Josh Sawyer (Pentiment) on Art, History and What Will Be Remembered

May 31

Episode Description

Josh Sawyer is a studio design director for Obsidian Entertainment. He has worked as the director on Pentiment, Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, and Fallout: New Vegas. His most recent title, Pentiment, was nominated for numerous awards including the Nebula for Best Game Writing and Best Narrative and Game of the Year at the Game Developers Choice Awards.

Pentiment is a historical narrative-driven game focusing on character development, heavily stylized art, and choice-driven storytelling in early 16th century Bavaria. Players will play as Andreas Maler, a clever illustrator caught up in a series of murders in Tassing and Kiersau Abbey over the course of twenty five years.

We talked to Josh about how Pentiment came to be, the ways in which Obsidian designed their dialogue choice system to make difficult decisions for the player, and the state of narrative-driven games today.

Hosted by Phillip Russell and Ben Thorp

You can follow Josh Sawyer here.

Visit our website: Originstory.show

Do you have feedback or questions for us? Email us theoriginstorypod@gmail.com

Cover art and website design by Melody Hirsch

Origin Story original score by Ryan Hopper

Phil 0:20

What's good everybody? Welcome to origin story, the podcast that interviews creators about where they came from to understand how they got here. My name is Philip Russell and I am with my co host, and Thor. Ben, we are back again after the episode that did absolute gangbusters with Austin Walker. And we're here with another really, really cool conversation. This time it is with Josh Sawyer of pentimento and Fallout New Vegas. This was a really fun conversation. Yeah, this was a blast. And like a game that I was really, really excited about. I know that I've been not shutting up about it for a long time for like a couple of months. And so yeah, I was just really excited to have this conversation with Josh about pentimento a game that I really, really like, I feel like I'm increasingly becoming the meme. I don't know if you saw around disco Elysium, where it's like, oh, this gameplay is fire. And it's a photo of someone like reading a book.

Ben 1:22

I just saw the other day, the exact same meme, but it was penultimate players instead of disco Elysium players, and I'm realizing that like, that is actually the exact game that I just really, really love. Where it's like, Hey, is it a book with like, a couple of choice elements? Yes, that's my shit, baby.

Phil 1:43

You're, you're literally like coming full circle. Like I liked reading. And I also like video games. Now I like reading books that have the little buttons.

Ben 1:52

That's perfect game. You got a little UX on that novel. Let's fucking go.

Phil 1:57

Yeah, so this was a really fun conversation. We talk pretty deeply about pentameter, from how it came to be to, you know, some of the major design choices that they did for making this, this game really speak to the player. And I don't know about you, but yeah, I felt like I really learned a lot not only about like, the medieval time period, but also just about like game design and what makes like really good narrative design. So this is a really cool conversation. Yeah. So with that, how about we, you know, we'll debrief after the Convo but let's hop right in.

Ben 3:09

Josh Sawyer is a studio design director for Obsidian Entertainment, he has worked as the director of pentimento Pillars of Eternity one and two and Fallout New Vegas, his most recent title pediment has won numerous awards, including the nebula for Best Game writing and Best Narrative, and Game of the Year at the Game Developers Choice Awards. Oh, you're shaking your head. Okay. Now, so we were nominated for all of those, but the only thing that we won was Best Narrative at GDC. Oh, no. No.

rough start. Okay. I do, maybe maybe the way to kick this off then is to be like Josh, you know, obviously, sentiment, I think has received a lot of attention and a lot of accolades. Maybe you can talk about, like, how you felt about the reception?

Josh Sawyer 4:02

Yeah, I mean, I never have been one to really care that much about awards, to be honest. Maybe that's the result of not many of my games have been nominated for that many awards. But I made the game for personal satisfaction, and also for a very niche audience. People who might not necessarily be people who play games might not identify as gamers, people who are into history and reading and art history, which is not necessarily the core gaming audience. And I wanted people that was who I was targeting. And so I wanted the reception among that group to be good. And it was and I was very happy. And it was really like a lot of the awards nominations and stuff came much later. And that's nice. Like, don't get me wrong, like it's nice. It's also nice, nice to go to London. It's nice to go to Berlin to go to a word shows. But yeah, it's mostly about just, I made a game for a specific audience and for my own personal satisfaction. It was nice to see that the people I made it for actually enjoyed it.

Ben 5:04

Yeah, I, you know, one of the things that that really stands out to me about pentane is how kind of specific and well researched it is. And can you talk about the amount of work that went into making sure the game was accurate to the time period, despite being set in I believe, of fictional Bavarian town? You know, one of the things that we were kind of talking about before you came on is like, the food on the table is so specific, and like making the choices about like, what's at a meal, depending on like, who you're like, breaking bread with? Feels very specific, but like, how do you how much research went into this? It feels like it is immense.

Josh Sawyer 5:42

Yeah, I mean, it's a lot. You know, the game is pretty light in terms of gameplay. So we could focus a lot of our attention on getting details, right. I mean, my own personal belief as a director is, you know, when people say, don't sweat, the details is everything as details, every choice that you make as a specific choice. And you can make that uninformed, or you can make that informed. And I always try to be as informed as possible. And now that doesn't mean that every choice I made is 100%. Accurate. But I made it knowing that it's an accurate. So for example, there is a particular bit of sculpture that becomes relevant in the late game. And that's completely historical, there's not a single example of, of a statue that looks like that. And believe me, I searched but I needed something to work for the story. And so I made that choice. Maybe if I had done more research, I could have found something else that would have worked, but that's what I went with. So you know, I have a degree in history, just a bachelor's degree, but it's in this time period in this region. And we worked with consultants, three PhDs on, you know, following up with a lot of things, I also did a lot of research on my own, on JSTOR, various scholarly articles, I bought academic texts that, you know, I imported from Germany, to like, you know, get super specific details on things. And then yeah, and that, that extended to other people on the team as well, you know, our director, Hannah Kennedy, she really did a ton of research into not only the art style, but also things like food, and, you know, clothing, and all sorts of stuff like that, you know, obviously, the manuscripts and what we included, those are all, many of them are historical, some of them are literally facsimiles of real manuscripts, but many of them are inventions that feel like they could fit with the time and the place that they're supposed to have come from. So research was endless throughout the entire project. And yeah, that's really

Phil 7:40

well, as I say, I find it interesting, Josh, you say, like, you kind of made this game, not specifically for people who normally play games for people who enjoy reading and academic academics and things like that. And, you know, Ben and I both have a academic background, that creative writing in grad school. But we also play a lot of games. And I think like something that was really fascinating playing through Pentameter was just the way that you know, you kind of you blend a lot of topics and like experiences that I experienced that in academia and like, you know, the roles of art and creation, while also making it, like pretty approachable. But I'm curious, like, what did that look like for you, as the director and maybe this obsidian, coming to Xbox, trying to pitch like this kind of game, which, like you'd like you say, isn't really for gamers, it's maybe for a different audience.

