0:23

Yo. What the heck is going on? Everybody.

0:25

Welcome back to another episode of the kind

0:27

of funny x cast. You're home for

0:29

all things x box here at kind of funny.

0:31

Of course, I'm one of your host Snowbike, Mike. And today,

0:34

I'm joined by just one of my gaming

0:36

dads, the rogue one. Mister Gary

0:38

Whitter. Gary, how are you today? I'm good. Let's

0:40

be here as always. I love the glasses

0:42

on the intro. Very nice little. I mean,

0:44

like, completely forgot. I needed to put

0:46

him on. Otherwise, I can't see a thing. I thought it was dope

0:49

move right there. But Gary, one gaming

0:51

dad down, but we got a very special

0:53

guest, a very dope guest. that

0:55

I can't wait for our audio and visual

0:57

watchers and listeners to tune into and hang

1:00

out with. It is. The game director

1:02

of the recent release,sentiment from

1:05

Obsidian Entertainment. Josh Sawyer,

1:07

joining us today. Josh, what's

1:09

going on? Welcome. How are you?

1:11

Doing well. Thank you for having me. Well, thank

1:13

you for joining us and, of course, sharing some

1:15

time with us. Congratulations on the

1:17

big game release to you and the team. How are

1:19

you feeling today? a

1:21

little tired. You know, it's

1:23

releasing a game is exhausting. Obviously,

1:26

you know, we had Monday with the embargo for

1:28

the reviews. And then that was

1:30

incredible seeing all the feedback that people had

1:32

for that, and then the game itself actually

1:34

coming out and trying to stay on top

1:36

of all the new reviews and

1:38

the user feedback and trying

1:41

to track bugs and and fix

1:43

those was just mentally really exhausting. So

1:46

didn't get a lot of sleep last night, but

1:49

I'm here again today, and we're fixing bugs

1:51

and doing interviews. So That's

1:53

awesome. It's great to see you. It's great to you. And

1:55

you look energized. You know, you say that's been

1:57

a long one, but you're looking good, you're looking energized.

1:59

What is something that for you as a veteran

2:02

in the games industry? something that keeps you motivated

2:04

or energized on the long haul once

2:06

you get to the final finish line. What keeps

2:09

you going? Is there a certain thing you like to do? Maybe

2:11

a bike ride? or read a book, catch up

2:13

with friends. What energizes you again?

2:15

Yeah. I mean, I I it's

2:17

all about pacing really. I mean, I do I

2:19

do endurance stuff with

2:21

with cycling and weightlifting. And,

2:25

you know, it's you kinda both

2:27

in endurance sports and making

2:30

games is kind of an endurance sport. You have

2:32

to pace yourself and you you have to

2:34

know to not push yourself too

2:36

hard, too fast. And then when you do

2:38

get to the end, you you need to

2:40

have the energy, the mental energy and the fortitude

2:42

and and still have the enthusiasm to really

2:44

push through it. And, you

2:47

know, the the gaming industry

2:49

has not been known for having a particularly great

2:51

culture about work life balance.

2:53

But I think our team has done a pretty

2:55

good job of staying

2:57

healthy and saying when it comes to

3:00

our schedules, and we did push toward

3:02

the end, but it was nothing to to nuts.

3:04

So, you know, it was just knowing

3:06

that we are all seeing it come together. You know,

3:08

we all took some time to play

3:11

the game before launch. And

3:13

we saw, you know, like, how far it did come and

3:15

how much progress we were making week to week,

3:17

and that gave us the energy to really push through

3:19

and just put those finishing touches on it

3:21

for for launch. That's really great. Josh. Well,

3:23

we're really excited to have you here today. We're gonna

3:26

talk all things, Pence, men and beyond

3:28

with you. We're really lucky to have you as a guest.

3:30

But, of course, I gotta jump right into the keeping

3:32

so we can talk about this interview right now.

3:34

Don't forget everybody this is. The kind of

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Echols. Thank you all so much for your

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support. Over on Patreon and thank you to all of our

4:55

Patreon watchers and listeners. that

4:57

are here with us live during this interview

4:59

today. We see you in the live chat. Remember if

5:01

you have questions that you would like to have

5:03

answered by Josh all about Benjamin,

5:05

please? put him in the chat, and we'll talk about

5:07

that with him later on. Of course,

5:09

this week, the XCast is sponsored by

5:11

rocket money policy genius and

5:13

Shopify we'll tell you all about

5:15

that in just a little bit. Let's get

5:17

into it. Josh, we're back with you,

5:19

and I wanna know what the heck?

5:21

Where did this all start with Pentament? We

5:23

talk about passion projects. And a

5:25

lot of eyes have been on obsidian entertainment

5:28

this year with quote unquote passion

5:30

projects, of course, grounded earlier. And now

5:32

your team with Pentamon where was the

5:34

idea to make sentiment? Where did it all

5:36

come from? And why sentiments? Yeah.

5:38

I mean, it started, you know, I guess,

5:41

thirty years ago, I played a

5:43

historical role playing game in

5:45

nineteen ninety two called Dark Lands. And

5:47

it's a really weird game, very unusual

5:49

game. I never played a role playing game

5:51

that was set in a historical time

5:54

period or, like, other than Fantasy or

5:56

sci fi. I hadn't played anything set in the

5:58

real world. And even though there were fantastic

5:59

elements, it was really very

6:02

heavily rooted in history. And

6:04

between that and theater stuff

6:06

that I was doing, I started becoming interested

6:08

in history.

6:10

And I I eventually went to school

6:12

and got a degree in history focusing

6:14

on the holy Roman Empire in the

6:16

early modern period.

6:17

And when I got into the

6:19

industry, I really had this this

6:21

feeling like I really would like to make

6:23

my own historical game at some point And

6:26

initially, I thought it would be something like

6:28

dark lands, something a little

6:30

more hardcore party based, you know, kind of a

6:32

more traditional isometric game.

6:34

But around the time that we were

6:36

acquired by Microsoft, I had an idea for

6:38

something that was more like night in the woods.

6:41

which is to say a narrative adventure

6:44

game with a really strong, distinct visual style.

6:46

That's really about just a

6:48

dialogue and exploration, and the

6:50

relationships you have with characters and

6:52

only light gameplay elements. And

6:55

because Microsoft has a real

6:57

focus on Game Pass, and

6:59

having a nice stable of

7:02

very interesting projects on it. I thought

7:04

this would be a a perfect focus if we

7:06

did it as a small scale project. with

7:08

a small team, small number of people,

7:11

not really big budget, and

7:13

that's kinda how it took off. Wow.

7:15

Josh, it seems like you nailed all of that

7:17

with the -- Of course. -- setting and

7:19

tone. The art. Right? III

7:21

can't wait to talk about the art with you. Of course, shout out

7:23

to Hannah Kennedy. which, you know,

7:25

when we had closed doors with YouTube, we got to

7:27

learn a little bit more about the art side of things.

7:29

But, yeah, let's talk about that. Of course, you

7:31

bring up GamePass, and I know That's the

7:33

big quote coming around right now. I believe from

7:35

you in an earlier interview this week, but of

7:37

course, the power of Game Pass and

7:39

you in the pitch to Microsoft and

7:41

the Obsidian team what was that like

7:43

pitching such a small project and

7:45

such a different project than what we're or,

7:47

you know, see and looking from from these

7:49

big AAA studios. You

7:52

know, the pitch process was around the time of

7:54

the acquisition. You know, I

7:56

went to my boss and I said, I need to make

7:58

this. You know, I've been working

7:59

on very specific types of games

8:02

for twenty years

8:04

now. And I really wanna

8:06

try to do something different. I really wanna try to

8:08

do something small. And I said,

8:10

I don't want a lot of people and I don't want a lot of

8:12

money for it. I just I wanna do it

8:14

the way that I wanna do it without

8:16

compromising it for any other purpose.

8:18

And I did tell him, like, I want I the

8:21

idea behind this is that it is not gonna be

8:23

something that's expensive to make.

8:25

It's not gonna be price high for the consumer.

8:27

And if if you know, if

8:29

it makes sense for Game Pass, I think I'd love

8:31

for it to be on Game Pass. And so

8:33

for my boss, Fergus ERCARD.

8:36

He was very supportive of it, and he let

8:38

me get going on it. And by the

8:40

time we showed it to Microsoft,

8:42

or Xbox more properly. We

8:44

already had a vertical slice completed, and

8:47

it was a lot easier to

8:49

show what we were doing than talk

8:51

about it. Like, because if I just describe it

8:53

as night in the woods meets name

8:55

of the rose. It's like one, you might not get the

8:57

references and two, you might not see how those things

8:59

go together. but showing the game and

9:01

what the gameplay was and what the art style was and

9:03

then explaining what we were trying to do

9:05

made it a a much easier sell and

9:07

Xbox has been supportive of it ever since

9:09

that first showing that we had. Wow.

