#Pentiment bibliography

[viasplat]

I typed up the Pentiment bibliography for my own use and thought I’d share it here too. In case anyone else is fixated enough on this game to embark on some light extra-curricular reading

I haven’t searched for every one of these books but a fair few can be found via one of the following: JSTOR / archive.org / pdfdrive.com / libgen + libgen.rocks; or respective websites for the journal articles.

List below the cut!

Beach, Alison I, Women as Scribes: Book Production and Monastic Reform in Twelfth-Century Bavaria. Cambridge University Press, 2004

Berger, Jutta Maria. Die Geschichte der Gastfreundschaft im hochmittelalterlichen Mönchtum die Cistercienser. Akademie Verlag GmbH, 1999

Blickle, Peter. The Revolution of 1525. Translated by Thomas A. Brady, Jr. and H.C. Erik Midelfort. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985

Brady, Thomas A., Jr. “Imperial Destinies: A New Biography of the Emperor Maximilian I.” The Journal of Modern History, vol.62, no.2, 1990. pp. 298-314

Brandl, Rainer. “Art or Craft? Art and the Artist in Medieval Nuremberg.” Gothic and Renaissance Art in Nuremberg 1300-2550. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986

Byars, Jana L., “Prostitutes and Prostitution in Late Medieval Barcelona.” Masters Theses. Western Michigan University, 1997

Cashion, Debra Taylor. “The Art of Nikolaus Glockendon: Imitation and Originality in the Art of Renaissance Germany.” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, vol.2, no.1-2, 2010

de Hamel, Christopher. A History of Illuminated Manuscripts. Phaidon Press Limited, 1986

Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. Translated by William Weaver. Mariner Books, 2014

Eco, Umberto. Baudolino. Translated by William Weave. Boston, Mariner Books, 2003

Fournier, Jacques. “The Inquisition Records of Jacques Fournier.” Translated by Nancy P. Stork, San Jose University, 2020

Geary, Patrick. “Humiliation of Saints.” In Saints and their cults: studies in religious sociology, folklore, and history. Edited by Stephen Wilson. Cambridge University Press, 1985. pp. 123-140

Harrington, Joel F. The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013

Hertzka, Gottfied and Wighard Strehlow. Große Hildegard-Apotheke. Christiana-Verlag, 2017

Hildegard von Bingen. Physica. Edited by Reiner Hildebrandt and Thomas Gloning. De Gruyter, 2010

Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. Translated by Barry Windeatt. Oxford University Press, 2015

Karras, Ruth Mazo. Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others. Routledge, 2017

Kerr, Julie. Monastic Hospitality: The Benedictines in England, c.1070-c.1250. Boydell Press, 2007

Kieckhefer, Richard. Forbidden rites: a necromancer's manual of the fifteenth century. Sutton, 1997

Kümin, Beat and B. Ann Tlusty. The World of the Tavern: Public Houses in Early Modern Europe. Routledge, 2017

Ilner, Thomas, et al. The Economy of Dürnberg-Bei-Hallein: an Iron Age Salt-mining Centre in the Austrian Alps. The Antiquaries Journal, vol. 83, 2003. pp. 123-194

Làng, Benedek. Unlocked Books: Manuscripts of Learned Magic in the Medieval Libraries of Central Europe. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008

Lindeman, Mary. Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2010

Lowe, Kate. “'Representing' Africa: Ambassadors and Princes from Christian Africa to Renaissance Italy and Portugal, 1402-1608.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Sixth Series, vol. 17, pp. 101-128

Meyers, David. “Ritual, Confession, and Religion in Sixteenth-Century Germany.” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, vol. 89, 1998. pp. 125-143

Murat, Zuleika. “Wall paintings through the ages: the medieval period (Italy, twelfth to fifteenth century).” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, vol. 12, no. 191. Springer, October 2021. pp. 1-27

Overty, Joanne Filippone. “The Cost of Doing Scribal Business: Prices of Manuscript Books in England, 1300-1483.” Book History 11, 2008. pp. 1-32

Page, Sophie. Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests and Occult Approaches to the Medieval Universe. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013