Josh Sawyer 8:41

It was actually not as hard as you might expect. Because I pitched it as a small project. Intentionally, I said, it'll probably max out at 12 people. In fact, we maxed out at 13. But I said, it'll be it'll be, you know, a dozen people, it'll probably be two and a half to three years. In the end, it was three years total from pre production to the end. And I said, it's either not going to lose money, or it's going to lose a tiny amount of money, and no one will care. But the most important thing I thought said to my bosses, I need to do this, like I've been waiting to make a historical game for a very long time. And I feel like this type of game would be a very good fit for X Xbox game paths. When Microsoft acquired obsidian, they were really pushing game paths, and they wanted to have unique titles that were available on that platform. And, yeah, they went for it. You know, when I first I had already been working on it with my team of about five people for nine months in pre production, before we really showed it to Xbox. And they loved it, they because it was very distinctive. I feel like I had a pretty clear vision. Even the prototype is not that much different from the end game in terms of overall style and approach. And, yeah, they could feel that it felt very specific. It felt very much like it had a particular artistic vision that was unique. And so they thought it'd be great for game paths. And so, after that point, you know, there would briefly be conversations of like, oh, man, you know, all this reading without Vo is going to turn people off. And I said, Okay. Like, like, it's okay. Like, if you don't like reading don't play the game. If you don't like sports don't play NBA 2k. Like, what do you want me to say? It's like, it's a, you know, it's interesting, because there's a common refrain and reviews that are even ones that really praised the game a lot have this caveat that says, you know, this isn't for everyone. No shit, like, not, no game is for everyone. It's just that the narrative about games is that there's kind of the gamer audience, the mainstream gamer audience, and that games that are made for them are for everyone, when in fact, they exclude a lot of people who just fundamentally aren't interested in those sorts of experiences. So, you know, I said, No, this this game, yes, it is not for everyone, it's for these specific people. And I think we can find that audience. I think some of them do play games. To your point. It's not completely for non gamers. But also, I have seen that there are people who either don't play many games or don't play games at all, who have come to it because it's very approachable. It's not mechanically complicated. It's really about reading and making choices and following along with the story. And then the mini games are very simple. They're not made for challenge. They're made for immersion, and to break up the pacing. So yeah, it was actually not difficult to convince the people above me or around me to kind of buy into the concept of the game.

Ben 11:39

So you were mentioning that you've wanted to do something for like this for a long time, I read a Game Informer piece that was saying you had an idea for this back in like 1992. I mean, maybe you can talk about like, how long has this been gestating? And like, what does that look like over the years?

Josh Sawyer 11:55

Yeah, I would say, well, in 1992, I played a game called Dark lands that was made by MAC MicroProse labs. And it was a very, it's a very unique role playing game, I actually did a Let's Play of it. Like Twitch stream, I played the whole game. And I think there are fragments of it's still up on YouTube. But it was very interesting to me because it was very unlike any other RPG I had played because it was historical fantasy. So they didn't really have they didn't have classes or wizards or alignment or levels. The mechanics were very unique. The way that magic was conceived of as being through intercession of saints or alchemy was very unique. And when I got into the industry in 1999, I knew that I really wanted to work on a follow up game, I want to work for Black Isle Studios, I really wanted to work on d&d Games, which they were making currently. And then I really had this desire, in my mind, I'm like, I love dark land so much, I really hope I get to make a historical role playing game sometime. And in my mind, that game looked like dark lands for a long time, some form of that like small party based thing where you're wandering around, whether it's, you know, early modern, Holy Roman Empire, or Italy, or France or whatever. But that was kind of the vague vision. But I knew I wanted to do something historical. And it only was in the last, you know, like five years or so that I started having more of a vision, I played Night in the Woods, which is a really fantastic game. And I would say more than any other game night in the woods was the biggest inspiration for the overall style of what sentiment is where you're a guy walking around town, talking to everyone in this community over a long period of time. And just kind of vibing with them and doing little mini games. That's that's really what both games are. There's just more choice and consequence in light RPG stuff in sentiment. But when I saw that, I thought, Oh, I could make a story that's historical. And it's really about this specific person going through a specific thing. And this could be the style of game and I but I also didn't really know how I would get it made. And it was kind of floating around after I shipped dead fire. I was pretty burned out. Because that fire sold. Initially it sold very poorly. It reviewed very well, but it sold very poorly. And I was really burned out about it. Over time, it actually sold quite well. And it is it is it is very profitable. Now thankfully, it just took several years but but while I was burned out, I had this kind of idea for this game. But I was also like, how am I going to get this made? Because we're still an independent developer. I don't know if I want to go back to crowdfunding because I don't want to compromise on what the game is. And when Microsoft acquired us, I just right away I went to Ferguson, I said, Look, I really want to do this. I'm not busy right now. I'm just helping out on other projects. I can't do a big project because we have these other things going on. So just let me have a small group of people to make this and he was very supportive from the beginning.

Phil 14:48

Why? Just out of curiosity, like what pentimento specifically, why a video game like what what was it? Maybe about this this kind of thing that you wanted to work? This project you want to work on that even, you know, it's been gestating for, for decades, what was it about like the medium of video games that really drew you to wanting to do it?

Josh Sawyer 15:11

I mean, I guess in a way, all the RPGs that I've, I believe, like almost all the RPGs, anywhere that I've worked on, really emphasize the players involvement in the story and make it in the sense that they're an active participant, they can make choices that change how the story develops, they can choose how their relationships go, they can blow up their relationships, or, you know, like, try to cement them, you know, like, patch them back up. And you can do that in a collaborative storytelling environment, certainly, like tabletop role playing games are where I came from. But video games also because they are interactive, offer something that film doesn't, and that most books that are not choose your own adventure books don't do. So it was also because it's a combined, you know, like, it's a, it's a visual medium as well. And so being able to express things through the art itself, and the aesthetic, actually having meaning within the story was very important to me. So all these things, and also, it's the medium that I work in. So you know, like all those things sort of combined to make an environment where I felt like the experience was most well suited for, for a game on a on a computer or a console.

Ben 16:18

Yeah, one of the things that stands out to me about pentamirror is the way that choice works. You know, this game feels to me like it's it's giving players like these really nuanced choices where, you know, often in games, it feels like things are very binary, you have a very clear picture of like, here's what's right, here's what's wrong. And often sentiment is like, Hey, pick up pick a person that you think, did this murder, and you're like, I'm pretty sure I don't know the correct answer here. I'm pretty sure I chose wrong. And you just have to sit with that. And there's no point where the game is like, Oh, you You made the right choice, or this is like what you should have done. And even you know, that's the the macro, but even down to the micro, when you start getting into those dialogue choices, I often felt like I was like, I this I don't know, the right thing. You know, there's no correct choice here in terms of how to how to engage with someone. And maybe you can just talk about, like, it felt so much more realistic, and so much more human. And how did that? How did that work in terms of implementing something like that?

Josh Sawyer 17:19

Yeah, so there's a number of layers there. So one of it is that yes, it was a goal that the player should feel uncomfortable and uncertain about the decisions that they make, and that but they shouldn't feel necessarily complete frustration or hopelessness, more that they're in, you know, sort of the Greek agony situation where they're like, Well, I have two bad decisions that I can, I can pick from, like, I'm not going to be super stoked about either of these. But like, I kind of have to decide something because the consequences of not deciding are worse. You know, like, it's established that Piro is my, my buddy, this established that there's literally no way that he could have even physically done it, even if he had the motive, which is very unlikely that he did. So I know, I don't want this guy to die, but then someone else is going to die. Among these up to four other people or five, I guess, potentially, who, and it kind of comes down to a realization like you have within the, the ideal city in your dream, where, you know, Beatrice would be a tree che says to you, you know, you don't actually have to give all the information that you know, and she sort of implies, like, you can just pick someone that you think should not live for whatever, you know, whatever your your sort of criteria for that are, which is really grim. But it's also to let the player know, like, this is how this is going to go, you're going to name someone and they're going to die. And you kind of have to support it. But that's going to happen. And I wanted players to be uncomfortable with that, because I think it makes people think more about their values, and why they make the decisions that they do, and also understand the difficult position that they are in. And then when it came to the individual conversations, the way that we handle dialogue tracks, and this will be remembered and all of that stuff. In a way it's intentionally scattershot, because we it needs to be dense enough for the player to it can't be constant because you can't make it's unworkable. But it has to be frequent enough and unheralded so that the player understands this note might be a node where the thing that I say is going to be remembered. So I have to in a sort of panopticon way, I have to believe that I'm constantly being observed. And I'm constantly being monitored for the things that I say, and that the the nature of your relationship to the person to whom you're speaking is relevant and important. So for example, being kind of defiant and standing up to someone who doesn't have any authority is probably not going to bite you in the ass because that person has no authority. When you do that to the Abbot, like it means something when you do that to the Archdeacon, Jakob escolar, he very quickly makes it clear this is his, his court, essentially, and you're a guest in it. And if you live off, it's going to have bad consequences. So it puts a player in a situation where know you can roleplay the way that you want. But possibly, the way that you want is going to be shaped by the understanding that there's a power dynamic here that you can't overcome. So maybe you should just shut up. Or maybe you should be diplomatic, or you know, like, maybe you can say something here, but you're going to have to make up for it somewhere else. And the goal, there really was to get players to engage in the moment to moment, choices that they make in conversations, and not just treat them all as filler, between the plot points. You know, when you talk to Illuminata, there are a lot of minds. There are a lot of like minds planted in the dialogue with Illuminata, where if you're irreverent, or you're kind of like condescending about women, you know, she, you know, she'll tell you like, that's messed up. And you'll see she's remembering it, you're like, oh, shit, like, I can't just say whatever, like, this actually is impactful. And the goal was really to make that perfuse all the dialogues to the extent that the player cared about what they were seeing moment to moment, even if it was not always dramatically consequential.

