design, and your thoughts here have helped clarify mine!
watching this after Super Bunnyhop's excellent Pentiment analysis should be interesting
Just wanted to say thank you for Pentiment. You and everyone that made it put so much love and care into every aspect and created something truly wonderful. One of the best of all time.
Pentiment felt like such a passion project. It was an absolute joy to play through.
Been waiting for this upload since you alluded to it on Twitter! I and many others cannot fully express our appreciation for you, Josh, as an artist, a thinker, and a teacher. Thank you.
Unfortunately the game isn't available in Russia, so I had to find "ways" to obtain it, but once it's possible to get it properly, I'll pay my credit to this great work! An impressive presentation too.
You obtained it the russian way.
Always love when you do these presentations/talks, Josh. Thanks for uploading this!
Mr. Sawyer, I just wanted to say that your work has been life enriching and I appreciate what you do
OMG ED KERN SHOUTOUT AT 36:06!! Professor Kern was one of my favorite history professors at Lawrence, I just graduated recently. It's so cool to see another LU grad doing cool stuff. You're a big inspiration to many in my class!
Josh you're my favorite person in the gaming industry and I want you to know that. Keep making awesome stuff
Man I can’t wait to sit down and devour this. Pentiment was my game of the year when it came out.
Pentiment is/was fantastic. It gives me hope that Microsoft would still green light such a niche game.
Hi Josh, I just wanted to tell you that I'm from the Czech Republic, very close to Austrian border. I absolutely loved Pentiment, it's the most impactful game I played last year! Gave it a couple of gos and I'm going to do another run this year. The story is amazing. Please keep making games like that and I'll keep on buying them!
This is where it's at, I love movies and games with this approach to history.
I really loved this game and have been working my way through many of the titles you name as a reference. In the name of the Rose was great if a bit challenging for me at times but it rekindled my joy in audiobooks, and Night in the woods was a great game I played with my partner.
This game also made me go back and reread the Pillars of the Earth just to have the better perspective of how the monastery is laid out visually in my head.
Great lecture brother, loved your breakdown on the biases that can be found in primary sources at the start
Always really happy when you post another talk! Fascinating stuff, especially as a huge Eco (and Pentiment) fan
Thanks for the talk, Josh. Very interesting and I definitely hope you get more chances to do historical fiction in the future. Looking forward to learning of whatever game is next for you!
Great talk! Always great to see these presentations
always adore these talks!
many thanks for archiving these here
Thank you for posting these talks on UA-cam - I follow you on Twitch, but I normally don't have time to stay for a whole stream and I would hate to miss interesting discussions like this.
Loved Pentiment. One of my favorite games of that year.
Thank you for doing a session of this talk on YT,Josh. Pentiment's story is something else,I remember having goosebumps when I realized that the game's tone gradually shifted. Also,it's been a very long time since Hotel Dusk for Nintendo DS that a game's character personalities shine even without voice over work.
Thank you for the wonderful upload! Have been a fan of your work since Fallout:New Vegas. Its so interesting to see how you made use of your expertise in setting things straight for Pentiment, incredibly solid foundations. Kudos to you and everyone at Obsidian i hope you guys continue to make wonderfully thoughtful games.
You've enabled me to the best worst kind of person, and tell people that Napoleon isn't really French like I've known that for years.
Managed to catch the end of this on stream :)
Thank you for the talk!
Thank you for sharing this amazing video! I’m always interested in writing historical fiction myself someday, and your video really inspires me a lot.
Great talk, pentiment rules, we need more games like pentiment
Thank you. This was a fantastic watch.
Thank you for the great talk! I would be very interested to hear more about the mechanics of Pentiment and how these helped (or hindered :) this history and fiction mix.
Thank you! Please do more of this!
Thanks for sharing the talk!
This was great. I'd gladly take more talks about this and/or other historical research for video games.
Servus! A great lecture in Game Design an its process. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and to be able to learn from you.
I just got the game the other day and eager to try it; unrelated but POE 1 and 2 are my favourite CRPGs ever. I hope you will be able to make another game in beloved Eora! You were chosen by the gods to do so!
I'm a relative of Natalie Zemon Davis and I was sooooo tickled by the Martin Guerre reference. We are doing a memorial for her this coming summer and I will be encouraging the whole family to check the game out! I truly loved it, best game I ever played.
I studied art history in college, some of the most fun classes I took were just like this video. also as someone who wants to write historical fiction someday, this is invaluable. thanks, man.
Brilliant video and brilliant game!
Thanks for waiting to upload this until I finished Pentiment on game pass last night :)
This make me want to see Josh stream Tactics Ogre Reborn, seeing how Matsuno had a lot of real historical events inspirations (even going all the way to late 20th century) despite being a fully fictional world
Josh, thank you and good work.
A fortunate stroke of serendipity led me to this video (I didn’t know you had a UA-cam channel 😅), to no one’s surprise, it’s fantastic.
I played Pentiment as soon as it launched, to say I was utterly captivated by the - mainly - Nuremberg Chronicle art style, the story itself and the plethora of real-life obscure things I learned about years ago (e.g. the Philobiblon, herbs used by apothecaries and the fun section of the game where you must grab some jars of them, etc.) that were included in many sections of the video game is quite the understatement, all of it had an impact on me that few video games have had on me (I’ve been a gamer since I was a kid, I used to play Halo, Metroid Prime and co. in English when my native tongue is Spanish [without video games, I probably would’ve never become fluent in English, I am a firm believer that their educational value is immense]).