Park, Katharine. “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 1, Spring 1994. pp. 1-33

Rebel, Hermann. Peasant Classes: The Bureaucratization of Property and Family Relations under Early Habsburg Absolutism, 1511-1636. Princeton University Press, 1983

Rublack, Ulinka. “Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Female Body in Early Modern Germany.” Past & Present, vol. 150, no. 1, February 1996. pp. 84-110

Salvadore, Matteo. “The Ethiopian Age of Exploration: Prester John's Discovery of Europe, 1306-1458.” Journal of World History, vol. 21, no. 4, 2011. pp. 593 - 627

Sangster, Alan. “The Earliest Known Treatise on Double Entry Bookkeeping by Marino de Raphaeli”. The Accounting Historians Journal, vol. 42, no. 2, 2015. pp. 1-33.

Throop, Priscilla. Hildegard von Bingen's Physica: The Complete English Translation of Her Classic Work on Health and Healing. Healing Arts Press, 1998

Usher, Abbott Payson. “The Origins of Banking: The Primitive Bank of Deposit, 1200-1600.” The Economic History Review, vol. 4, no. 4, 1934. pp. 399-428

Waldman, Louis A. “Commissioning Art in Florence for Matthias Corvinus: The Painter and Agent Alexander Formoser and his Sons, Jacopo and Raffaello del Tedesco.” Italy and Hungary: Humanism and Art in the Early Renaissance. Edited by Péter Farbaky and Louis A. Waldman, Villa I Tatti, 2011. pp. 427-501

Wendt, Ulrich. Kultur und Jagd: ein Birschgang durch die Geschichte. G. Reimer, 1907

Whelan, Mark. “Taxes, Wagenburgs and a Nightingale: The Imperial Abbey of Ellwangen and the Hussite Wars, 1427-1435.” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 72, no. 4, 2021, pp. 751-777.e

Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2008

Yardeni, Ada. The Book of Hebrew Script: History, Paleography, Script Styles, Calligraphy & Design. Tyndale House Publishers, 2010

[callisteios]

pilgrimage quiz bibliography

I really wasn't joking

Blickle, P. The Revolution of 1525. Thomas A. Brady, Jr. and H.C. Erik Midelfort (trans.). Baltimore. 1985

Connolly, D.K. The maps of Matthew Paris: Medieval journeys through space, time and liturgy. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK. 2009

Foster-Campbell, M. 'Pilgrimage through the pages: Pilgrim’s Badges in late medieval devotional manuscripts' in Push me, pull you: Imaginative and emotional interaction in late medieval and Renaissance art. S. Blick and L.D. Gelfand (eds.) Leiden. 2011

Geary, P. 'Humiliation of Saints.' In Saints and their cults: studies in religious sociology, folklore, and history. Stephen Wilson (ed.). London. 1985.

de Hamel, C. A History of Illuminated Manuscripts. London. 1986

Hildegard von Bingen. Physica. Reiner Hildebrandt and Thomas Gloning (eds.). Berlin. 2010

Kerr, J. Monastic Hospitality: The Benedictines in England, c.1070-c.1250. Woodbridge. 2007

Salvadore, M. 'The Ethiopian Age of Exploration: Prester John’s Discovery of Europe, 1306-1458.' Journal of World History, 21. 2011. pp. 593 - 627

Shultz, E. Gothic and Renaissance Art in Nuremberg 1300-2550. New York. 1986

Thanks to @viasplat for typing up the pentiment bibliography! you saved me a bunch of work

[avibero]

Just finished Pentiment.

Absolutely amazing game. Made me feel so many things. SO well researched. I wanted it to keep going, not because it wasn't a satisfying conclusion (it was....it was very satisfying), but because I just wanted to spend more time with the characters in that world.

10/10 go play Pentiment

[astriiformes]

trick or treat!

Giving you "The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy" by Katharine Park!

[tarakau]

Finished Pentiment and honestly how am I supposed to just go on now???