Phil 21:26

Yeah, it uh, it worked really well. And I feel like, you know, I, at the beginning of the year, I transitioned into working in games on narrative and like, I've been learning narrative design and things like that. And I found pentimento, to be really fascinating in terms of how you all designed the different dialogue choices, because I found myself because of the I don't even know how to describe it like that this is this will be remembered kind of kind of idea, I found myself being more affected by that than I normally would be. And, and other games, like, I felt like myself being a lot more politically motivated in terms of how I was engaging with different characters and kind of my relationship to them. And I especially was interested in, you know, there's moments where you're talking to a character, and then you'll get like your dialogue choices, but then also, like, thought, a thought bubble, where you kind of have this interior moment where you're working through some ideas, like one one instance, for the listeners is like, thinking about the plight of women during the 16th century, and whether or not they actually have it hard. And, and it was like this, this really delightful moment, I think, because it sheds light on Andreas as a character, but also you as a player. I'm curious, like, I don't even know what the question is there. I'm just really interested in how you all kind of came to came to that kind of design with the narrative?

Josh Sawyer 23:00

Yeah, I think it's, um, thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's in a way it's kind of ripping off ideas from other games. So you know, we we've always had obsidian and Black Isle we believe, tres consequence, great. A lot of times players make choices blindly. Or, you know, those, it's a low frequency, high impact choice. And so when it suddenly happens, they're really kind of taken aback and maybe even feel cheated, because they weren't expecting it to matter suddenly. And then, you know, the Telltale Games would use, you know, this, they'll remember this, this character will remember this. And that phrasing was very specific. And so we turned it a little bit, instead of saying this character will remember it, we said this, this thing will be will be remembered how, by whom. In some cases, a thing that is remembered is remembered by multiple people, or it's remembered by a person who is not the person to whom you spoke, but observed the interaction that happens with Brother wash live. So like, if you SAS off to the Abbot, he actually notes that the abbot also notes it. But when you talk to wash lob, about talking to Piero in the cellar, he's responding to the interaction that you had with the abbot in the dinner and also in the murder scene. So we made it more abstract to put the player a little more on edge. And then the other thing was, we put the font bubbles in there. And there's an intentional delay of about half a second, I think. So if you're just like, Nope, I'm confident like I'm picking that you won't see the Thought Bubble because you as a player, or you're just going. So if you but if you wait a second, if you as the player are waiting a moment and you're reading the options, then the bubble appears. And that's your cue to be like, Oh, I think maybe this is consequential in a way that other things might not be or it might not immediately be apparent. So then you go into your interior monologue or not monologue because it's really a conversation with the three They're essentially in ego super ego of Andrea says conscience. So you talk to be a true J, you talk to Socrates and you talk to st Groban, and they each represent sort of a different facet of understanding or processing what's at hand. And in the end, it always kind of suggests one way or another, either positively or negatively. This is kind of probably the wisest thing to do. But you can ignore it, it just then when you exit, it just resets you to where you were. So another example is the, when Otto tells you to say hello to Clara for him, and it's very clear that Otto and are not Clara, Ava. So Otto Otto and Ava are a couple that is kind of on a certain course. And you can be a rascal and flirt with Ava. And you can have a moment where you think to yourself about that. And bigotry, che is like do not do that that's very bad and dumb, like nothing good is going to come from it. It's insulting. And it's just going to aggravate people. And Socrates says something that's very idealistic and high minded and not helpful. And it's very clear that it's not helpful and then grow Bian. So something very base and ridiculous. And on its face, you're like, well, that's clearly not, like, that's just kind of dumb and silly. And so really, if you know, if you choose to flirt, flirt with her, then auto does actually get mad at you. And he holds it over your head all through act two as well. But the player might not know that. And so in the moment, they might just be like, I'm just gonna say something. So we have that moment where like, hold on, like, if you're actually thinking about this, as a player, Andreas is also thinking about it as a character. Why don't you think through the consequences before you say something, and then you can make a choice. And the player can still make the rascal choice. And it doesn't break the game or anything. They just, you know, when they talk to Otto, you know, when you go to the final day of judgment, at the end of Act One, he's pretty cold to you, he kind of is like, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. And then an act two, he hasn't forgotten it. He's like, Hey, I remember what you tried to steal away my girl. So don't get any ideas, but the player can do it. So it was a way of and then also really like those micro choices as opposed to the big choices. They were really, the idea was just from disco Elysium. So disco Elysium would use minor interactions to influence the mechanic the the mathematics of the checks. But I don't think that they telegraphed them when you made them only when you made the check. So we combined the messaging of you just made a choice that's going to be remembered. And then when you make the check, it's listed as Hey, remember when you did that, here it is in this check, and you go oh, yeah, that's right. I did. I flirted with autos, girlfriend, I guess I should have expected that. So, you know, some people were sort of bewildered or off put by the system. But I think for the most part, it did what I wanted it to do.

Ben 27:52

The thing that like, for me really, really works about it is that I would say upfront, I'm like a pretty bad gamer, where it's like a game offers me like choices. And I'm immediately going to be like, well, what's the correct choice, I'll just Google it and figure it out. So I make sure that I'm just on the right path to save myself some time striking the best ending. And I think that your game, thwarts that in a way that is like great and beautiful, where it's like, because the options are more nuanced. And because the consequences never feel like they're cataclysmic. I'm like, Oh, I'm I'm willing to make some of these mistakes. And just like write it out, because that's, that's just how it works. And that's how life works. And it just, it really felt like it kind of, as you were saying, made me much more reflective of myself where I was like, what's the what's the political choice that I'm making here? Why is that? Why am I making this decision? Why am I choosing not to throw the stonemason name into the hat? I actually kind of liked that guy. And you know, what, a lot of these brothers, I'm not vibing with them, so I'm gonna get more dirt on them. And then it's and then I was like, Well, why am I you know, it's a great game, where it's like, I think like, it makes you reflect on your own politics in a lot of ways. As much as it does be like, Okay, well, but like, what's the correct way to move through it? Yeah.