9:12

That's really really cool. It's really interesting. You said

9:14

you had the idea for this game around the same

9:16

time that Microsoft acquired

9:18

you guys because that wasn't

9:20

that long ago. Right? What was the the whole, like,

9:22

timeline on this game from beginning to

9:24

where we are today? I

9:27

think it's about three years. I don't know

9:29

exactly when it started. I will say, like, I

9:31

had vague inklings of

9:33

the idea of a

9:35

night in the wood style two d

9:37

game, maybe historical after

9:39

I worked on pillars of attorney to dead fire.

9:41

And that was mid two

9:43

thousand eighteen, and the acquisition

9:45

was not tremendously long

9:48

after that. So,

9:50

you know, kinda just slid very

9:52

conveniently into a a nice time frame, and

9:54

we just got rolling on it. At first, it was

9:56

just I worked on it,

9:58

and Hannah Kennedy worked on and then

9:59

we got a producer and got a few more people. I

10:02

think our vertical slice was maybe five

10:04

people. And then, eventually, we

10:06

expanded to thirteen for the

10:08

last, like, nine months development. even with

10:10

at least at a smaller team and a

10:12

lower budget, was there any I I kind

10:14

of have to believe that there was at least some

10:16

resistance or reticence on the part of what I work

10:18

in Hollywood. Right? And it's like,

10:20

if if they

10:21

don't if they can't figure out how to market it

10:23

and, like, put the post together, it it

10:25

ain't happening. So I can just imagine like you go

10:27

into, like, the people

10:28

you've got a picture to and say, write your scribe in

10:31

sixteenth century Europe. and the marketing

10:33

people just going, oh my god. Like, is that

10:36

was it prickly at any point when when

10:38

you're trying to sell people on the idea of doing

10:40

something very atypical like this?

10:42

No. Honestly, it was it was

10:44

very easy. You know, there were

10:46

more there were more debates about what the title

10:48

should be than anything else. And,

10:51

you know, it's there's everyone always

10:53

wants to argue about titles, to be honest. It doesn't

10:55

matter what game I've worked on. But,

10:57

like, the game itself and the

10:59

style of it and the scope, there

11:02

is never really there is never really

11:04

any argument about it. Like, maybe some

11:06

people might have been skeptical, but if so, they

11:08

didn't really voice it. You know, everyone was

11:10

perfectly content to I

11:12

think, again, I think once we have the

11:14

vertical slice. The vertical slice doesn't look that

11:16

much different from what we shipped.

11:18

So, I mean, it does,

11:20

but, like, only in

11:23

polish, I would say. In the fundamental,

11:25

it really looks like the same game.

11:27

So I think if you see if

11:29

you if you can imagine something like,

11:31

you know, twenty five

11:33

percent worse than what's shipped. And if

11:35

you still are on board with that idea,

11:37

and you're like, oh, I think that looks

11:39

fundamentally kinda cool and the idea

11:41

sounds interesting. you're probably gonna be

11:43

okay with us making it, and that's that's kinda how

11:45

it works. So like I said, if people were really

11:47

opposed to it, they certainly didn't voice it. One

11:49

of the really show it. So, yeah,

11:51

it went pretty well. Just just like a quick

11:53

observation because I'd spent a a short time

11:55

playing it. One of the things I think is really presting

11:57

about it. And you don't see many examples of

12:00

this in gaming. Like, there's triple a

12:02

games, alright, high production values, and

12:04

indie games where, you know, it can be smaller quirk

12:06

here, but aren't necessarily gonna have, like, the AAA production

12:08

values. This is a game that, like, on the surface.

12:10

Everything from, like, the, you know,

12:12

the the the log line on. Right? Here's it's

12:14

sixteenth century Europe, It's it's a mystery. It

12:16

all kinda looks like the Bayou Tapestry.

12:18

Like, it's all it's very, very specific

12:21

and and kinda niche. And I

12:23

can imagine, like, the actual indie version

12:25

of this game, right, where the production values aren't

12:27

quite as high. But in playing it, one of the first

12:29

things that I was struck with is, like, within kind of an

12:31

indie framework, actually also seems to

12:33

have triple a production values. Like, something simple as a way

12:35

to when the text appears on screen. Yeah. You can

12:37

actually see, like, the ink kind of, like, fill out the

12:39

letters and and then you can see it

12:41

dry. Like, there's so there's so many little kinda

12:43

triple a type

12:45

touches in the game. And this is

12:47

really so much of a question is just observation or,

12:49

like, I really appreciate the fact that it had it's

12:52

obviously an indecisensibility from the top

12:54

down, but at the same time, it's kind of shot

12:56

through with those of high end production value.

12:58

It's going to really interesting hybrid of the two

13:00

things.

13:01

Yes. It's – and that was

13:03

the nice thing is that you

13:05

know, I don't

13:07

you know, I know indie developers and indie

13:09

developers work under a lot of really difficult

13:11

constraints. And I

13:14

don't you know, sometimes people refer to

13:16

this as like an indie game. And I

13:18

I think that that's unfair to indie

13:20

developers and kind of insulting to

13:22

them because, like, We're

13:24

supported by Xbox and Microsoft, and

13:26

that's fantastic. And,

13:29

frankly, the fonts and their rendering

13:31

are the most expensive They're

13:33

like the most expensive features

13:35

in our game. And I I think it

13:37

would be very difficult for an indie developer

13:40

unless they had a lot of money to work with to

13:42

spend the time and energy that we did.

13:44

But it was important to me and it was

13:46

important to the feeling of the project to do

13:48

that. And I think that, you know, working

13:50

within a company that's been here for

13:53

g is nineteen years now almost.

13:56

You know, that and being part of this

13:58

larger company, that really made it possible for

13:59

us to to spend the

14:02

time and effort to really focus on those

14:04

things and make them as polished as they needed to

14:05

be.

14:06

Yeah. You can feel the polish. You can see

14:08

the polish. I really loved you talked about

14:10

that quality of the fonts coming

14:12

in, Gary. I loved the And the little

14:14

little mistakes get corrected in real time.

14:17

Yeah. The ambient noise. Right? Of, like, you

14:19

can feel it. You're outside in the church

14:21

corridor and you're just hearing the

14:23

birds chirp, you hear the rain. softly

14:25

drop right there, and then the music hits

14:27

at certain points. I've really loved all of that. And

14:29

so, yeah, that's really cool to hear Josh

14:31

from the opposite side of what it looked

14:33

like from behind the scenes. I wanna talk

14:35

about is that small teen for a second. Right?

14:37

Because you're on the circuit. Everybody

14:39

wants to talk to you, the big game director.

14:41

But of course, there is a small team behind you.

14:43

You said thirteen. Of course, we wanna give

14:45

them their flowers and roses there and give them

14:47

the shout out. What were some of the members you can

14:49

tell us about? What was it like pitching

14:51

them and bringing them onto the team? Were

14:53

people excited, of course, to work next to you

14:55

and fulfill this vision

14:57

of yours? Yeah. It's interesting.

14:59

I mean, some of the people that I've been working

15:01

with, I've been working with for many years,

15:03

like, ten or more years, And

15:05

then some people I worked with for the first

15:07

time, you know, on this project.

15:10

And, you know, it's an

15:12

interesting mix because obviously the people that I've worked with,

15:14

they know who I am, Then there were people

15:16

who came to the project who maybe had some you

15:18

know, they understood who I wasn't the industry, but

15:20

they didn't really know me. I

15:22

know there were people who came onto team they

15:24

really didn't know anything

15:26

about me other than they knew that I was the

15:28

director of this project, but they

15:30

didn't even necessarily understand that

15:32

I'm this studio design director or the

15:34

other games that I directed. So it

15:37

was an interesting mix of

15:39

people. And, you know, we built the team over the

15:41

three year process, but you know, Hannah

15:43

Kennedy was the foundation of

15:45

the art style. She was the first person to work

15:47

on the game with me. She

15:49

she worked with Susan Pack who

15:51

is our other primary two

15:53

d artist and ninety five percent,

15:55

maybe even closer to ninety eight percent of

15:57

the game. was just created by those two

15:59

artists, which is really fantastic and

16:01

incredible. They've done a fantastic job.

16:04

Kathy Nichols is our animation

16:06

director. Kathy's been an animator at

16:08

Obsidian for quite a number of years.

16:10

Most notably, she worked on South Park, the

16:12

Stick of Truth, which some

16:14

of it gave some of our developers a background

16:16

in two d animation. You know,

16:18

we have a blend of kind of two d and three

16:20

d animation styles, but

16:22

she And we

16:25

have a number of animators, Elena,

16:28

Adam, Sundar, Cat

16:31

SNATH, they they did all of our

16:33

characters and our visual effects and things like

16:35

that. Kat Wensky and her

16:37

team at team audio, They

16:39

did all of our audio

16:41

work. Brett Closter and Nichola

16:43

Todorovic were our two programmers. They

16:45

did all the coding in the game. Alex

16:47

Fry's, my producer. Alec has been

16:49

indispensable. He's made, like, an incredible amount

16:51

of stuff happen. It's been it's been really

16:53

awesome having him, like, the stuff would not have

16:55

come together. without him.