[owltypical]

just beat pentiment, current mood

but like, in a good way??

pentiment ruled, go play it

[pathetic-gamer]

Pentiment's Complete Bibliography, with links to some hard-to-find items:

I've seen some people post screenshots of the game's bibliography, but I hadn't found a plain text version (which would be much easier to work from), so I put together a complete typed version - citation style irregularities included lol. I checked through the full list and found that only four of the forty sources can't be found easily through a search engine. One has no English translation and I'm not even close to fluent enough in German to be able to actually translate an academic article, so I can't help there. For the other three (a museum exhibit book, a master's thesis, and portions of a primary source that has not been entirely translated into English), I tracked down links to them, which are included with their entries on the list.

If you want to read one of the journal articles but can't access it due to paywalls, try out 12ft.io or the unpaywall browser extension (works on Firefox and most chromium browsers). If there's something you have interest in reading but can't track down, let me know, and I can try to help! I'm pretty good at finding things lmao

Okay, happy reading, love you bye

Beach, Alison I. Women as Scribes: Book Production and Monastic Reform in Twelfth-Century Bavaria. Cambridge Univeristy Press, 2004.

Berger, Jutta Maria. Die Geschichterder Gastfreundschaft im hochmittel alterlichen Monchtum: die Cistercienser. Akademie Verlag GmbH, 1999. [No translation found.]

Blickle, Peter. The Revolution of 1525. Translated by Thomas A. Brady, Jr. and H.C. Erik Midelfort. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.

Brady, Thomas A., Jr. “Imperial Destinies: A New Biography of the Emperor Maximilian I.” The Journal of Modern History, vol 62, no. 2., 1990. pp.298-314.

Brandl, Rainer. “Art or Craft: Art and the Artist in Medieval Nuremberg.” Gothic and Renaissance Art in Nuremberg 1300-1550. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986. [LINK]

Byars, Jana L., “Prostitutes and Prostitution in Late Medieval Bercelona.” Masters Theses. Western Michigan University, 1997. [LINK]

Cashion, Debra Taylor. “The Art of Nikolaus Glockendon: Imitation and Originality in the Art of Renaissance Germany.” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, vol 2, no. 1-2, 2010.

de Hamel, Christopher. A History of Illuminated Manuscripts. Phaidon Press Limited, 1986.

Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. Translated by William Weaver. Mariner Books, 2014.

Eco, Umberto. Baudolino. Translated by William Weaver. Mariner Books, 2003.

Fournier, Jacques. “The Inquisition Records of Jacques Fournier.” Translated by Nancy P. Stork. Jan Jose Univeristy, 2020. [LINK]

Geary, Patrick. “Humiliation of Saints.” In Saints and their cults: studies in religious sociology, folklore, and history. Edited by Stephen Wilson. Cambridge University Press, 1985. pp. 123-140

Harrington, Joel F. The Faithrul Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

Hertzka, Gottfired and Wighard Strehlow. Grosse Hildegard-Apotheke. Christiana-Verlag, 2017.

Hildegard von Bingen. Physica. Edited by Reiner Hildebrandt and Thomas Gloning. De Gruyter, 2010.

Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. Translated by Barry Windeatt. Oxford Univeristy Press, 2015.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others. Routledge, 2017.

Kerr, Julie. Monastic Hospitality: The Benedictines in England, c.1070-c.1250. Boudell Press, 2007.

Kieckhefer, Richard. Forbidden rites: a necromancer’s manual of the fifteenth century. Sutton, 1997.

Kuemin, Beat and B. Ann Tlusty, The World of the Tavern: Public Houses in Early Modern Europe. Routledge, 2017.

Ilner, Thomas, et al. The Economy of Duerrnberg-Bei-Hallein: An Iron Age Salt-mining Center in the Austrian Alps. The Antiquaries Journal, vol 83, 2003. pp. 123-194

Lang, Benedek. Unlocked Books: Manuscripts of Learned Magic in the Medieval Libraries of Central Europe. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008

Lindeman, Mary. Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Lowe, Kate. “’Representing’ Africa: Ambassadors and Princes from Christian Africa to Renaissance Italy and Portugal, 1402-1608.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Sixth Series, vol 17, 2007. pp. 101-128

Meyers, David. “Ritual, Confession, and Religion in Sixteenth-Century Germany.” Archiv fuer Reformationsgenshichte, vol. 89, 1998. pp. 125-143.