Josh Sawyer 29:09

Yeah. And I think the thing is, it's a very common sentiment where, you know, the more a suspect seat, the less likable a suspect is, the easier it is for people to condemn them. The more likeable a suspect is, the harder it is, even when in the tally, people tend to believe that the least the most likeable person is probably the person who did it. Yeah. And again, there's no object. There's no objective. I've even said like, you know, if you there is not a canonical killer. Nowhere have I ever defined that, that I have said that, objectively. Like when I look at the evidence, there are people where I'm like, it seems more likely that this person did it, it seems less likely this other person did it. You can never get all the information on one playthrough it's just it's impossible. It's structured, it's structured, so that you can't know everything. But even so there are people who get evidence where it's see seems likely that a person did it. But they just they're like, I don't want that person to suffer. Like, I feel like they were justified in doing what they did. I like them. I don't like the person who died. And I don't like this guy. Yep. So they're going to be the one that pays. And again, if you look at the steam achievements, there's a pretty clear tendency of who gets accused. And yeah, it is all about saying, like, you know, what do you really value knowing knowing that this is inescapable, knowing that one of these people is definitely going to die. And it's the person it's one of the people that you name, by the way, there isn't internal logic. So you can also kind of just do like a Yahtzee thing. Like you can kind of go in and say, here's all the information I know about everybody. But I don't know. And there is a mechanic to that there is like a logic to it. And so some people do that. But the majority of people that I've seen play, they just Name one person, or they just need to purse people, they almost everyone excludes someone. They just say like, I don't know, I never never heard anything about Matilda. Never heard anything about Luckey. Don't know don't know. So yeah, I don't know where I'm going with that. But yeah, it was very intentional to set up that that feeling where the player was just accepting of there isn't an ideal outcome here, there's not a way where things just turn out fantastic, there are slightly worse or slightly better outcomes. But even sometimes the things that in the short term seem good can have bad consequences. I mean, one of the things that happens with, if you save a teleios, the widow if you save her home, or rather keep her in her home, it creates other conflicts in the future for other people. So you know, on its face, it's clearly like a very nice and sweet thing to do for someone that no one in the town likes. But there are other consequences for that, that you couldn't have predicted. But that's just how things go. You know, sometimes, sometimes you do things, and it seems like the right thing. And at the time, it seemed like it, but you can't control the future. And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to be in one community over a long period of time. So that, you know, 25 years is long enough that generations are starting to pass. And the seeds that you planted in 1518 are growing into full blown blown trees in 1543.

Phil 32:18

Yeah, I mean, I felt like the game just just from the outset, it does a really good job of kind of throwing a bunch of what's what seemingly are kind of innocuous choices and dialogue that ultimately end up kind of blowing up in your face. You know, like from the get go, when you can you when you're asked to get your, your next month salary, so you can help pay the additional taxes. And you know, that's like one of the first choices you make in the game. And when I was playing through, I was kind of I was like, Yeah, I can I can help you with that. It seems like that's something Andreas would do. And then you know, 30 minutes later, you're thrust into all these different conversations where you're kind of forced to have these uncomfortable conversations with your bosses essentially of like, Hey, can I get some money? I found that to be like, really fascinating. And I think yeah, like everything you're talking about with this, this will be remembered kind of idea. It works so well. In terms of getting the player into like, thinking about the character they're building like something I was talking to Ben about. off air was I just really loved that moment early on where you are eating lunch with your your boys outside. And there's this this moment where you get to choose which food to eat. Like, there's like a bread slice and cheese and like a pastry or something. And I don't know if that ends up mattering. But I just loved that I felt like really delightful as a from from a narrative design. And it's like a play perspective of like, here's a moment that doesn't, you know, plant a flagpole of like, this is going to be an important choice. But it's something that for the player suggests the character that you're building. And I felt like that was a really awesome and unique kind of way of kind of adding in some maybe interactive elements to to the game.

Josh Sawyer 34:18

Thank you. The meals were very important. Not so much from the order in which you eat things or you know, what you eat when, but more for communicating social status and class, which becomes more apparent the longer time goes on. But in a way, it's also the kind of making it so front and center one it steps you out of the normal game view. So much of the game is just walking around and talking to people that it was very important that we had other modes of interacting with the world that were just different and sort of forced you to look at things through a different lens. And at a certain point the meals became about the tables and the food and the specific food and how we laid it out not even just the food, what is served in how you're eating it. Like when you eat a meal in the first act with the gardeners, the gear, the family you're seeing with the gardeners are peasants and they're not wealthy, and it's a fairly large family. And so their food is not fantastic, but it's not like awful. Later in the act, you can eat with Lady Salah Mia, who is Lauren's rock vocals wife. And I don't know if either of you did that meal, but she's just come from Venice, and she's a noble woman, you are drinking wine out of crystal, she has candied oranges. Like and you don't, you don't even finish all the food, like you finish the meal. And there's still half the things that were on the table are still there and the meal is done. So there's a very strong contrast between this is how nobles eat, literally bringing things from another country over the Alps, to eat with them as they travel, versus the peasantry where they're like, We got stew, we have bread, like that's basically what we got. And we get by on it, and you know, whatever. But there's a big difference there and then enact to when you eat with the gardeners again, there's a really strong market decline in the quality and the quantity of what they're eating. And that's very intentional. So it's not about necessarily the order of anything, but it is forcing you to really focus on the material reality that these people live in, and how different it is between the peasantry, the growing middle class, and then the nobility itself.

Ben 36:33

If you're comfortable with it, I want to ask you a little bit about like, what the what the game says, or has to say about like art writ large. And like art's ability to like, preserve history. I was so struck out, you know, the third act, we move not from kind of trying to make decisions about murders, but we're trying to make decisions about murals. And we're trying to make decisions about like, what's the story that we're telling about this place. And the you know, the big reveal of the third act is comes after we've already made the decisions about the murals that are going to go up. And that, to me felt so important to the kind of the final thing that the game felt like it was trying to say about art, which is that like, our understanding of not just the past, but even the present, is imperfect. And so that, like our representations are always going to be put together in a way that's falling short of reality. And I don't, I don't maybe you can just speak to like that, because it felt like it was resonating through every act where it's like, as a person making decisions about the world, you're always moving forward with imperfect, incomplete ways of knowing that world.

Josh Sawyer 37:45

Yeah, yeah, it was very intentional. Of course, ever unintentional, I've just miraculously stumbled into it. But I mean, it comes up in the very first conversation that Piero and Andreas have in the scriptorium, where Andreas is working on his masterpiece. And, you know, pero says, you know, this is very well executed, but it's just copying another work, like you're copying into our manuscript, and which to be clear, is fictional. But it could have existed. And, yeah, because that's the thing is like that illustration looks like countless other illustrations from that time period. Very well executed, but essentially telling the same story in November, we show peasants foraging, you know, with with pigs, you know, foraging acorns in the forest. That's what we do for November. That's the way it's done, and art. And the thing is, there's a little bit of anachronism here because our modern conceptions of art and expression are not the concepts of how pero pero is like a very forward thinking guy, because he's saying, like, this is a personal choice that you're making, like you are, you are choosing to replicate, you are choosing to not critically look at what you're portraying, compared to the reality of life around you. And you know, when he says, like, you know, we can't avoid put ourselves into this, either there's an unconscious bias or an implicit acceptance of the status quo, or there is a conscious rejection of that to say, No, this isn't actually the world anymore. The world is now this way. And you know, puros happiness with Andreas, at the end is to say, you changed it, it's the image before where it was. It's the gardeners, by the way, like, I don't know if people look very closely, but it is actually the gardeners that are in the image that he paints. But it's not them with the pigs in the forest. It's them with the pigs and a fence between the forest and their land, because they're not allowed in there. And so Piero says, you are actually showing the world as it is now. And you have put yourself into it. And Andreas again, I don't know if people notice, but he is in the Advent procession at the bottom of the scene. So he took it both literally and figuratively, but we're Always making choices like, we make choices about the stories that we tell how we frame the stories that we tell the aesthetics of people, I mean, not to get too lost in the weeds here, but like, Excuse me. Brecht like one of the, you know, alienation effect is something that Brecht was really into, which is to say, you know, it's so easy for us to have the moral good be embodied in the aesthetically ideal, or the aesthetically appealing. And so he would work to make his moral messengers these like really repulsive or unlikable characters, because his belief was, if, if this was truth, then the messenger of truth can be unpleasant, and the truth will still shine through. But we The point is, whether Brexit was right or not, is that we do make choices about all these things, the story the places how they're framed, the characters that embody certain ideas and how they express them. And when you tell history, you're again, making choices. The late the tragically late Hilary Mantel account, I'm gonna mangle the thing that she said, But history isn't. History isn't a record of the past history is what we have left of the things that people in the past chose to write down. And we have one, it's through their perspective and what they chose to do. And we have so so little of it. I mean, one of the big inspirations that, you know, I think a lot of people have pointed to was named of the rose by Umberto Eco, which is in itself about a Lost Book from antiquity. So much of antiquity is gone. Like we have glimpses and ideas of the works of Ovid, or, you know, Aristophanes, but then if you look at the place of Aristophanes that we actually have, it's like a 10th, of what he wrote. So then extend that to history and historical records, it's the same thing. So we have such a fragile grasp on the past. And it is through the lens of people that made a very specific set of decisions in a time in place. And by luck, they have been preserved and passed on to us now. So it's really conveying the role of the individual recorder, whether it's of history or art, or history through art. In that process, as an active agent,