16:57

And, yeah, man, I hope I

16:59

didn't miss anyone in there. But that's

17:01

I think it's about it, but, like,

17:03

you know, everyone just has everyone

17:06

has to do a lot of a

17:08

lot of different jobs when you have a small

17:10

team. You can't be hyper specialized.

17:12

Everyone's kinda jumping. Oh, I'm sorry. Matthew

17:14

L'Oreal. I always forget because he's like a one man

17:16

army. Matthew L'Oreal did

17:18

the all the work

17:20

on our areas. He did, like, all of our area

17:23

scripting, our cut scenes, working with our animation

17:25

team. And, yeah, really

17:27

fantastic. And then also, even though

17:29

they're not within the studio, we worked

17:31

with Riley Cran and his team at

17:33

LetterMatic on the fonts, which are incredible.

17:35

You can look up articles about all the work they

17:37

did on that. Alchemy Music,

17:39

which is an early music ensemble.

17:41

I actually contacted them through a college

17:43

friend because I started as a music

17:45

teacher in college. Ben, I a lot of those

17:47

people who went on to become professional musicians.

17:50

And then I worked with Kristen Hater,

17:52

also known as Langwig Nota for our

17:54

n track, which I think

17:56

just is incredible. And yeah.

17:58

So There you go. k. Yeah.

18:00

Yeah. I wanted to make sure we talk about the

18:02

team, and I actually wanna quickly

18:04

park the bus really quick and talk

18:06

about the art. I think that is what

18:08

when people first see this, their eyes are

18:10

immediately captured to that awesome art styles. So all of

18:12

those things will even if you're not terribly familiar with the

18:14

art of that period, like, you kind of recognize it

18:17

right away. It's like, oh, this is like a historical

18:19

piece. Yeah. You're probably like get within, like, a hundred years when

18:21

it's supposed to be set just because, you know,

18:23

we most people, I think, are familiar

18:25

with that kind of art

18:27

as reflective of that time period. Yeah.

18:29

And that's what I wanna ask you, Josh, is,

18:31

of course, for our audio listeners out there.

18:33

Maybe people are watching, they'll see the b roll come

18:35

up. But, like, how do you describe

18:38

this art style to people maybe

18:40

first timers or people who haven't seen this

18:42

yet? You know, the art

18:44

style is a blend of styles

18:46

that Hannah came up with that's heavily

18:48

based on late medieval illuminated

18:51

manuscripts and early modern woodcuts. So

18:54

there is a manuscript tradition in

18:56

Europe that goes back, like, maybe a thousand

18:58

years or more. You know,

19:00

you had menastic scriptoria

19:03

especially like in Ireland. They have like a really rich

19:05

tradition. It's spread all

19:07

over, you know, the aisles and

19:09

then continental Europe. and

19:11

that went on for centuries. And for a

19:13

very long time, menastic

19:15

scriptoria were the places

19:17

where by and large most books

19:19

were made They were all made by hand. They were

19:21

largely in Latin. Some of them would be

19:23

in other languages, but Latin was kind of the

19:25

language of the educated classes for most

19:27

of Europe. And then over

19:29

time, in the later middle ages,

19:31

fourteenth century and on,

19:33

the scriptoria started fading out

19:36

of view and secular

19:39

either artists or guilds of artists

19:41

would emerge and that they took

19:43

over manuscript production And then

19:45

in the middle of the fifteenth century, books really kind of

19:48

took hold. And we are

19:50

trying to capture that transitional

19:53

period between the end of

19:55

the manuscript tradition and the beginning of

19:57

the print tradition. And Kirsaw Adi

19:59

in the game is this kind of

20:02

scriptorial out of time.

20:04

Like, there there arguably were very

20:06

few if if any domestic

20:08

scriptorial is still in in production at

20:10

this point in time when the game takes

20:13

place. But for purposes of our

20:15

story, because CureSoft is kind of supposed

20:17

to be an out of time Place,

20:19

we still have this tiny group of

20:22

monks and Andreas who are making

20:24

manuscripts, but they also realize

20:26

that they're on the way out, like there's a

20:28

printer even in their town making

20:30

books. So we really wanted to capture that

20:32

art style that showed this is the

20:34

height of hand

20:35

painted manuscripts, but also

20:37

the emergence of this new beautiful form

20:39

of woodcut and ink printing

20:42

and color washes, and I think

20:44

Hannah captured that really perfectly. She

20:46

crushed it. It it's honestly awesome.

20:48

Yeah. It's beautiful. And it has the advantage when one was

20:50

looking like traded like fairy tale

20:52

storybook as well because there's some crossover there. I'm

20:54

actually glad that we're getting nerdy because I had a I

20:56

had a nerdy question on the

20:58

riding side. Oh, no. I wanted I wanted to

21:00

go go. I've only I've only been playing for, like, an hour or two, but

21:02

I'm already getting, like, a sense of the the vibe and

21:04

what as a writer, I find it really interesting.

21:06

By the way, someone if you saw penny

21:08

K today, but they made the point that one of the

21:10

many

21:10

reasons why the game's getting such good reviews is

21:13

who reviews video games, riders.

21:15

And

21:15

they love that this is a game writers in writing. Right? And they appreciate

21:17

that. And I think that's really, really cool. And it's

21:19

so rare to see, like, someone like that as the hero

21:21

of a story. But I wanted to ask

21:24

you, so It's really interesting. Right? So they're

21:26

going to sit in in in sixteenth century

21:28

Europe, and they're speaking English for our, you

21:30

know, for our benefit. And

21:32

I I

21:34

thought it

21:35

was interesting because if you go back to able to go back and, like,

21:38

reach Shakespeare, which was, like, written around the same

21:40

time. Language back then was even like you think

21:42

about English, fifteenth century, sixth century

21:44

English is so different from what it says. It's like anyone who's

21:46

ever tried to read or study

21:48

Shakespeare. It's actually kind of hard to do because the

21:50

language is different from what is evolved into five hundred years

21:52

later. And in playing

21:54

just the the small amount of pencils that I played, I

21:56

found it really interesting. I think you do a really good job

21:58

of, like, capturing I don't know if

21:59

I would say, like, authenticity, but, like, very

22:02

similar to you. Like, it feels accurate, it

22:04

feels authentic, which I think is that that's the best

22:06

thing you can shoot for. But at the same time, it

22:08

there's also, like, some temporary. Like, I that they explained

22:10

today, somebody said, how's it going? Which felt very

22:12

contemporary. I just thought it was really interesting. Like,

22:14

how you how you dialed in on a tone

22:16

and a voice in trying to bridge that

22:18

middle ground between having something that

22:21

feels as authentic as the period. In the right

22:23

how do you make the the writing feel as authentic to

22:25

the period as the art style does? while still,

22:27

but but not going so deep into the weeds that

22:29

people can't understand what they're saying. You know what I mean?

22:31

It's kind of a hybrid style that you had to find.

22:34

Yeah.

22:34

I get it. By the way, I did realize the entire

22:36

group of people I completely forgot to

22:38

mention. Oh, yes. other writers.

22:41

So I was the narrative when I used to it.

22:43

I worked I worked very

22:45

closely with Kate Dollar Hyde was my

22:47

primary writing partner, especially at the beginning of

22:49

the game. Love

22:51

Kate. I've I've worked with her for many years, and

22:53

she just did a fantastic job. Also,

22:55

Zoe Fransnik and Merritt and

22:57

Radicep did an incredible job

22:59

coming on later in a project in writing a lot of our

23:01

act two and act three dialogue especially.

23:03

So we together formed a team of four

23:05

people spread out over the three years.

23:08

Sorry. I I was I was so caught up in

23:10

in remembering everyone I forgot about my own

23:12

department on. But anyway, when

23:14

it came to capturing the

23:16

voice, you know, I think that part

23:18

of it was working

23:20

in fantasy. Fantasy has this

23:22

kind of tendency towards like,

23:26

faux historicity. So,

23:28

like, this sounds like kind of

23:30

quasi historical. but

23:32

sometimes that can sound very stiff and artificial and

23:35

not colloquial. And you

23:38

just lose a lot of character of casual

23:41

conversation. On the other end of the spectrum,

23:43

if you get too modern and

23:45

anachronistic, you get jarred

23:47

out of the the moment

23:49

like you're you stopped feeling like you're in a historical

23:51

setting. And I remember watching

23:53

the Derek Jacoby Catfell.

23:56

Catfell. Yeah. That was a great

23:58

show. Yeah. Yeah. I loved it. And and I

24:00

thought it was interesting because they went a little more

24:02

on the formal side than I think we did. But

24:04

something I liked about I I watched it kind

24:06

of behind the scenes thing with Derek Jacoby

24:08

and he was talking about how their approach

24:10

to language was to not really

24:13

make it so stiff and so formal

24:15

that it was alienating to the

24:17

audience because so much of Kadvil's

24:19

appeal is empathizing with

24:21

especially Kadvil as a

24:23

character, but also the characters, especially the lovers

24:25

that are caught up in everything. So

24:27

they struck this balance, and I tried to find that

24:29

as well. And one of the things that's

24:31

interesting you mentioned, how's it

24:33

going? There's a number of I speak German a fluent in

24:35

German. I'm not a native German speaker, but

24:37

there were a number of places where I tried

24:39

to mimic the

24:41

construction of phrases in

24:43

German within English. So

24:45

instead of, or

24:48

or or how goes it, then

24:50

you say, how is it going or how goes it

24:52

sometimes, And, you know, instead

24:54

of a bish beta, bishan, you

24:56

know, until later, until then, that they

24:58

just say that in English, So it sounds a

25:00

little more conversational, a little more informal,

25:03

but it also achieves hopefully that bridge

25:05

where it's not people saying goodbye. There

25:07

are very few people that say goodbye in

25:09

the some other construction that's meant

25:12

to mimic because most of the characters are

25:14

intended to be speaking German most of the time.