Murat, Zuleika. “Wall paintings through the ages: the medieval period (Italy, twelfth to fifteenth century).” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, vol 23, no. 191. Springer, October 2021. pp. 1-27.

Overty, Joanne Filippone. “The Cost of Doing Scribal Business: Prices of Manuscript Books in England, 1300-1483.” Book History 11, 2008. pp. 1-32.

Page, Sophie. Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests, and Occullt Approaches to the Medieval Universe. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013.

Park, Katharine. “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissectionin Renaissance Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol 47, no. 1, Spring 1994. pp. 1-33.

Rebel, Hermann. Peasant Classes: The Bureaucratization of Property and Family Relations under Early Habsburg Absolutism, 1511-1636. Princeton University Press, 1983.

Rublack, Ulinka. “Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Female Body in Early Modern Germany.” Past & Present,vol. 150, no. 1, February 1996.

Salvador, Matteo. “The Ethiopian Age of Exploration: Prester John’s Discovery of Europe, 1306-1458.” Journal of World History, vol. 21, no. 4, 2011. pp.593-627.

Sangster, Alan. “The Earliest Known Treatise on Double Entry Bookkeeping by Marino de Raphaeli.” The Accounting Historians Journal, vol. 42, no. 2, 2015. pp. 1-33.

Throop, Priscilla. Hildegarde von Bingen’s Physica: The Complete English Translation of Her Classic Work on Health and Healing. Healing Arts Press, 1998.

Usher, Abbott Payson. “The Origins of Banking: The Brimitive Bank of Deposit, 1200-1600.” The Economic History Review, vol. 4, no. 4. 1934. pp.399-428.

Waldman, Louis A. “Commissioning Art in Florence for Matthias Corvinus: The Painter and Agent Alexander Formoser and his Sons, Jacopo and Raffaello del Tedesco.” Italy and Hungary: Humanism and Art in the Early Renaissance. Edited by Peter Farbaky and Louis A. Waldman, Villa I Tatti, 2011. pp.427-501.

Wendt, Ulrich. Kultur and Jagd: ein Birschgang durch die Geschichte. G. Reimer, 1907.

Whelan, Mark. “Taxes, Wagenburgs and a Nightingale: The Imperial Abbey of Ellwangen and the Hussite Wars, 1427-1435.” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 72, no. 4, 2021, pp.751-777.

Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Yardeni, Ada. The Book of Hebrew Script: History, Palaeography, Script Styles, Calligraphy & Design. Tyndale House Publishers, 2010.

[dragonomatopoeia]

Air's End-of-Year Youtube Video Rec-List Round-Up

In light of recent events and also because I wanted to, I have put together a rec list of various (mostly longform) videos that I've enjoyed this year. Not all of these videos were released this year, however-- I just happened to see them for the first time in 2023. For readability and quality of life purposes, I have put this list under a readmore and divided the videos up by category, then creator, which means that some youtube channels might appear in multiple categories

I reserve the right to edit this later as I remember more videos, but I feel comfortable publishing it as is, considering it has almost 100 videos on it at this point

Cooking

Get Curried Chili Garlic Rosemary Chicken Recipe | How to Make Chili Garlic Rosemary Chicken at Home | Prateek Anardana Chicken Recipe | Delicious Himachal Style Anardana Chicken Recipe at Home | Chef Prateek Old Delhi Style Tangdi Kebab | How to Make Indian Starter Tangdi Kebab Recipe | Chef Prateek Dhawan

How to Cook That The $10 Million dollar lie (Betty Crocker) Debunking the Pink Sauce Controversy | How To Cook That Ann Reardon Top 7 Best Easy Lemon Recipes 🍋 | How To Cook That Ann Reardon Toxic Foods promoted on TikTok! | How To Cook That Ann Reardon Why is Pyrex exploding? | How To Cook That Ann Reardon