Phil 42:26

you know, something that I really appreciated. Again, from the from the early parts of the game, and as a black player and creator is, you know, you have this moment with brothers Shabbat, I think so you say his name, who is an Ethiopian priest who is visiting the Abbey. And you have this moment where he kind of is telling Andreas that he has been invited over for dinner from some buddy in the town, and they're one of the few people who kind of, you know, don't make him feel uncomfortable for being unlike everyone else, and that he would feel even more comfortable if Andreas would, would come with him. And I just, I was really taken aback by seeing the character in the game in this game, given that it's, you know, a medieval 16th century story. And I was curious, because, you know, there's so many examples lately, especially in games like Not, not to scapegoat one but just as an example, Final Fantasy 16 has kind of come under a lot of criticism, because it's, although it's a fantasy game, it's, you know, devoid of people of color. And the reasoning being that it's like a kind of a medieval inspired game. And there apparently, there weren't black people that existed in the medieval times. You know, to me, it felt like having brother Saba in the game was a deliberate choice that kind of is engaging with what you're talking about, of choices being made and how we depict history. And I'd love if you could just talk a little bit about like, how maybe that character came into the game?

Josh Sawyer 44:06

Sure. Um, yeah, there were there were two very, actually the more than a few. But yeah, there were black people in Europe. And there weren't a lot of them. But I guess the thing is, you know, testing and cures are fictional. In the same way that the Abby and name of the roses fictional, it is plausible, but it is a specific confluence of some fictional and some real people around a real idea in a real time in place. To create a fiction, like all of this is fiction. But you know, we by saying that tasking is a fictional place in Curacao, it's a fictional place. I can populate that with whoever I want. And unless there's some strange contradiction about a real person, you know, there are millions of people that lived and died, of whom there are no records anymore so I can just make people up and the thing The thing is your brother's iPod even says if you talk to him, that he is repaying a favor that was done to one of his predecessors, 100 years ago at the Council of Constance, there are records that there were members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church at the Council of Constance in the 15th century, and Constance is even more remote, then then passing like on the on the weekend, Perry. So, you know, I said, it is plausible, that an agent of Ethiopian Orthodox church comes to give this gift. And the idea was that, you know, I think it's Abbot Rudolph 100 years ago gave his bishop a, a Catholic Bible. And, you know, that was very beautiful. And so it took 100 years to give him back on Ethiopian manuscript. And it was just because the thing is, there's one I find African history and Ethiopian history, specifically very interesting and fascinating. A lot of people don't know that Ethiopia was, I think, like the second Christian nation in the world, after like, I think Armenia. And it has a very, it has a very strong manuscript tradition that's very distinct, and beautiful. And it's just very interesting. And their relationship with Europe during this period was also very interesting, because they were under attack by Muslim nations. And they appeal to their fellow Christians in Europe to help them. And so there was this, you know, they, they're more more present, again, in very small numbers in places like Italy, or in Portugal, that was, I think, where a lot of the traffic came Portuguese coming to Ethiopia and a few vice versa. But anyway, it's just Yes, they existed, they have their own traditions. It's rich and beautiful. And I'm telling the story to hear. So in the story, brother Sebata is here. And you're going to go on a journey through an orthodox Ethiopian Bible. Enjoy. And there were other things, too, that I thought was interesting is that, you know, it's, I didn't want to portray something that felt absurd. Like, certainly white people living in the Alps. Seeing an Ethiopian would be if nothing else, just surprised. I mean, like, wow, like I, I've never maybe even heard of people that have that look like you. That's crazy. And the other thing that's interesting is I read Kate Lowe, who is a historian dealing with Ethiopian contact with Europe, said that Ethiopian priests in Europe would, they would wear their orthodox clothes, so they would not adopt local fashion. So someone likes up hot not only has different skin tone, different hair, on different features, but he's also wearing very different clothing, like that just looks very shocking to people. So I didn't want to portray it as something where everyone was like, not fazed at all by him being there. But also the ideas that we have about race didn't really exist in the same way then. And, of course, there would be bias or suspicion or maybe wonder that was unwarranted. But it's the it's the alien. Like, it's just we don't know. And that's the conversation that's up hothouse with a little girl on, he's like, yeah, there are people that look way different all over the world. It's crazy. I found a historical tidbit, which was Albrecht Jure kept personal diaries. And he's one of the only artists of this period where we actually have records of his travel journals. And he traveled to somewhere in the Netherlands, and he saw gold, gold art that had been brought back from, I want to say a camera was inkan, or Aztec, but it was gold art from the New World. And he said, This is the most beautiful art I've ever seen. It eclipses anything made by European Christians. Like he had no reservation, just saying, this is incredible. It's unreal, I love it. And so the sort of biases that I think that people, you know, centuries of time, have, you know, it created all this weirdness about race and culture and those interactions. And then a lot of cases, there really was just genuine wonder. I mean, don't get me wrong, there was obviously exploitation and horrible colonialism going on. But the fact remains that an ordinary person who saw someone from another culture with clothing that ever seen food they'd ever seen, art they had never seen would often just be odd. Like they were just like, wow, like that is crazy, like, in a good way. So I did want to really convey that. One, they were there to the relationships weren't necessarily what we thought they were, and that it's just interesting to eliminate that stuff and have an unlikely circumstance. be educational. There's one other detail there, which is the church or the chapel, where that takes place with St. Moritz is that from about the 13th century through I think the 17th or 18th So Andrey St. Moritz was consistently portrayed as a black Northern African man, as a knight. He's found in tons of artwork, he's found in sculptures, he's always clearly unambiguously not just black, but like an African, like they understood different style of hair or facial features. And, and he was one of the most popular saints of he was the patron saint of the Holy Roman Empire. Very popular and black. And yes, eventually, race became a thing and that, oh, hey, we're practicing slavery. Now we got to, he's white. He's a white guy now. But, you know, these things shift and they change. But it's important to understand that at this time in place, it's not necessarily the way that we thought it was. So I wanted to really portray that as well as I could.

