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.