Library of Congress' Youtube Channel El Camino del Mole a New Orleans El Camino del Pan a Baltimore

Immaculate Bites LEMON BUNDT CAKE FIRECRACKER SHRIMP

Simply Mamá Cooks 3 EASY Beef Pot Roast Recipes perfect for the cold weather EASY Chicken Tamales Recipe | How To Make Tamales Easy NO-KNEAD Soft Dinner Rolls + FLUFFY From Scratch Milk Rolls Recipe Zuppa Toscana Recipe EASY | Olive Garden Potato Sausage Soup Recipe

Fraud, Grifts, and Scams

FoldingIdeas Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse In Search Of A Flat Earth This is Financial Advice

Maggie Mae Fish Is the "Off-Grid" Lifestyle a Lie??

Münecat I Debunked Every "Body Language Expert" on Youtube The Problem with Tony Robbins (Deep-Dive - Pt.1) The Problem with Tony Robbins (Deep-Dive - Pt. 2)

Super Eyepatch Wolf The Bizarre World of Fake Martial Arts The Bizarre World of Fake Psychics, Faith Healers, and Mediums Influencer Courses are Garbage: The Dark Side of Content Creation Tom Nicholas Griftonomics: Why Scams are Everywhere Now

We're In Hell A History of Spam on the Internet Hustling America: I Can't Believe This Show Is Real The Problem with Voluntourism WE Charity & the Nonprofit Industrial Complex

Gaming

Hbomberguy Halcyon Dreams: The Legacy of Dragon's Lair

Jacob Geller Games that Aren't Games How Can We Bear to Throw Anything Away?

Li Speaks An Exploration of the Avata Star Sue-niverse It's Time For You To Play Flash Games Again The Strange Case of Kissing and Flirting Games Untangling the Lore of Devilish Hairdresser

Mandaloregaming The Mystery of the Druids: A Bizarre Adventure Game

People Make Games The Games Industry Must Not Stay Silent on Palestine Investigation: Who’s Telling the Truth about Disco Elysium? Working at Valve: 'A Fearless Adventure' or 'Lord of the Flies'?

PowerPak Dead Space 3 Is Worse Than I Thought King's Quest - The First Adventure Game King's Quest 2 - A Bridge Too Far... MyHouse.WAD - Inside Doom's Most Terrifying Mod Squirrel Stapler is Absolutely Nuts Tunic is Deceptively Brilliant

Super Bunnyhop Perusing Pentiment's Boisterous Bibliography

History

BobbyBroccoli The image you can't submit to journals anymore

Cambrian Chronicles Wikipedia's King who Doesn't Exist

Defunctland Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History

Elliot Sang How Tea Became European McMindfulness: When Capitalism Goes Buddhist

Intelexual Media Creating The Conservative New Right In The 1970s A Buffet of Black Food History

Kaz Rowe A Deep Dive into the Deadly World of Victorian Patent Medicine Why Have So Many People Seen Ghost Ships? Why the Myth of the Library of Alexandria Is Wrong

Kendra Gaylord 500 years of dollhouses and what it meant to teach girls Alice Austen, the 1880s photographer: her house, her photos, her love life What happened to cheap food? Diners, Automats, and affordable eating

Nerdsync Bonkers origins of superhero memes The Scandalous REAL Origin of Superman's Lois Lane Superman's Uncomfortable History with Nuclear Weapons

Premodernist Advice for time traveling to medieval Europe

Stepback History How The Vietnam War Birthed a Generation of White Terrorists OK Fine I’ll Talk About Ancient Apocalypse

Tantacrul Notation Must Die: The Battle For How We Read Music

Film and Television

Be Kind Rewind How Breakfast at Tiffany's Turned into a Totally Different Movie | Adapting a Classic Casting the Women of Valley of the Dolls | PT 1 The Making of Valley of the Dolls | PT 2 How the "Old Ladies N' Hijinks" Subgenre Became a Thing How a "Sacrilegious" Film Changed Hollywood Forever... So I watched BLONDE... Why Tallulah Bankhead Never Became a Movie Star

Big Joel The Song That Broke West Side Story

Cherrybepsi Can We Kill the Final Girl Trope Already?