25:16

And so we're trying to kind of

25:18

ape that and make it

25:20

feel casual, but

25:23

not not contemporary. We

25:25

don't want it to sound people talking right now,

25:27

and that's a difficult balancing act. And it

25:29

took a lot of revision for us to get to that

25:31

point, but I'm glad

25:33

it I'm

25:33

glad it seems to have worked out. It would be an

25:35

interesting kind of hardcore difficulty mode for the game

25:37

to actually have have it written as as

25:40

close to you know, the the the sixteenth

25:42

century, like, how how they would actually talk as you

25:44

possibly could. Can again, if you're in school when they make

25:46

you read Shakespeare, it's like, what? Like,

25:48

you've got you really got to, like, deconstruct it and and always translate

25:50

it from one because fifteen, you know, sixteenth

25:52

century English is a different language. So there's a language

25:54

we speak today and there's a translation

25:56

that has to occur. So, no, I thought

25:58

that was I thought it was really cool. I like I I

26:00

appreciate all the again, that was some as a

26:02

writer, I found really interesting is it feels

26:05

it feels authentic, but it's

26:07

also accessible. And that is that's a hard, you

26:10

know, kind of middle

26:10

ground to find anything. And that's where I wanna go

26:12

with the Gary's accessible. Right?

26:14

We talk about the glossary in the

26:16

game. Right? Josh is throwing out all these different

26:18

words. Gary's the big writer. He knows all of

26:20

it. But there's these fun moments where

26:23

you're looking at something that it's highlighted on your screen and you go,

26:25

okay, like, what does that mean? Or where does this come

26:27

from? And I love what you and the team did with the

26:30

glossary of hey, let's

26:32

take you off the page really quick, which is

26:34

a very cool, like, zoom off of it and be

26:36

able to read up on some of these. Where did that

26:38

idea come from? How did it work so well?

26:40

What was kind of the tools and trips tips

26:42

to make that happen? So Obsidian

26:45

started using a glossary

26:48

not a glossary tool, but like a tool tip feature

26:51

for lore terms on a game called

26:53

tyranny. Geez. I

26:55

wanna say that was, like, two

26:57

thousand fourteen or so. Maybe it was even earlier. I

26:59

can't remember, but it was around the time of pillars

27:01

between pillars and dead fire. Anyway,

27:03

when we had a lower term, that

27:06

was maybe hard to remember or not clear

27:08

what it was. You could highlight it with

27:10

your mouse. It would

27:12

give you a little pop up and tell you what it

27:14

was. We

27:14

had a controller

27:16

for our game, and

27:16

it was it was focused on console and PC.

27:19

So we needed to find a way to make that work.

27:21

And I said, well, I don't wanna do it as a

27:23

hover. I wanna have a mode that you can go

27:25

in where you can see a number of terms

27:27

or a number of characters highlighted

27:29

and shown in the margins. And I

27:31

have this idea of the book as a

27:33

framing element, which if you if you get

27:35

from the beginning to the end of the game, it

27:37

makes, hopefully, makes a lot more sense

27:39

of how it all, like, kinda ties

27:41

together. but that book as a thing that kind

27:43

of contains the story

27:45

of the game popping out

27:47

and looking at the margins I

27:49

liked the idea of kind of not quite

27:51

fourth wall breaking, but saying,

27:53

yes, this story is being tell told

27:55

within this two d plane

27:57

but it's also being recorded within this

27:59

three d book. And this three d

28:01

book contains its own two d pages, which

28:04

have notes. and illustrations of

28:06

characters to help you kind of go through it.

28:08

And then on top of that, there's another kind of metal

28:10

layer which is Andreas' Journal

28:12

is continually updated with

28:14

those glossary, you

28:17

know, entries and character

28:19

entries. And when you go into to look at

28:21

the journal, you pop out into the

28:23

margins of the book, but then Andreas' Journal

28:25

as another three d book slides on

28:27

top of that. So

28:29

it took a lot of iteration to get it feeling good. I do

28:31

think that one thing that worked in our favor

28:33

is for the glossary entries, we

28:35

were because of the spatial limitations

28:38

of the of the the fact that it was in

28:40

the margins of the book. We had a limited

28:42

amount of text to use, and I think that's one

28:44

of being a good thing because we don't

28:46

want players like flying away to a

28:48

Wikipedia article length,

28:50

you know, entry. If who's

28:52

Martin Luther? Like, they'd okay. If you wanna go

28:54

and look up the Wikipedia entry.

28:57

You can just do that whenever you want. But in

28:59

the context of the game, you just need to

29:01

know, he's a, you know, professor at the

29:03

University of Vittenberg, he

29:05

published this stuff about criticizing the churches,

29:07

sales of indulgences, fifteen

29:10

seventeen. There you go. Ninety five pieces. you

29:12

know, just the bear essential for you to be

29:14

like, got it. That's that guy. I understand

29:16

what's going on. Or like

29:18

someone mentions a saint Who

29:20

Saint John? Oh, yeah. He's the forerunner of Jesus. John

29:22

the Baptist. Okay. Got it. Understood.

29:25

So I think that, you know, iterating

29:27

on that in forcing us to write these bite

29:29

sized entries on things, keeping everything

29:32

brief. All the character entries

29:34

within our journal are also really

29:36

brief. It gives you the essentials,

29:38

but it doesn't bog you down. So you can keep

29:40

playing kind of at the pace you need to. And if you

29:42

already know everything, then you don't need to use

29:44

it all. If you're a historian, you can

29:46

just play right through and you're fine. Yeah. Really well

29:48

done. Shadow to you and the team for thinking

29:50

about that and making it easy for me

29:52

to comprehend of who are these people? What are

29:54

they talking about? And also, yeah, shout out

29:57

to the vibe of the journal.

29:59

Right? I think IGN brought up the

30:01

ASMR. Right? sounds that you have. Oh,

30:03

I mean, I love I

30:05

literally listen to those ASMR calligraphy

30:07

channels on YouTube, which is the sound of

30:09

a pen scratching across a part

30:11

man is gonna give that. Yeah. I mean, I

30:14

yeah. It scratches. That scratches me right where I

30:16

hit. I love that. I love that.

30:18

Yeah. I love all the different fonts, all the

30:20

different texts popping up. And of course, when we talk accessibility

30:22

settings, you also have the font, the easy

30:24

to read font. Right? There is this really

30:26

cool font for each different

30:28

character and their different backgrounds and their different religions

30:31

and where they're at. But then there's

30:33

also, hey, let's make this easier for you

30:35

to read. what was the balance between

30:37

those two and where did that kind of stem

30:39

from? Yeah. I mean, I

30:41

knew that because we weren't gonna have Vo, you know,

30:43

we have a huge cast of characters but

30:45

this is a small budget game with a small

30:47

team. And the idea of voicing,

30:49

you know, like, a hundred and fifty plus characters

30:51

because it's a it's a really big cast.

30:54

No. We're not gonna do that. So

30:56

we have to convey a lot of character through

30:58

other means. And text is the way that the

31:00

story is told. So, you

31:02

know, we invested a lot of time into our fonts.

31:05

They're historically based, but they're not

31:07

strictly historical because those would

31:09

be largely completely unreadable.

31:11

Most of them like, if you look at,

31:13

you know, sixteenth century handwriting

31:15

from, like, Switzerland or Austria

31:18

or Germany, it's really hard to

31:20

read. So we

31:22

we tried to give it as much of the flavor

31:24

of the writing of the period while making it

31:27

actually legible. But the thing is,

31:29

you know, it's still not

31:32

super readable for

31:34

some people. and, you know, black letter

31:36

script in some form or Fraktor

31:38

or Quadrata, that that monastic

31:40

script is just kinda difficult for some

31:42

people, especially in large quantities.

31:44

And so at a certain point, I had to accept,

31:46

like, we need to give people a mode

31:49

to read this in

31:51

something that's just more approachable and

31:53

simple. And we had two typefaces.

31:55

We had the humanist font and

31:57

the print font. And those were based on

31:59

historical

32:00

very legible typefaces

32:03

or or book hands in the case of the human

32:05

s one. And we just default everything

32:07

to that and do a couple

32:09

of other things to make things more readable.

32:11

because ultimately, you know, no

32:14

matter what goals I have for the differentiation

32:16

of text, if a person can't play

32:18

the game, that doesn't matter.