Ben 50:46

Can I kind of get you to talk about like, the state of or like, the landscape for games like this, you know, selfishly, like, I really love disco. Elysium I really love like the woods, I really love pentimento. Last year, the citizens sleeper, you know, these kinds of games that are that are like, you know, I can really get invested in and engage with and then end and feel like I've, you know, in some ways, like I'm stepping away from a novel, what does it take to get these made? And is there is there, you know, are we in a good moment for them? Or like, where are we? You know, it's

Josh Sawyer 51:20

weird, because I, on the one hand, I appreciate being compared to a bunch of other games that I think are really incredible. The thing is, all those games were made under material conditions that are way more challenging than what I made them under, you know, you know, the disco Elysium story is like kind of well known, although they did eventually get quite a bit of funding, but the way they started was very sort of ragtag. We don't know what we're doing, let's just see what we can do. And not to downplay what you know, like, what their sort of journey was. But then, like Night in the Woods was also made by a very small team. And, you know, I've talked a lot with Scott Benson, I consider him a good friend now. And we've talked a lot about his game and my game, and kind of like, where we see things going. And I know that Scott really struggled, and his team really struggled to get the game done. And it really took a big toll on him, like health wise and. And then yeah, I don't know a whole lot about the circumstances, let's say, of citizen sleeper, but I know it's again, it's like not necessarily solo Dev, but a very small team. And I work out a huge company. And, you know, like I work at a big developer, you know, we have well over 200 devs. Here, we're part of Xbox, which is huge. And I kind of through the privilege of being here a long time and being Kenny just said, I want to make this right now. All the other people made things that are much more difficult circumstances than I did. So that's worth saying, because the way I got it done is not the way that other people necessarily can get it done. That being said, I do think that there's a challenge in that so many games are being made, it's, it can't like just go look at Steam, there are so many games, like I can't it's, it's, I can't remember how many more times, it's like five times as many games came out, or came out in 2022 versus like two years ago or something. It's it's wild, like it's really exploding. And that's on the one hand, that's good, because so many small teams, or even solo does have the ability to make really unique experiences. And some of them are very unique and not fun. And they're not meant to be fun. Or they can just flop and that's okay. And it's even okay with the person that made them because maybe they made them because they just wanted to express something and they don't give a shit if people like it or not. Or if it makes any money, they just want to make a thing that's, and that's very artistic. And that's very respectable, I think, and valid. But the challenge is that there are so many games, it's hard to get attention and hard to get noticed. I do think that digital distribution, and then all these platforms do make it easier for individual people or small groups of people to make games that are really visionary games, where they have a specific point of view, but they're trying to communicate a specific style specific mechanics. That's way more possible than it was like 10 years ago, 10 years ago, it wasn't even I would say barely possible to do that. You'd have to be well independently wealthy, or get the blessing of a publisher who wants to lose money. But yeah, like the fact that we're talking about all these games, and other than pentimento, the other ones were at least started under very modest circumstances where people just said, I want to make a game. I think it's good, and it's very promising. And, you know, I am very fortunate that I got to make sentiment, but also in a lot of ways. I'm very jaded because I've been doing this for almost 2024 years now, actually 24 years now. And there's a certain tunnel vision that comes along with that ways of doing things or not doing things, the natural conservatism that just comes with age and experience. Some of That is good. And some of it is very limiting. So I'm glad that the floor has gone way down in terms of access, so that more younger people who, you know, the anecdote that I always like to give a Citizen Kane, Orson Welles was very frank about he said, the the way I made Citizen Kane is that I didn't know what couldn't be done. He was like 28 years old, which is incredible. And he was like, I want to do this. And people said, I, we don't do that. He's like, Yeah, but what if we could like, what if we could do that? And then the people around him had the experience to go like, Yeah, we could try that. But he fully admits that he basically just stumbled through it, because he had a very clear vision of what he wanted to do with none of the conservative preconceptions that they couldn't be done. And some people are going to try to do that, and they're going to burn out. And that's unfortunate, or they'll just fail, you know, they'll try to do something and it won't work out. But there are so many young developers that are doing truly, really groundbreaking creative things. And there's a lot of them. And some of those things will will sort of inspire other people, and some won't, and that's okay. But it's more possible now than it ever was before. The only bummer about the whole thing is the financial situation behind it, which is, it's just hard to get people to play your game and give you the money to keep going. Even games that are very successful are very sort of like good. Don't necessarily find the audience to recoup cost and keep someone going. Or if they get there, the person making it, it takes such an emotional or personal toll that they just burn out and they can't keep moving forward. And that's a huge bummer.

Phil 56:38

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, given the get the top of the show, and when you were talking about how penultimate, you were able to kind of pitch it as this low cost, you know, small team project and it got greenlit, you know, I think I feel like there there's been a number of developers that that we've had on like salvia Nelson, Jr. And somebody else I'm not thinking of right now. But basically, they were talking about how, how hard it is as an indie developer to do just that of like pitching the smaller cost small team game, because so many publishers are always chasing like these big returns. So yeah, it just seems like we're in a really, really, like, it's easier than ever to make games for, like anybody can can make a game. But at the same time, it seems like the cost of making games is really becoming restrictive. And artisan says

Josh Sawyer 57:31

it's rough too. And a lot of it comes down to cost of living like you know, it's um, I remember seeing something really weird because I worked on two crowdfunded games, I'm very appreciative because we found an audience that publishers told us either didn't exist or wasn't worth pursuing, because it was too small, as you sort of suggested, but um, you know, something in the early days of crowdfunding, I remember this, this kind of meme going around which someone said, Wait, are we paying for the game? Or are we paying for your living expenses? And it's like, da, what do you think a salary is for? Like, yeah, you're paying for me to work on the game, so that I can live like, I'm gonna buy food, so that I live, I'm gonna buy, I'm gonna pay for my rent, so I don't die. And then in my house with food, I will then type and make a game. So it's this weird like, like, yes, people have to live and it's more expensive to live. And it's. So it's harder to, you know, do this on the side or especially full time. That's the real challenge. So yeah, you're right, like, the tools are there, we can work remotely, you can find people around the world to work with. I mean, one of the games that I really enjoyed from I guess, for four or five years ago now Mordhau was made by I think, seven devs, all working remotely in different countries. And they just did it, which is crazy. And they're all like, I don't think any of them had professional dev experience. They just made that game, which is wild. So it's more possible, but the challenges are not trivial. And a lot of them just have to do with the realities of the marketplace and capitalism.

Ben 59:07

I think we're winding down here. I don't know. Do you have a heart out at six o'clock? I do. Three o'clock. Okay, well, then. Maybe I'll just say thanks for taking the time to talk to us. You're welcome. Yeah,

Phil 59:18

this was really fun.

Josh Sawyer 59:20

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Ben 59:21

Yeah. Real obviously really loved Ben's event. So thank you so so much.

Phil 59:59

And that will is our conversation with Josh Sawyer

Ben 1:00:05

nailed it. You got it. You got it. You got it.

Phil 1:00:07

We are we're joking off air that neither of us can say Josh's name. Like when we actually need to. So there was again messed it up, but

Ben 1:00:16

that S and H they are placed in a way designed to make the mouth fuckup i It's not our fault.

Phil 1:00:22

I laughs because like when I was saying, like what I'm really thinking about saying Josh Sawyer, I can feel my mouth, like moving in the way that Trump like most say, like enunciate words.

Ben 1:00:36

Josh Sawyer,

Phil 1:00:38

I can imagine my hands doing his little Trump Trumpism. But anyway, yeah, this was a really fun conversation. You know, Ben, you similar to when we were trying to do citizen sleeper, and there's another game, I can't think of it now. But you know, these kind of more text based adventure game,

Ben 1:01:05

do I do apologize to you? I'm a fucking menace. I really, like, I'm like, Hey, I'm just gonna make you read this game.

Phil 1:01:14

Play another book.

Ben 1:01:16

A you got time.