Hazel weird & kinda scary tokusatsu girls

Jane Mulcahy The Lunacy of Teen Wolf (Part 1) What is the 'psycho biddy' genre?

Maggie Mae Fish BLACK CHRISTMAS Before & After "Me Too" The War on "Woke" Hollywood: A History of Blacklists and Strikes Why is Clint Eastwood

Princess Weekes Black Trauma vs. Black Horror Why Are There So Many Confederate Vampires? Why Don't Worry Darling Doesn't Work ...

Shanspeare EUPHORIA: Sam Levinson’s Unfulfilled Fantasy The Girlboss-ification of the Horror Genre TikTok Femininity Coaching and Aestheticizing Racism

Science and Technology

BobbyBroccoli The $21,000,000,000 hole in Texas The man who faked human cloning How to catch a criminal cloner

Eastman Museum's Youtube Channel Photographic Processes Series

Technology Connections What's the deal with the popcorn button?

Practical Engineering How Flood Tunnels Work What's the Difference Between Paint and Coatings? Why Is Desalination So Difficult? Why Railroads Don't Need Expansion Joints

[they-might-be-ultramen]

Pentiment is so good and *so* historically accurate they have a damn BIBLIOGRAPHY of sources they used in the credits of the game!!! Fuck man!!! Good fucking game!!!

[maxime-cpt]

Pentiment is exceptional

time for one of these again.

Okay so last weekend I finished Pentiment and it was incredibly good, it's hard to say after such a short time but it's probably one the best video games I've played. Pentiment is a narrative forward roleplaying game with detective story elements set in 16th century Bavaria. The game takes place in a small town and the adjacent abbey where your character, the artist Andreas Maler, is completing his masterwork. If you wanna get an idea of the gameplay think of something like Night in the woods.

The true highlight of the game to me is its world and characters, how it gets you to care about the characters of this place, their daily lives, their beliefs, their interests... It truly feels like people back then were just people, idk it sounds stupid but it's the case, and it's different from other representations of history in popular media. They even got me to care a lot about the brothers and sisters at the abbey (religion, the Church and its insidiousness are a huge part of this game and I understand this alone will stop some people from giving it a try)

If you're even remotely interested in renaissance history, art history or even just history as a practice, I can only recommend this game. It's also super well researched if I am to believe the extensive bibliography at the end of the credits, and it was a pleasure to read through the ingame database, which grows organically.

Oh and it's gorgeous btw

I can't remember all the sensitive content in the game off the top of my head (doesn't help that I've started a game over a month ago and had a long pause). I can remember some mentions of sexual assaults happening before the events of the game, and like I said before, the Church in the game is central and unavoidable.

[rpgchoices]

Sometimes I really want to read a short summary of what to expect from a game… and thankfully people can also submit their summaries of games they played and help me (and others) find games that cater to their interests!

submitted by @lairofsentinel

(click here for other videogames)

what to expect from Pentiment

Hybrid of Visual Novel, Point&Click, and role-playing video game. 

It is set in Bavaria in the 16th century.

The town where this game happens, called Tassing, as well as the double abbey related to it called Kiersau, are fictional, but the way people lived, the religion of the time, the history of the Romans and Christians in this area, the lifestyle of the people, the lifestyle in the abbey, the popular books of the time, the medicine, etc. All the rest in this game is historically accurate. 

It’s so well researched that by the end of the game you will read a long list of bibliography and cities of books and articles on the matter. The game was developed with the consultory of three mediaeval historians.

The word pentimento is derived from the Italian 'pentirsi', which means to repent or change your mind. Pentimento is a change made by the artist during the process of painting. These changes are usually hidden beneath a subsequent paint layer. The mere title of the game gives an idea of what we are going to have as a narrative: a series of layers about the events that people live, the truth, the distortion of the truth, the conveniences of lies and hidden truths, and what is left in the History after all that.

