When the monk speaks, we see his words in neat, precise handwriting. The baron speaks in graceful curls, the villager in thick drafts. It’s the kind of detail that makes for wonderful role-playing pentiment drags you from the first moment into the heady transitional period between handwritten text and printing press, Catholicism and Protestantism, Middle Ages and Renaissance. Not exactly a usual topic for a game, but the skilled role-play makers of game developer Obsidian have proven time and time again that their remarkable eye produces special games.
Pentiment can join that list. The approach and the matching drawing style, inspired by books illustrated by monks, translate into a fascinating game with a strong sense of history.
You play Andreas Maler, a student from a wealthy Nuremberg family, who has broken off his university education to learn a trade as a traveling artist. He settles in the Bavarian village of Tassing to work as a miniaturist – maker of illustrations – in the local abbey. The political and religious turmoil of the era slowly penetrates Tassing at first, but when a baron with Lutheran sympathies is murdered in the abbey, the peace begins to show cracks.
Who killed the baron? As a player you do research, armed with academic knowledge that you determine as a player. You talk to the villagers and the monks of the abbey, and in this way you build up a picture of the complex relationships and tensions in this community. But, they also build up an image of who Andreas is. What you do and say as ‘your’ Andreas can have far-reaching consequences for the local population.
As a player you therefore feel enormous pressure to make the right choices. Andreas does not have enough time to go after every clue, because you can only fully investigate one per day. If you share dinner with the right person, you could just hear that one, oh so important piece of information. But what do you do when a crying widow also asks you to join her at the table because she is lonely?
It’s a very interesting approach for a game, which works doubly well because the game never reveals the culprit. You are dependent on your own insights and sense of justice. Doubt reigns. The last act becomes somewhat esoteric, and the pace is slow. Yet, when the credits roll across the screen, you yearn for one more try: with more understanding, more knowledge, and more love for the people of Tassing.