Phil 1:01:19

But, you know, similar to citizens sleeper, I will commend you in saying that sentiment, really, really cool game. I think even more, so I'll commend you. Because, you know, medieval, European lit really doesn't hit for me, normally. Fair,

Ben 1:01:37

fair,

Phil 1:01:38

this is real. It's a really, really cool game. So it was fun talking to Josh about, you know, how it came to be. And I think for me, just like that, all that that portion of the conversation about this will be remembered. That was really, really interesting.

Ben 1:01:53

Yeah, I also feel like the, you know, like, if I'm explaining like the psychosis of me, and like, why games like this continue to hit? I think there's a part of me that can't ever like truly just like go full piece of shit mode and just like, allow myself to just be entertained. There has to be like an element of like, work to it or feel like there's an element of like, you know, oh, no, I'm getting something or I'm like learning something or whatever. And I think these kinds of games do a great job of like in this pentagon, in particular, where it feels like, is this almost educational? Like, am I on the am I right on the like, the razor's edge of that am I playing just like an educational game. One of the things that I loved about this is, if you're not following just the main plot beats, you can go into people's houses and just start having conversations, where they'll explain to you like, here's what the world is, like, at this time, or like, here's some, like dynamic that's going on in the world at this point. Or here's how people at this point in time are thinking about the church or religion. And those conversations were just, like, pretty cool to have where it was like, Oh, you can just like, go get different perspectives from the town on how they're seeing the mechanics of class or how they're, they're seeing, you know, the world is is put together. And I think that that, like, allows a little, like, broken part of my brain that's always like, oh, you should be working more to I think, to turn off and just like, let me like, play a game in a way that like, works.

Phil 1:03:27

Yeah, I mean, the kind of like tricking the player into learning kind of idea, I think, yeah, this game. To me more successfully than necessarily, like, you know how Assassin's Creed has like a mode where you can kind of learn about, like, Ancient Egypt or whatever, if you play like the Egyptian Assassin's Creed origins, like, there's a whole mode dedicated to it. I almost liked how with pensent although it's like a fictional town, you definitely does a really good job of just baking into the experience, the fact that you're learning so much about you know, the people, the culture, kind of like the time period and you know, Josh's point about like, the innocuous choices, like choosing which foods to eat, how like, you know, those are important to include into the game not only because it's like gives a little bit of interactivity to the game, but also it suggests things about class. I find that to be like a really smart way of implementing like these commentaries without necessarily like drying a huge you know, magnifying glass on to like, here's the themes, you know, which like a lot of other games can fall victim to.

Ben 1:04:47

Yeah, and I think the thing that you brought this up a bunch and I've been thinking about it is the way that it it isn't slapping you over the head with a lot of this stuff that it's doing and it does that because you're just having kind of casual conversations with people in the town, and those feel really lived in, like, they feel like conversations that you could be having with someone down the street. And so I just really loved going back to those where it's like, Oh, hey, where's your life out right now? How are things going, Oh, you're having trouble, because, you know, oh, the churches, you know, increasing taxes, and you're having trouble putting food on the table. And, you know, and so you're having this, like, heavy conversation, and then someone's like, you know, making jokes or equipping, and it's like, it just feels really real. And I think we talked about this before, where it's like, you know, even a game like disco to some extent, which I, again, really loved is so stylized, that it doesn't really feel like real real. And I think like, this felt a lot more approachable in a way that made it just like, fun to play without ever feeling like, again, oh, it's, it's worked to, you know, read through or, like, play through this interaction, it feels, I think, naturalistic in a way that made it really entertaining.

Phil 1:06:05

Yeah, I mean, also just kind of makes me think that, you know, obviously, there have been, you know, centuries worth of books that have been written about a different time period that, you know, tried to illustrate, you know, what people were like, in any given time, but I think, something I left pentamatic Thinking about was like, video games is actually a really good medium, for the for, for this kind of storytelling, where you're just kind of giving a pastiche, almost of like, What a time period was like, and then obviously, there is a grand story, in a sense in pencil minute with, like, the murder, but I think that this kind of interactive narrative almost lends itself a little bit better to, to illustrating that point than, like a novel could, because of like, you're not going to get all the information like, you know, obviously, you have a curated story, but like, there's things you can miss and like, you know, to Josh's point about, you know, you know, nobody who finishes pentimento necessarily has the same conclusions about who should die, and how that not only has to do with the different, you know, information that you glean through your playthrough. But also like your own perspectives and worldviews about like, well, I just don't like this person, like, I feel like they shouldn't live. So I'm going to choose them as opposed to like, it being the right choice, or like the right person to, you know, tie a bow on the narrative. I think that's a lot harder to do and like a novel, for instance, or a film. And, yeah, I think that's like a really good argument for not that we need to argue for it anymore. But like, for these interactive narratives as like being a really valid way of showing these things,

Ben 1:07:58

I'm gonna give a brief shout out to my my buddy Joey, who I played with, he was kind of playing through Pennsylvania at the same time that I was playing through it. And we got into like, a huge, like, almost fight fight about, like, the choices that we were making, because I think Joe is it was, I don't want to misrepresent his argument. But he was like, you know, we have to try to figure out like, who is the actual right person, like, who are the right choices to make here who is like the person who's most likely to have committed the murder. And I was like, Well, I just really don't like the brothers working at this Abbey, you know, that, that it kind of sets you up that it'll let you choose them as the people. And so ultimately, they're going to get murdered. So I was like, I, you know, this one guy, like kind of an asshole. So I'm choosing him. And he's like, you can't make that that's not the choice that you should be making. You should be trying to figure out like, who actually did it? And I was like, I don't think that there is like, there's no definitive proof one way or the other. And so I'm just gonna go with like, Who do I dislike the most? And so I think like, to your point, this thing starts happening that where it ends up revealing so much more about you as a person and like, what are your What are your politics? And what are there things that you care about? versus, you know, a novel where it's like, you're just trying to glean like, what is the what is the main character? What is the protagonists politics, what is the way that they're moving through the world? And what does that tell us? instead? It's like, becomes this very, like, I think fun mirror exercise where you're like, oh, no, it's revealing horrible, terrible things about, you know, the choices that I make about how we move through the world.

Phil 1:09:35

Yeah, and I mean, that's what you know, that's why games are so awesome, right? Like that, that player agency, aspects of them, allows you to, you know, have, you know, the narrative that's been curated for you in terms of like sentiment, but then also like to have this meta narrative of like, how you have, you know, gotten to the end of the game and how that has influenced Just like your different choices and like the different stories that you are then going to tell other people about whether it be like Joey, who also played the game, or like somebody who maybe hasn't played the game. And, you know, I think that's when games really shine like not not to derail us too much, because we could talk about this on like a study hall. But like, that's why I think, like tears of the kingdom is so interesting, or like, even Breath of the Wild, like, because it's so free in terms of how you can navigate approaching the story, it allows you to, like, yes, you're gonna get that story that they've made. But then you're also going to get all these other stories that only you can have, because of like, how you have, you know, played through the, through the game. And that's, I think, where, you know, video game narratives really kind of argue for their place alongside, you know, all these other like literary or cinematic kind of stories. So, yeah, Benjamin is really, really cool in that sense.