This is a game about history, power dynamics, classes, rebellions, and how history picture all this. And how the little people get caught in the historical events with little choice.

The game is basically a “solve a murder” kind of story, but it is never as simple as it looks like. The amount of layers and hidden truths you find while solving the case is really big. 

The timespan of the game is 25 years. 

The game is divided into 3 acts, and you play with two different main characters. 

You play an artist called Andreas, who can be customised with different backgrounds and personality traits that allow you to unlock different dialogue options. The options in the dialogue are not vital and work more like a flavour, allowing you to have better or worse approval from other characters you interact with.

Design-wise, Andreas is already a set character and cannot be customised physically: outfit, hair, face, etc.

The game depends on time but it’s not timed. You will never have time to cover all the clues or ask questions to all the suspects, so you need to appraise your options and be tactical. The time is not in a constant count-down: you can spend a lot of time talking with the people of the town or abbey without wasting time, but once you speak with one of the main characters involved in the murders or that was suggested in the journal, hours pass by as a way to represent the time you spent talking with these plot-relevant persons. 

Part of your research is done “eating” with people: during the meal, questions and comments will arise that will allow you to push people to tell you things about the cases or simply provide you important insight over other characters or events.

You need to talk with a lot of people all the time. Through the knowledge of the people, folklore and myths pass through generations, and some opinions and gossip, you recreate the motives of the murderer, helping you to point out one of your suspects as the real culprit. 

This game forces you to pick a culprit with the information you have and live with the consequences of accusing them. It’s not immediately clear whether or not you made the correct decision, but it is immediately clear the effect that such decision has on the people. 

Consequences are quite impactful. Your choices along the game matter significantly, changing situations and characters that may live or die or simply change their mind, imprinting a particular different effect in each case. 

Its pace is rather slow. Especially in the beginning, it can feel slow and overwhelming in the amount of names, characters, and places that are dropped in the first minutes of the game. There is a system of glossary and small codices that helps the player’s memory, but still it takes some time to get accustomed. 

I personally disliked a lot the lack of teleportation via “double click” in the map. This makes you waste a lot of minutes when you want to cross the whole town to check something, so it’s a lot of walking and screens that could be spared once you walked once along that path.

The game's art style is a mixture of late mediaeval manuscripts, early print, and woodcuts at the transition from late mediaeval to early modern art.

It has multiple endings in the sense that each character you speak to can end in a different manner depending on your choices. 

Most of the time, the game has no music in the background, but environmental sounds in  a loop, like birds, running water, the constant hit of a hammer on an anvil, etc. This can be bothersome after some minutes. 

It’s not voiced. 

The game has an option to activate or deactivate easy reading. This is related to the fonts we see that each character speaks with. It's not just a small detail: Pentiment has no voice-acting so it assigns special scripts to the speakers. Almost all of them are handwritten and show small changes depending on the tone of the conversation. For example, if Andreas initially thought a person that he is speaking to was very educated and finds out that they can’t write at all, the writing in his speech bubbles changes to a very simple, untidy-looking one. If he finds out that someone has studied at university when he did not expect that before, the writing becomes more ornate. In a way, the writing reflects Andreas’ opinion of the person. When you see the pattern, these changes impact the players’ perception.

It’s a short game, lasting around 20 hours, but it has a high replayability due to the amount of different changes you can imprint to have different results. 

Trigger warnings: public executions, stylised gore, suicide, references to abortion, frequent strong language, references to sexual assault, and references to sexual activities. Small parts of the game also reference notable alcohol consumption and incidental ergot-induced hallucinations. It’s a game strongly themed in Christianism and religion. 

——- Plot? ——-

You play as the journeyman artist Andreas Maler, who spends his time in Tassing, a fictional town in the countryside of the Holy Roman Empire, in the year 1518. Although Andreas’ routine has him working on his masterpiece or making copies of one of the local abbey’s manuscripts, he quickly becomes wrapped up in a series of local murders that he decides to be involved with in order to solve them.