❦
Years ago, during the worst stage of my life, I spent more than two years away from any truthful positive thought, to distract myself from focusing on the negative feelings I ceaselessly had, I ventured into many rabbit holes that pertained to historical stuff, I began being an autodidact in ancient languages such as Classical Latin, Old Norse, Náhuatl, etc., I started devouring PDFs about medieval art, calligraphy, rhetoric, etc.; my parents made me be an avid reader and philomath as a kid but time passed and I abandoned such a custom, however, I returned to it during my most heartbroken days as a form of therapy and boy did it help, not only did I manage to overcome my depression, I became a much better man.
Fast forward to the launch of Pentiment, I had already achieved obtaining a professional degree to then become a teacher of some of the aforementioned subjects in a nice school I was once a student of, the launch of the game coincided with one of my happiest days in recent memory because I was able to regain contact with an old friend of mine during that morning. As I progressed through the game while I pulled an all-nighter given how enchanted I was by it, many of the things I stumbled upon made me reminisce about those dark days but, instead of feeling sad, I felt fulfilled, I could revisit those moments during a vastly better present being fully aware of how far I had gotten to in life and how much better my life was overall, my own - good and bad - experiences combined with the quality and attention to detail of the game made me feel like my past was acknowledged, for that I will forever be grateful to you and your colleagues, you all poured your heart into this and it shows.
Video games are art and I consider Pentiment to be your magnum opus, Joshua, the good thing about that is that you still seem quite energic and interested in your craft so I am confident in stating that you’ll quite likely keep sharing with us more excellent works, I am looking forward to that, in the meantime, I hope that others out there like me can allow themselves to venture into this great experience.
This video coming out spurred me to finish pentiment so I could watch the video without being scared of spoilers!
im from czech and missed this totally so THANKS for this!
this game rocks
I didn't see anuything on twitter. Glad the YT algorithm is at least doing some its job!
My partner and I think you should make a bike shop game next! If you need to present this comment to Feargus to get it to happen, we're okay with that
JSAWYER UPLOADED LETS GOOOO
Pentiment shows that given 100% artistic freedom, someone with Mr Sawyer's baggage can craft a hell of a game. I would still contribute to a crowdfund if Mr Sawyer is the designer from the very beginning and that everything happens on his own terms, unlike the conditions that led to project Eternity.
Great video Joshua! One quick question about Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. Were you using this game as inspiration, or was it entirely based on other sources? I just wanted to ask, as it felt very similar in many aspects to Pentiment while playing, in immersion, timelapse story, dark background mystery that is resolved towards the end, a life work of an artist, this time around an architect.
LETS GOOOOO
The spoon in the hat reminds me of the Witcher 3 villain Gaunter O' Dimm who shoves a spoon through a random guy's head in a tavern. Maybe unconnected but funny coincidence in that case.
JS! I USED TO LOVE YOUR GAMES
Love the video. Have you ever wanted to make a game similar to Kingdom Come Deliverance but with Obsidian tools?
Josh, regarding the fact that scriptoriums were less common in 1518, what about setting the story a bit earlier than that? Was that a feasible option? Would love to know what was pulling the story setting towards 1518 specifically. Thanks for the talk!
There are themes in the game about the transtion to the modern period, the tassing at the end of the game is a very diffrent one than the begining. Im guessing so they can show a more dramatic time change is why. Also events in the game are insipred by history at the time with the german peasents war, the protesant reformation is also important.
nice video josh - but wheres the 1 hour video of you cuddling that cute kitty cat of yours while you whisper fun facts about new vegas into its ears? 😊😊
Joshua what are your opinions on Chris Avellone? You are both very talented writers (although imo you are the better of the two in terms of consistently engaging and grounded characters, dialogue and worldbuilding) but I want to know your thoughts on his particularly philosophical style of writing and how you two collaborated on New Vegas (with Gonzales of course)
This was fucking awesome! Please let me come work for you I’ll do anything !
should have watched this before making a game
YES who could forget 9:45 ❤
wise
Josh, I gotta ask what is that painting at 16:35. I have a print of it at home I got from the Last place I worked at before the building got demolished..
Maybe you have already, but if you haven’t, can do A brief video on your experience on Gauntlet Seven Sorrows?
Will you ever make another AAA game? There are a lot of AAA games I feel like a AAA game made by Josh Sawyer is like my ultimate game. You guys did amazing with FNV despite having less than 18 months which is absurd. I don't want to die wondering how a MS funded AAA 5-6 year dev cycle game led by Josh Sawyer could look like. I feel like you don't get the adoration you deserve from gamers and a AAA game could be it.
Silver fox.
1:05:00 What's funny is that even amongst my most liberal of friends romani are seen with disdain
:{ D
do you regret not setting this in the pillars of eternity universe? it could be an awesome companion peace to help with world building
potentially great game that remained full of big bugs for months, sadly
Napoleon killed the HRE and they didn't mention any of that in the movie (theatrical cut), I wonder what Josh thinks about Bonaparte being the one who dismantled his (seemingly) beloved HRE.
You should grow your beard out, I miss the bearded Josh of yesteryear.
he grows it out seasonally for warmth, unless that's changed 😊