32:20

Like, if if they can't, you know, there

32:22

are certain lines you have to draw and say, like,

32:24

well, this is just not going

32:26

to this is just not gonna work.

32:29

So we had to allow that easy read mode

32:31

just to make sure that people could actually get into the game.

32:33

Which one did you pick? I started

32:35

with the normal fonts. I was having some fun. I

32:37

went to EasyWaves. You did. because I will tell you,

32:39

I've put a lot of time with this, and we're gonna talk

32:41

about that in just a moment. But like But I had did

32:44

you try than normal mode, but, like, maybe using your

32:46

actual glass with my glasses. No. I never wore the

32:48

glass. I got a I'm I got a giant

32:50

television screen in front of me, but what I

32:52

found myself was all of a sudden I laid

32:54

down on the couch and I was having so much

32:56

fun just enjoying the moment and

32:58

getting comfy with it. So I win the easy font and

33:00

it was just a blast. So we'll talk about

33:02

that in a moment because we're having a

33:04

really great interview with Josh Sawyer right

33:06

now, and it's gonna continue right after a

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36:22

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36:24

dot com. Alright, everybody. Welcome

36:26

back. Josh, that is one thing

36:28

I do wanna talk about with you

36:30

I wanna first apologize and say I'm eating my words and I

36:33

love the game because if we

36:35

rewind back to June, There

36:37

was a moment where, of course, we showed off Pentagon

36:40

to everyone around the world during the Xbox

36:42

game showcase, and it was a very interesting

36:44

vibe where I came out of

36:46

that going, I don't know if this is what I want. I was expecting more out of

36:48

the I was thinking about it as well. When I first

36:50

saw it. With the name Josh

36:52

sawyer attached to it, we were

36:54

gonna get follow New Vegas too.

36:56

We're gonna get something big and media out of

36:58

this team, and you showed

37:00

sentiments. But then I think now

37:02

where I'm at after fifteen plus

37:04

hours of gameplay. I'm loving the game and

37:06

I've really come full circle on it where

37:08

I'm enjoying it so much. I can't

37:10

wait to talk more about it with everybody here in

37:12

the office. and I see the that to

37:14

and the team right there of, like, maybe the

37:16

first initial reaction to this

37:18

project that is so passionate

37:20

from you and kinda

37:22

different from what everybody expects from

37:24

you to now where we are

37:26

today receiving all of

37:28

this praise. Well, I mean,

37:30

it feels good, obviously. I

37:32

wasn't super discouraged when we

37:34

first announced

37:36

it. you know, I was actually at the the Xbox showcase

37:38

in the audience, and it's very

37:41

especially for the games that were

37:43

shown at the showcase. very

37:46

different. Yes. And

37:48

the audience kinda have this, like,

37:50

polite applause like okay.

37:54

Like, But but the thing is,

37:56

you know, it's not like I made this

37:58

thinking yeah,

37:59

man.

37:59

Everybody's gonna love this. This is gonna sell

38:02

ten million units. You know,

38:04

I knew from the beginning it was

38:06

niche. And the thing

38:08

is, you know, there are some people that

38:10

were just purely dismissive and, like, whatever. And it wasn't even with

38:12

criticism. They were just, like, looks dumb.

38:14

Okay. Not

38:16

not your game. It's fine. Like, you don't have to like it.

38:19

That's fine. And then I saw a people that were skeptical, and

38:21

that's reasonable because it's weird. Like, you know,

38:23

what is it? Again, fine.

38:25

Just wait. And but the thing

38:27

is there were enough people who were

38:29

really, really excited just based on the

38:32

just the appearance of it and just the basic

38:35

idea of it. that I

38:38

was like cool. So there's an audience here because,

38:40

again, we're a small team. We know we're not big budget. We

38:42

know this is gonna be on

38:44

Game Pass. So just focus on those people. Like, we know that

38:46

there's an audience here. We have a

38:48

good feeling that we're gonna make

38:50

a game that they're gonna really like

38:52

because they're they're onboard

38:54

with the idea. So the

38:56

focus was really on them. And when it came,

38:58

you know, around the time

39:00

before, you know, Monday when the review

39:02

embargo dropped, I

39:04

was pretty confident that some portion of

39:06

the reviewers were going to be very

39:08

into it, and then another percentage

39:10

was going to be either not

39:12

into it or not like the execution or And I just kinda

39:15

resigned myself to, like, well, we'll

39:17

see. And again, as long as

39:19

it finds its audience, I

39:22

think it'll be okay because I'm very happy with how it turned out. The

39:24

team seems very happy with how it turned

39:26

out. And then it was just a

39:28

really pleasant surprise to find

39:31

you know, I was not expecting

39:33

to get perfect scores, much less as many

39:35

perfect scores as we got. So that's

39:38

incredible. And, yeah, and there are some people

39:40

who either just don't really fundamentally don't like it or don't

39:42

like how I executed on

39:44

things, and that's totally fine and fair. But I am

39:46

very happy

39:48

that surprising number of reviewers really and players

39:50

really seem to be super excited with the

39:52

end result. That's great. I it's

39:54

it's interesting

39:54

because I said I would sketch

39:58

about it. My first choice, and I'm usually the first person to applaud

40:00

when someone is doing something different

40:02

and out of the box. And it certainly is that I just

40:04

didn't quite

40:06

know what to make it because it's so unlike anything else that's out there. Yeah. But

40:08

I ended up winning you over. I think it's it's winning I

40:10

can never just started with it, but I think I'm gonna

40:13

down a similar road. What's interesting is,

40:15

I'm genuinely surprised for me. You ever spoke

40:17

because you are mister high octane, high

40:19

stakes, high intensity -- Yeah. -- you

40:21

know, modern warfare guy. So that's why I wanted

40:23

to wanted to ask you, do you think now that

40:25

the reviews are out, I'm one of the great

40:27

things about game of course is

40:29

it has reduced that barrier to entry for for people to

40:31

try things that they might not otherwise

40:34

try because there's no price cost involved. Right? You've

40:36

already got the game pass subscription. It's a relatively

40:38

small install. You can just, like, jump in. Right?

40:40

And see if it's for you. Oh, these reviews are actually

40:42

pretty good. Maybe I should go check this this

40:44

game out. Do you do you I'm just really fascinated to

40:46

think about, like, where you think this

40:48

game will ultimately find its audience? Do you

40:50

think it's ultimately

40:52

gonna be the majority of

40:54

this, the audience that you would expect, like

40:56

the kind of gamers that inherently already kind of

40:58

lean more into things are

41:00

more cerebral, again, have maybe a little bit more of an again, that kind of

41:02

indeed sensibility? Or

41:04

do you imagine that you might, because, again,

41:06

might, is patient zero here.

41:09

do you think there's a chance that you will actually convert,

41:11

you know, AAA decent

41:13

number of, like, mountain dew

41:16

chugging call of duty

41:18

bros into sixteenth century history enthusiasts. because I think that would be

41:20

awesome. I would consider that a major win if you did

41:22

that. Yeah. I mean,

41:23

I

41:24

I think that's that's

41:26

some of the appeal about about

41:28

services like this where you're subscribing

41:30

for the ability to access different

41:33

things. And I mean, we've seen

41:35

it in things that are not games. We've seen it in films or shows

41:37

where people who say, I like this type of show or I like

41:39

these type of movies. But while

41:42

I'm here, while i'm here

41:44

on whatever. Oh, this movie? Oh, I mean,

41:46

yeah, I heard that was good. That's not normally what I

41:48

watch, but, you know, like, I don't have anything to do.

41:50

Right? And I'll make sure I'll put it on.

41:53

And they're like, oh, wow. Like, I'm so glad I watched that.

41:55

I normally would never have watched it, but I'm

41:57

so glad I did. And I

41:59

don't think that Pentament is

42:02

necessarily like the magic

42:04

game to do this. III know

42:06

people for, you know, as, you know,

42:08

while GameHouse has been here, while they're

42:10

subscribed, they tell me I play games

42:12

that I don't normal I wouldn't buy

42:14

necessarily, but then I started playing them and

42:16

I was really surprised. I didn't know what to

42:18

make this game going

42:20

into it. I'm really glad that I did because I turned out I loved

42:22

it. And so I think there's a lot of games

42:24

on Game Pass that that can have

42:26

that power But it has to be in

42:28

the context where the the

42:30

proposition to the player is. The cost is a

42:32

little bit of your time. You know, like,

42:33

if you can download it and you

42:36

can spare whatever it is, you know, thirty minutes an hour. And if you're

42:38

not into it, you're like, no, not my thing. And

42:40

you move on to something else and you're probably

42:42

not gonna be

42:44

that upset. But if you get super

42:46

into it, then fantastic. So I do hope, you know, the barrier to entry with Pentiment.

42:48

I do think if someone starts

42:50

playing it and they go, like,

42:53

I don't wanna read. When do

42:56

I get to shoot something? I don't like like,

42:58

if they don't like to read, they're just, like, forget

43:00

it. It it doesn't matter. Or if they're, like,

43:02

some people really need VO. Like, even if they like reading, they

43:04

really want VO. Okay. That's fair. And there

43:06

are certain things where if a person comes into it and

43:08

they go, like, I don't I don't like that.