——- Gameplay? ——- 

Basically like a Visual novel with some options for particular reactions, answers, or questions. You explore the town, the houses, stores, and abbey, and check on clickable elements or talk to people. When the time of the trial has come, the player is meant to accuse an individual based on either who they think did it or who most deserves punishment.

——- Characters? ——- 

The main one is Andreas Maler, the artist you play with, but there are dozens of characters, since even the most secondary ones have and impressive depth, with motivations, roubles, fears, hopes. It’s just a matter of following some char along the acts to unlock their stories. 

 ——- LGBT? ——-

There is an explicit gay couple of monks, and a hinted lesbian couple among the peasants. 

——- Sadness level? ——- 

A lot. There is a lot to cry about in this game. There is a lot of human experience with life and time, grief, death, and loss. 

——- Happy ending? Deaths? ——-

The ending of the majority of the characters depends a lot on your choices. There are a lot of bittersweet and sad endings, and a lot of Death. I can’t specify much without making a long list of spoilers.

[palatial-monstrosity]

sexiest thing about Pentiment is the full bibliography in the credits!!

[taupewolfy]

hooting and hollering at the extensive bibliography in the credits for pentiment

[studyscrasic]

Tagged by @lesbiangerman for a short little meme!

• Current song: Ale Brider, specifically the version by the Klezmatics

• Currently watching: I don't really watch much TV, although I really ought to for language practice reasons. I suppose the last show I watched in full was Princess Tutu, a fairy tale/ballet anime one of my friends wanted to show a group of us and that I really enjoyed. It had a lot of good themes about hope and stories, both of which I love.

• Currently reading: Too many books! Among them though are: Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humors by Noga Arikha, Before We Were Trans by Kit Heyam and The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science by Seb Falk

• Current obsession: I've been really into the video game Pentiment since I played it last December. It's a historical fiction game set in 16th century Germany and the creators of the game did so much research for it. There's even a bibliography at the end, that I've been working my way through slowly! The art style of the game is also based off early modern manuscripts and woodcuts. And I wasn't expecting the story to grab me as much as it did, but it's a really moving love letter to the past.

I've also been really special interesting on medieval and Renaissance medicine the last month or so, which is probably clear from my reading list, as well as the fact that I have been in my university's historical medical library looking at actual 16th-century medical books. I just love the history of science so much!

Tagging: @blue-hi @ben-learns-smth @salvadorbonaparte @edvin-eller-edfeil @polarblog @pocketmouse-langblr and @mollydot if you'd like to participate. If not, no worries!

[astriiformes]

I am once again informing you all that Pentiment is currently (as of 6/13/23) on sale on Steam and you should really really play it.

If you're new here: Meticulously researched historical mystery game somewhere between an RPG and a visual novel in which your choices matter a lot, set in 16th century Bavaria where you play as an artist employed by a local monestary. Incredible plot, story, and characters, made me feel every human emotion, beautifully weaves in themes about art, history, why we create, and how we're remembered after we're gone, gorgeous stylization (the whole game is made to look like a medieval manuscript and/or woodcut), and was clearly made with so much love. Also how many games come with a full historical bibliography and the option to enable long s in the game text?

It's well worth the sale price especially and it's my mission to get people to play this game.

[jesawyer]

Hello, Josh! Really excited about Pentiment! After watching the trailer and some images from the game, I feel like it’s in part inspired by Umberto Eco’s novels - Baudolino and The Name of the Rose in particular (different time periods, but a murder mystery set in a monastery and somehow connected to books will always remind me of these). I’ve also heard you praising The Faithful Executioner by Joel Harrington as a great example of a fascinating book on history - it feels like it could be a great source for information about the times the Pentiment is set in. I was wondering if I am right about these books being a source of inspiration/research for the game and if you can name other books you and your team were using during development? Thank you for your work and can’t wait for the game to come out!

Thank you. All three of those books were inspirational for Pentiment. Eco's novels are, well, novels, and Joel Harrington's is a history book, but they have all been helpful and informative for us.

We have a full bibliography we plan to publish in some form after the game has been released, but I realized that distributing it prematurely might spoil some aspects of the story. Sorry.