Ben 1:11:05

Counterpoint, when I see that someone has built a functioning Mac, and the only way that I've been getting through every puzzle is building what amounts to logs tied together so they can get to a new area, it does make me feel very fucking stupid,

Phil 1:11:18

you know, rest of the wild will make you feel amazing. And then it'll also make you feel like an idiot, all within the span of 30 minutes. So, I mean, I definitely as we talked about in the Resident Evil episode, I am a player who is going to just like, figure out what the cheapest way is to cheapest ticket. Yeah,

Ben 1:11:42

I'm gonna make this just for two seconds talk about like Penton and history. Because I think like, I, the thing that really, really, really made me fall in love with this game is its perspective on on history is like, unknowable, to some extent that like the the things that we get the artifacts that we have of the past that are carried forward, and you heard Josh kind of talking about it, it's like, oh, what what gets written down is just like a tiny, tiny amount of like, all the things that make up a moment in history and a moment in someone's life. And so like, our understanding of the past is always going to be incomplete. And I, I just really, really love that. And I think like, I love the way that the thing that the game is saying about legacy, which is that like, there's not really legacy, like, after a certain point, you will be forgotten, your error will be forgotten. At some point, this is all just gonna get paved over and buried and disappear. And I just am so horny for that. I feel like I think, you know, we live in an age or an era where like, we're just hyper fixated on like, well, what's going to last? And what are the things that are going to carry on forever? And so I don't know, when I was, I think this game just, like, hit me at the right time. And I was like, Yeah, well, like, why, why? Why do I worry so much about legacy? Like, nobody's gonna remember who I am. And that's like, nice in a way, that's like freeing in a way of not having to, like always focus on Well, what what sticks around and like, what is going to last? I don't know, I walked away from this, like really touched like, even the you know, I think like the, the normal move. And again, we talked with Sam Barlow on target was that came in mortality, which is pretty explicitly making the argument that like, well, art, at least, is permanent, and fixed and carries forward and can like, infect people in a way that like that, you know, art stays with us. But this game explicitly is like, Well, yeah, even art is like, is imperfect as a way of like cataloging the past. But also that too, is like, not going to stick around. There's like a really beautiful moment at the end of pentameter, minor spoilers for you. And for anyone who's listening jumped to like, I don't know, like a minute from now if you don't, if you care, but like, the final shot of it is there's a windmill and like, Andreas is like showing some kids like how to how to draw. And the like, the spoke of the windmill, just like keeps passing over. And they disappear and the arts still there. And then it's passes over again. And then the art is gone. And you're like, oh, Shin, because it's like, it's all going away. And I just really, really was like, moved by that. I think as the as a theme. And just as like, as an exploration of like, what is it? What does it mean? What are we doing with our time here? Where's it all going? It was nice. So I have to say goodbye.

Phil 1:14:43

No, I mean, I 100% agree with you. And before I go further, into that, listeners, you should check out you know, Ben's feature story and unwinnable called the future will forget us season and sentiment on how art fails to capture one Our complicated present, you know, I think Ben does a really good job of kind of connecting, you know, season, which came out, like early or late last year and pensamento. And kind of how they're both engaged in, you know, histories and the histories, we create the things that we leave behind, and how, like, you're just saying, like, those are flawed, right? And I think yeah, I mean, pentimento starts out with, like, one of the earliest early conversations, right is what was it pa tro or Pete p arrow

Ben 1:15:30

or hero? I think, yeah.

Phil 1:15:33

Talking about like, to Andre is about his masterpiece, and how, you know, history is, you know, created, created by us who, you know, are like, fallible beings, and it's all choices. You know, it's not, it's never complete. And while obviously, I knew, I know that, I think like, for some reason, it is very, when that comes up in the game, it is very, it kind of takes you back a little bit. Because, yeah, it is this kind of, like, a lot of the time history is this, this thing that one person thought was was interesting enough to record. And they're very personal, one and only lens. And then, you know, after they've passed, or even maybe when they're alive, you know, society kind of cherry picks, which are the most valuable things to construct the, you know, the patchwork that is like, our collective history, right. And I think, yeah, this this game, really, I think it really speaks to that in a really interesting way. And uses, like, the visual element and the interactive element to showcase that in ways that are really affecting Yeah, like, I don't think I would have if let's say that sentiment was a book, I don't think I would have had the same reaction even to like, the parts that I played it, I just read it, you know, there is an element to that interactive, that visual element that really heightens an already incredible kind of narrative that's happening on the page.

Ben 1:17:23

Yeah, no, 100% the art adds a lot to it, being able to like, again, you select murals, you're like making choices, which I think gives you more buy in, but then you're also like, you are physically seeing, you know, all of this play out in front of you. And I think, yeah, there's, there's just something about this form that I can't quite put my fingers on, but like the the reading, and the visuals, and the sound, and the choice all mixing together. Really, really works for me and I just like find it very moving. And I think that's why I keep coming back to these these types of game that game that fall into these, you know, this bucket.

Phil 1:18:07

Yeah, I mean, even the, the whole the whole kind of part of the conversation about like this will be remembered and talking about how they kind of came to the different dialogue choices and how, you know, not that sentiment has created, you know, the style of dialogue, tweets, gameplay, but just like making each choice not feel like it's a binary like, Oh, here's the good choice was the bad choice. And this is all going to coalesce into like, the good ending, the bad ending, or whatever, at the end kind of seems like the choices of dialogue. Also speak to what you're getting out of like this kind of nuanced, hard to square. sense that you get from not only like the characters you meet, but also like this whole idea around history and art and what we choose to remember. So, yeah, this was a really cool conversation. And Josh was like a really, really nice and generous, dude. So like, I had a lot of fun with this one.

Ben 1:19:09

I am I Josh Sawyer. pilled. Am I going to go play New Vegas after this? I think so. Also, and we didn't even we didn't even bring up any of the pillars games with him. But yeah, it was funny because I did. I had not clocked until too late. It was like, Oh, he's also pillars, one and two great games.

Phil 1:19:26

I mean, that just means we're gonna have to have him back. You know,

Ben 1:19:29

come back and talk. Deadfire with me, let's go. Yeah.

Phil 1:19:33

So yeah, that was that was our conversation with Josh Sawyer about a sentiment Yeah, again, just really glad that he was able to come on and talk a little bit further about a really really a unique game and one that I think it's easy for some people to overlook or not think is for them. So, you know, if you're interested and pentimento you know, I, I believe it's on Steam or you can you know, go Get it for free if you have Game Pass and Xbox, definitely worth your time.

Ben 1:20:06

Game passes. That was what I did. I got to Xbox controller and played it on my Mac.

Phil 1:20:11

Exactly. So with that, we will catch you all here on the next episode origin story. And with that, we'll see you later. Bye

thanks again for checking out the show. If you would like to follow me on Twitter, it is three D Cisco on Twitter as well as Instagram. And you can follow Ben on Twitter at sad underscore radio underscore lad. You wanted to thank melody Hirsch, who designed all the awesome cover art and design work for the website and the podcast itself. And we wanted to thank Ryan Hopper who does all the intro and outro music, as well as some of the interstitial stuff you hear, and dinner in different episodes. If you enjoyed the show, we'd love it if you left a review on iTunes, you know, subscribed on either iTunes or Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts. You know, reviews help just get the show in front of more people. And it only takes a couple minutes. So yeah, if you could do that for us, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Ben 1:21:34

You should also visit our website at WWW dot origin story dot show. It's a great place to look at all of our episodes. There are full transcripts and a link to our Discord channel, where we talk with listeners about everything Oh, s and beyond. There's a lot of posting that goes on in there. So I don't know if you're into that and come join us. You can also email us at V origin story pod@gmail.com We're always looking for feedback, whether it's ideas for games that we should play books, or we should read guests that we should have on the show. Just hit us up with thoughts feelings. We're always looking for feedback, even if it's that Ben has an annoying voice and you don't want to hear it anymore. I mean that's totally fine. So write us in. You can also follow us on Twitter at at origin story underscore where our Instagram at origin story dot show. As always, thanks for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Origin Story

Josh Sawyer (Pentiment) on Art, History and What Will Be Remembered

Episode Description

Episode Transcript

Victor LaValle (Lone Women) on the Power of Monsters, and Writing a Different Historical Fiction Novel

Austin Walker (Possibility Space) On What Makes Good Criticism