43:11

But like I said, I think I've already seen a number of people

43:13

who've gone in and said, like, I wasn't quite sure what to

43:15

make of it. Thought I'd give it a chance. This is not

43:18

normally a type of game I would

43:20

play, but I got into it and that's great. Yeah.

43:22

You won one over in me. I

43:23

wanted to know that you and the team, you won

43:25

me over. I really really

43:28

liked it. I had a ton of fun. And, yeah, shout to Game Pass making

43:30

kinda these games accessible to somebody

43:32

like me who might be hesitant to

43:34

drop the money on that.

43:36

and jump in. And you and I have talked about this before. Any number games on Game

43:38

Pass, I think I probably wouldn't have gone

43:41

outside of my comfort zone and

43:44

tried them in the absence of, you know, a demo or some way to kinda try

43:46

it for free. Like, I'm not gonna drop even like ten,

43:48

fifteen bucks or something. I'm not that

43:50

I'm gonna I don't know. But, like,

43:52

again, a game pass, give it a try. Like,

43:54

there's so many and just to be in the latest

43:56

one of, like, if you just if you just give

43:58

me, like, give me an hour of your time and I'll sell

43:59

you on And that's all and

44:02

all it takes. Yeah. Exactly. I wanna talk about the light RPG

44:04

elements. Right? We stress that before

44:06

the release here. And of course,

44:09

People look at you and the team and they go,

44:11

okay, Obsidian. Give me some stats. Give me

44:13

some perks. Let me make my narrative. My

44:15

my whole tree going on. what was

44:17

the plan and the course of action to kinda

44:20

step back away from that and make it a little

44:22

bit the light RPG elements? Where did that

44:24

come from from you and

44:25

the team? you know, accessibility was part of the core

44:27

of it. You know, most of the

44:30

games that I've worked on are either kind of

44:32

complex to very complex

44:34

in how the systems

44:36

work. They're kind of

44:38

difficult to get into, difficult to

44:40

manage at times frustrating or

44:42

confusing. And because of the subject

44:44

matter in type of the game. I really wanted people to focus on

44:46

not that stuff. So I wanted them

44:48

to focus on just the storytelling

44:50

and their kind of concept for

44:52

the character But I also didn't

44:54

want to abandon the idea of

44:56

having control over some aspect of

44:58

who your

45:00

character was even if

45:02

it's in details rather than the broad strokes.

45:04

And also, you know, I

45:06

wanted us to have choice and consequence

45:08

in a way that felt very

45:10

familiar to people who like Obsidian Games. Understanding

45:13

again that

45:14

it's a relatively small story, it's a

45:16

contained story with a small team writing

45:20

it so we can't, you know, do super crazy things.

45:22

But we can have a lot of impact for

45:24

little choices and big choices that you make over the

45:26

course of the game. went

45:28

into it thinking, I don't wanna have

45:30

statistics. I don't wanna have

45:32

trees of things. But I

45:34

do want you to

45:34

be able to pick things that unlock things and

45:38

conversations and allow you to do things more

45:40

easily or sometimes mess things up for

45:42

you. And then, you know, I knew I

45:44

wanted to do choice and consequence within the

45:46

context of the story. I wanted you to

45:48

be forced to make, in some

45:49

cases, very difficult decisions and then see how that

45:51

plays out over the course of the

45:53

game. Yeah. There was a couple really fun moments, of

45:55

course, with that background that I really liked, right, of,

45:57

like, you choose kind of your own

45:59

path

45:59

here. And you can feel it when

46:02

it's playing out of like, oh, man, if I chose

46:04

that that kind of background for my guy,

46:06

I would have had this kind of conversation.

46:08

III sat on that, choose your background screen

46:10

for a good ten minutes trying to figure out where

46:12

I where I wanted to go with it. Yeah. It felt

46:14

it was light. It didn't make me scratch my

46:16

head, Joshua. I was sitting there for ten minutes. contemplating

46:18

which way to go. It was so light that I felt, okay, cool. Like, I'm

46:20

gonna choose this and go with it. Got a little

46:22

prickly with one of my characters, which

46:25

I really like. And then, of course, just the fun of seeing that

46:27

in action when it pops up in the dialogue and you go,

46:29

oh, man, there's my background here and

46:32

now I can put it into play. I I

46:34

really really

46:36

enjoyed that. a lot that it was fun to see. because, yeah, we talked about these

46:38

RPGs from you and the team there, and that's what

46:40

kind of players expect. And that's what

46:42

I wanna flow into from a

46:44

user question. Alberto Lopez

46:46

writes, and it says, how does it our

46:48

our doggy, my apologies. Says,

46:50

RPGs have improved a lot over

46:52

the years. but speech systems seemed largely

46:54

stagnant where you put your

46:56

stats either way or not. Why do

46:58

you see Why

47:01

don't we see more games that require more interesting ways

47:03

of interacting with dialogue? So, you know, you and the team

47:05

stepped away from, like, the stats you

47:07

chose a different background. you

47:10

know, you as a big RPG guy, do you see us leaning in

47:12

a different direction of trying new things?

47:14

Yeah. I mean, the

47:16

short answer is it's hard. Like,

47:20

it's you know, sometime III

47:23

hope I can give a talk about

47:25

how we construct dialogue both generally at Obsidian,

47:27

and there's not one way to do it. I don't think we there's

47:29

not a standard way to do it. That's

47:31

a challenge. But writing

47:34

branching dialogue, especially dialogue that branches

47:36

based on conditions like what

47:38

your character's done the time of

47:41

day, your backgrounds, skills, things

47:43

like that. It's expensive and complicated and

47:46

difficult. And it's even more

47:48

difficult to do that and make it

47:50

still entertaining. It's

47:52

not actually that hard to make dialogue complicated,

47:54

but it's very hard to make

47:57

dialogue complicated and reactive

48:00

and actually fun and enjoyable to go

48:02

through. And that's it's

48:03

that's why it's you know,

48:06

I think every RPG that comes out

48:08

kinda tries

48:10

to tweak the formula a little bit, and our approach towards

48:12

it was to say, we don't

48:14

have ranks of skills. We have backgrounds

48:16

that are flat checks. And

48:19

Those unlock things, but many times the things

48:21

that you're unlocking are just for flavor.

48:23

Sometimes the things that you're unlocking

48:25

make people annoyed like you're basically being

48:27

a know at all. that comes up

48:29

in a number of times, especially with characters like Sister Illumina or

48:31

Father Gerenet, where you can kind of lecture

48:33

them on things and they're really aggravated.

48:35

And so you

48:38

hopefully start to learn, like, just because something is unlocked does not mean I

48:40

should pick it and say it.

48:42

And then, you

48:43

know, I borrowed

48:45

one idea from

48:47

disco Cesium, which is that little choices that you make in

48:49

conversations can come back for a

48:51

check. So if you need to convince

48:53

someone of something, and

48:56

you've talked a certain layer, behave a certain way, you'll see

48:58

that reflected in the persuasion interface where

49:00

you're like, oh, god, I shouldn't have

49:03

made that really, like, irreverent comment

49:05

because, like, I'm trying to convince her that

49:07

I'm really pious and that kind of

49:09

works against me. So, you

49:12

know, that was our but it's a it's

49:14

a spin on systems we've seen

49:16

before. I think it's I'm not gonna say

49:18

it's impossible, but I do think it's

49:20

difficult to innovate in the

49:22

space while maintaining that level of

49:24

entertainment and

49:26

characterization. Yeah. So, yeah, it's just it's it's a challenge. We're

49:28

all trying. We're all trying to push it. And

49:30

every once in a while, we do something well

49:34

people go, like, oh, that was incredible, and we keep going with it. They you

49:36

did really well. And I did love that moment of,

49:38

like, here it is. All of the conversations

49:40

I had with this character right on

49:43

display of, like, Oh, man, I thought you and I were really conducting. I

49:45

thought I did good on those choices, but I guess I

49:47

didn't, you know. And so that made me

49:49

smile a couple of times. And I

49:51

wanna talk about you know, the

49:54

choices and ashes and feeling your

49:56

consequences there. It was funny I was

49:58

playing in the

50:00

studio earlier And III got up out of my chair, said, alright, everybody. I'm about point

50:02

the finger at somebody, and it's going

50:04

down for real. And it felt so much

50:06

fun to have that feeling and that kind of

50:10

risk reward Where will this story turn? How has that been for you and the

50:12

team to watch that from? Of

50:14

course, now having the game released, watching

50:16

everybody play that? What is that moments like when

50:18

you smile

50:20

and go? oh, here it comes. They're

50:22

gonna choose somebody. Yeah. It's very interesting. I mean,

50:24

it kinda falls on some predictable paths.

50:28

I'll be interested to see the more people who play it and the more people who go through

50:30

the ends of each act. Excuse me.

50:33

I'll be very interested to see

50:35

what the trends are I

50:37

kind of can predict how some things are gonna

50:40

go. But then again, sometimes the

50:42

accusations don't go the way that

50:44

players expect. especially in the

50:46

first act, you can

50:48

potentially bring up as many as five

50:50

people to the arch

50:52

deacon and you can just say like you

50:54

sort it out and then the result

50:56

can be kind of surprising. And, you know, I think it's interesting because

50:58

people have realized that

51:02

it's not a great feeling that responsibility. Like, once you

51:04

see it play out, it feels not good,

51:06

which it shouldn't. You're you're essentially

51:09

condemning someone to death. And

51:11

that death can be really rough and the

51:13

impact that it has on people in the community

51:15

can be really devastating. And it reflects

51:18

back on you because everyone goes, like, you're

51:20

the guy who did

51:21

this. Like, you told the guy that this is the person who did it.

51:24

So, yeah, I think it's interesting

51:25

because in a I think,

51:28

you know,

51:30

in in a of stories or

51:33

detective games, there's a

51:35

person who unambiguously

51:38

killed the person whether they had quote unquote a good reason or

51:40

not. And when you put them

51:42

away, there's this feeling of

51:46

Well, they're the person who did it. So they they did it, and I'm

51:49

okay with whatever the consequences

51:51

are more or less.

51:54

And I think with sentiment, I'm seeing a lot of sentiment people are saying,

51:56

like, I don't like that I

51:59

have to don't

52:01

like that I have to make this decision because I don't really feel

52:03

good about making anyone pay for this, but I

52:06

also know that if I don't, then this

52:08

in a clearly

52:10

innocent person is gonna die. So it is forcing

52:12

the player into something that is

52:14

inherently supposed to

52:16

feel uncomfortable. and

52:18

just kind of feeling their way through the consequences

52:20

of that. Yeah. You did a great job on

52:22

that one. There's so many funny moments

52:26

doing that and seeing that and you brought up the term generational

52:28

game, which I really like of, like,

52:30

I see my ad reflected

52:34

generations to this town later on, which

52:36

I really really love of how that keeps up

52:38

with me and keeps the story going, which is

52:40

really cool. I wanna talk about the future

52:42

and get into some viewer questions because we only have

52:45

you for a little bit longer here. Of

52:47

course, the interesting one of when we

52:49

talk about these passion projects in these small teams within the larger

52:51

organization above Citi and we'll talk about you

52:53

and your team, what is that like now

52:55

that it's done? Right?

52:58

Like, is the thirteen members of your team look at you, give you the peace

53:00

sign and say, hey, we're heading off to go

53:02

work on the other projects like a vowed

53:05

outer worlds too and so on?

53:07

Or is it you and the team looking at

53:09

each other going, what's next? Let's stick together and

53:11

do something else? What happens now?

53:13

I mean, it it remains to be seen. The

53:15

game literally just came out. So in the in

53:17

the immediate future, we're

53:20

focusing on fixing bugs

53:22

and doing, you know, features

53:24

by request. So if we see a lot of people

53:26

saying like, oh, we really need

53:28

this to for usability or

53:30

there's some issue, like a lot of people

53:32

have reported, it's funny. Some people a

53:34

number of reviews have said, like, I love the sound

53:36

of the pen on the parchment, and

53:38

other people at it really drives them up the

53:40

wall and they really can't stand listening to it.

53:42

So we're looking at features to, like, work

53:44

on that and the dialogue speed and and things

53:47

like that. So there's gonna be features. There's gonna be bug that we're gonna

53:49

look at. We do have to see how the how

53:51

the game does kinda

53:54

short term, long term. But there are – you're right,

53:56

there are other big projects here. Grounded is

53:58

in one point l, but they're still working on that.

54:01

So there's a lot of potential to do different things

54:03

here, and we're just gonna have to see where it

54:05

goes. Okay. And what about for yourself? Does the team

54:08

look at you? I know like you said, just

54:10

cap and would just pass it. But, like, does the

54:12

team look at somebody like yourself and go,

54:14

Josh, you gotta come over here

54:16

or, like, Josh, we need you to do this now. What does that vibe

54:18

with yourself as kind of the the head

54:20

honcho over there? Well, I'm

54:22

the studio to So

54:24

I will be going back to at least

54:26

giving feedback on on different projects.

54:28

And, you know, I do

54:30

occasionally when when desired I

54:33

will come on to a team if I have

54:35

time. And, you know, if it's to work out

54:37

a system or to help lead a a

54:40

sub team, on a particular feature or a system design, you know, I

54:42

will be involved in that. So I'll

54:44

probably be doing some of that at least

54:46

in the not the immediate

54:48

future, but like the short term future

54:50

because that's always kinda just part of

54:52

my job here. Yeah. I wanna go to

54:54

some viewer questions now to start wrapping

54:56

this down. Alberto Lopez

54:58

brings up, hey, how does it feel to finally

55:00

make something that you've always wanted to make? We talked

55:02

about that at the beginning, but that ends it

55:04

with What other projects would you like to do next? Is there another crazy passion

55:06

project that you would like to do that you've

55:08

kept in your back pocket all these years?

55:12

Yeah. I mean, it's obviously, it's

55:14

it's great to finally get this this

55:16

type of game done. Like I said,

55:18

I didn't this is not a

55:21

type of historical game that I

55:23

I imagined, you know, twenty

55:25

years ago. But I'm really, really

55:27

happy with how it turned out. I'm so

55:29

happy that people are responding well to it. And, yeah, there's a bunch of

55:31

other projects. I have no idea if I can do

55:33

them, but, like, you

55:36

know, I've mentioned before, I have this very off the wall. This

55:38

is a very off the wall idea, but basically

55:40

like a a bike shop simulator.

55:43

where you're running like a bicycle repair and sales shop

55:45

in a in a small community.

55:47

And you're restoring and repairing bikes for

55:49

people and dealing with all different

55:52

social strata of people in a in a

55:54

town. I'm really into cycling and

55:56

restoring bikes, and I interface with a

55:58

lot of shop owners and the communities that

55:59

surround them. And I just think it's interesting and there's

56:02

opportunity for a lot of neat little social

56:04

dynamics there. I also

56:08

really always still think that

56:10

it would be cool to make a an

56:12

SRPG, a tactical game in the

56:14

pillars of eternity setting. So something

56:17

that's not really focused like the the

56:19

pillars of fraternity, like one

56:21

and two, but more focused

56:23

on something that's more in the vein of

56:25

final Fantasy tactics fire emblem or games at

56:27

that sort. I think those are are those are more on the

56:30

small to like medium

56:32

sized projects. big

56:34

projects. I don't I don't know. Like, you know, I've

56:36

been in small project mode for so long. It's kinda hard

56:38

for me to think about things at a at

56:41

a really large scale. but I don't know.

56:43

We'll see. I I don't I wouldn't say I would not work on

56:45

a big project again, but that just hasn't been where

56:47

my mindset has been for the last

56:49

three years. So I

56:51

wanna

56:51

praise you and give you a big shout

56:53

out. Yes.

56:54

The bike simulator, please

56:56

do that, Josh, right away. I know.

56:58

I mean, the the the landscape has never

57:01

been moored. Well, so your gas

57:03

station simulator -- Wow. -- Kim. Come on. name

57:05

it. Right? I love the balance of, like, we could

57:07

have the fun with you, Josh. I was like,

57:09

kinda like the lake, bringing in more dynamic

57:11

of, like, learning about the town talking with the dead

57:13

-- Yeah. -- just feeling and feeling the vibe.

57:15

I mean, some fun. I love this coming from Tahoe. I'm

57:17

all about the bike shop. I like this idea. I had

57:19

a really good bike shop guy up in Tahoe

57:22

who always made me smile. His name was Mike

57:24

as well. big old curly

57:26

afro. And I would bring in my snow bike, would

57:28

they just call him bike, my bike?

57:30

He was mountain bike, bike, actually. And I'd

57:32

bring in my snow bike, and he would

57:34

always get so amped up because nobody else had one in town. He

57:36

would love working on it, and we would share

57:38

stories about the different resorts that we'd

57:40

go to.

57:42

getting excited about the snow coming in and, of course, in the spring and summer,

57:44

getting excited to ride bikes together. So

57:46

I like that, Josh. I really, really

57:48

did. Nice. Of course, I

57:50

know, you know we had to go there. We have to talk Fallout New Vegas because,

57:53

of course, it is an Xbox

57:55

beloved title. Everybody

57:58

loves it. And Paragon Girard wrote in says, How was it

58:00

working on Fallout New Vegas, taking

58:02

someone else's property and creating

58:04

something new

58:06

with it? Also following you in the team's wonderful work on Benjamin, could

58:08

you see yourself working on another

58:10

fallout project in

58:12

the future? Yeah. I

58:14

mean, it's weird to to

58:16

think about and it's

58:18

I've gone through this weird

58:20

arc because I played Fallout one in actually

58:23

Fallout one and two in college right toward

58:25

the end of of college.

58:28

And then I went to work for Black Isle Studios. And at the

58:30

time, I I remember when I started in the industry, I

58:32

was like, I wanna work on a D and D

58:36

game. Dunches and Dragons, and I got to do that immediately. That was fantastic.

58:38

And then I was like, well and everyone

58:40

at the studio was, like, we're

58:42

gonna make fallout three we

58:44

just gotta get through the next few years and then we're gonna

58:47

do Fallout three. And we started on

58:49

it. And because, I

58:52

mean, it's started at interplay in what eventually became Black Isle

58:54

Studios. And then Black Isle

58:56

fell apart and the

58:58

fallout property went

59:00

to Bethesda. and then a number of

59:02

years past, and I was like,

59:04

well, I guess I'm not gonna be able to make a

59:06

fallout game. And then

59:08

Bethesda made fallout three, opportunity to use

59:11

new Vegas. And I brought back a lot

59:13

of the ideas that we, as a group

59:15

of people, had talked about App

59:17

Black Isle Studios to make Vault New Vegas, and then a

59:19

bunch of new ideas as well. And,

59:22

yeah, that was that was super fulfilling and

59:24

super fantastic. And, you know, it was

59:26

a crazy development because it was only eighteen months,

59:28

and we had never used that engine

59:30

before. But, yeah, like,

59:32

I mean, I love fallout. I love

59:34

the setting. I could see myself working in it again.

59:36

But, you know, we'll see where the future takes

59:38

me. Alright. I I like that.

59:40

Two quick follow fallout

59:42

ones. One, of course, what's the

59:44

dream setting for you, Josh? Of course, we've seen

59:46

different settings and follow-up. Is there a spot

59:48

where you're like, oh, Mike and Gary? We've gotta go

59:50

to Vancouver. We gotta go to Australia in the Outback. Is there a crazy

59:52

fallout setting that you would love to do?

59:55

You know, I I'm not really

59:57

sure. I haven't thought

1:00:00

about it quite a while because, again, it kind of, like, it

1:00:02

came into my life and then floated

1:00:04

away. You know, like, in the past, I've

1:00:06

said, you know, people have talked about

1:00:08

New Orleans. I do

1:00:10

think California or the Midwest would also

1:00:12

be very interesting.

1:00:14

A big I'm a big believer

1:00:16

in finding things that obviously, I have

1:00:19

to be passionate about it as a director, but also that the

1:00:21

team is really excited about and

1:00:23

also that works within the

1:00:25

larger idea of of the

1:00:27

property because again, you know, working on

1:00:30

something like Pentiment, which is just its own thing

1:00:32

in the middle of nowhere, I can kinda make

1:00:34

decisions more or less however

1:00:36

I want. But when it's part of to

1:00:38

kind of work within a larger

1:00:40

vision of what is fallout. And

1:00:42

I don't get to decide

1:00:44

everything about that. It's not my thing. So, yeah, I think there's

1:00:47

a lot of cool places in the US. A lot

1:00:49

of people have also talked about

1:00:52

what about fallout in other parts of the world? I think those are interesting as well.

1:00:54

I don't know. I think there's lots of cool

1:00:56

opportunities. It really depends on what the moment is

1:00:58

and what the team looks like. And yeah.

1:01:01

That's great. And my final one with Fallout, of course. What are some of the

1:01:04

teachings that you took away from your

1:01:06

experience with Fallout? What are some of the pieces that

1:01:08

we could see

1:01:10

in pentiment that you put to use here? What are some of the learnings and things

1:01:12

that you've always brought with you into your future

1:01:14

games? Yeah.

1:01:15

I think you

1:01:17

know, with fallout, we we went to you

1:01:20

know, I looked at how fallout three did their

1:01:22

percentage based

1:01:24

skill tracks. And I didn't

1:01:26

like the randomization and the saves coming. That that

1:01:28

resulted meaning people reloading a lot to

1:01:30

kinda less make a check

1:01:32

and that felt kinda weird. So I was like, well, let's

1:01:34

make them straight threshold checks. But

1:01:36

then every time you saw that option in

1:01:38

dialogue, it was the no brainer

1:01:40

to pick. Like, well, I unlocked it

1:01:42

and it's always a good thing.

1:01:44

So one of the biggest takeaways from that is

1:01:46

trying to get away from the mentality

1:01:48

that because the dialogue option appears and

1:01:50

it's unlocked, should always pick it

1:01:52

because it's always the best option. And in

1:01:54

Pentiment, I worked really hard with

1:01:56

the narrative designers to make

1:01:58

sure that when our background

1:01:59

options appear, it's cool to

1:02:02

see the option and it's interesting, but sometimes it's not helpful and sometimes

1:02:05

it's actually counterproductive. so

1:02:08

that the player has to put a little more thought

1:02:11

into, like, maybe I don't

1:02:13

just pick this thing automatically because I see it.

1:02:15

It's it's not an automatic win. And,

1:02:18

you know, again, with with

1:02:20

Vault in New Vegas, even though they're very

1:02:22

different in scope, you

1:02:24

know, people like to see the

1:02:26

impact of choice and consequence. And, you know, New Vegas

1:02:28

was actually the first game where there

1:02:30

was a really large scale of that on a

1:02:32

on a small level and a large level.

1:02:36

and impediment I tried to look at it from the perspective

1:02:38

of. We have this central storyline that runs

1:02:40

through, but then there are significant

1:02:42

choices about individual people and

1:02:45

relationships that play out over the course of the

1:02:47

the game. And at the end, I don't wanna spoil

1:02:49

the ending, but you get to see a lot of

1:02:51

those smaller choices reflected in the

1:02:54

actual ending. And, you

1:02:56

know, that's what I I think people

1:02:58

take

1:02:58

a lot away from that because they see the

1:03:00

aggregation of all these little things they did.

1:03:02

over the course of game come to play at the end, and that's really satisfying. That's

1:03:04

great. Gary, as we wrap

1:03:06

up, any final questions for Josh

1:03:10

here? No. I just I just had a thought about locations for

1:03:12

games. I just snapped I personally

1:03:14

think that Cleveland has gotten very

1:03:16

short shrift from game developers over the

1:03:18

years. Very clear through. There

1:03:20

you go. See, there's already there's already a

1:03:22

ground swelled behind you. That has

1:03:24

someone from Cleveland. I'm gonna say Cleveland.

1:03:26

Cleveland. I'm gonna say Cleveland. I'm gonna say

1:03:28

Cleveland. I just feel like Cleveland's time is coming. Yeah. That's all you get,

1:03:30

Gary. Right? That's all we're gonna have me out of the

1:03:32

zone right there. You you spend an afternoon there, you

1:03:34

go to the rock and roll hall of fame, and then you get the

1:03:36

hell out

1:03:38

of there. That's what I say. I know. But let's not forget the rock and roll hall of

1:03:40

fame was put there, like, out of pity. No. Like,

1:03:42

because there's nothing that was going on. already

1:03:44

had a baseball

1:03:46

history museum. We needed something.

1:03:48

Alright? We needed something. Well,

1:03:50

with that, we wanna thank Josh for

1:03:52

his team and, of course, congratulate relations to

1:03:55

you and the team over at Obsidian and everyone who works so

1:03:57

hard on Pentagon. Again, if you get the

1:03:59

opportunity, go check it out a

1:04:01

ton of game It is a ton of fun. Of course,

1:04:04

we didn't do a review here because we got to sit

1:04:06

down with Josh, but I'll tell you it

1:04:08

really won me over. And I am

1:04:10

blown away that I had so much fun with

1:04:12

this and I cannot wait to see it do all the way to the end because I know them right

1:04:14

there and it's only picking up and making

1:04:16

me say wow and bravo

1:04:19

every time I play it. So Josh, congratulations.

1:04:22

Thank you so much for joining us on this

1:04:24

week's X cast. Any final words for the

1:04:26

audience to

1:04:28

say goodbye. Just again, thank you for having me.

1:04:30

And for the people that are checking it out, thank

1:04:32

you for taking a chance on something that I

1:04:34

understand is is very unusual

1:04:36

and weird.

1:04:38

And I hope that if you do, you have a good experience with it. What's one tip you would give

1:04:40

me for someone who's like only like an hour or two in

1:04:42

and is still kinda like figuring out the lay of

1:04:46

the land. I would say use the

1:04:48

map because the map is helpful.

1:04:50

And, you know, it I

1:04:52

acknowledge that it does have a

1:04:54

slow start And

1:04:56

if you get to the

1:04:58

murder and just after the murder and you're still

1:05:00

not into it, maybe it's not

1:05:02

your game. but give it until then. Give it until after the murder and

1:05:04

when things open up. And

1:05:06

if you're not into it, fair that's

1:05:08

fair. head out. It's okay.

1:05:10

I won't I won't cry. But that's

1:05:12

kind of the the point where you really got

1:05:14

a sense of whether you're gonna be into

1:05:16

it or not. That's that I think

1:05:17

that that's always been a rule of thumb for me as well

1:05:20

as a social setting and whatever. Like, let let's at least

1:05:22

wait until there's a murder. Let's give this a jump.

1:05:24

Yeah. My tip for you, Gary,

1:05:26

sometimes it's best