It Takes an Abbey: Developing Pentiment with a (Small) Remote Team - DStars 2023

I originally recorded this talk for the DStars 2023 conference. In it, I talk about how the Pentiment team handled fully remote development of the game with a team of 13 people spread across the United States and Europe.

[@boram1760]

All I can say is I hope Obsidian continues with "smaller" projects. It's a breath of fresh air in the gaming world.

[@jeffpritchard1592]

If titles like Pentiment and Disco Elysium are signaling the emergence of a new literary-RPG genre then I am here for it.

[@kaptenteo]

Learning how it was developed by a small team, and remotely at that... This game is a beautiful miracle. I'm so glad you got it done and that it turned out so well. I did multiple playthroughs not mainly for trying out new things, but because I simply didn't want to leave the world you all created.

[@KatalistProductionsKozzySasha]

Love Pentiment, it will stick with me for many years. Thanks Josh and everyone on the team who worked on this wonderful game.

[@SatirGamer]

This was actually very insightful, even from the perspective of someone who leads teams, but not within game dev. Thanks sir!

[@SatirGamer]

Oh yeah, and Pentiment rules!

[@thehappynihilist1843]

Pentiment took my goty last year, an absolute gem(elden ring was close behind). Props for what you and the team accomplished, comrade. One of a kind experience.

[@NEXUSXEMNAS23]

I am getting pizza to sit down and watch this. That is how much I enjoy these chats Josh. Love Pentiment!

[@PaperlessWriter]

JS seems like the coolest, most laid back guy in the world. Bonus: his teams have made really great games. Being a few hours into Pentiment, this talk was fascinating to me. Thanks Josh, for everything:)

[@mxmagpie7037]

I love Pentiment so much, but this video is also such a good retro of remote work. Gonna share this with my team, who are also in an international tech company, and hope the part about LESS MEETINGS hits home. 👀

[@kaptenteo]

Wow! I love getting an insight into game development like this. I just binged both Double Fine documentaries.

[@John_Greek]

Andrei Rublev. What a film. Great to see this Josh. Enjoy seeing how you work as a director.

[@89blackking99]

I love all the dev insight videos/reflections you have done. Especially the ones concering the philosophy behind rpg systems, can't wait for pillars 3!

[@AlexanderEiffel]

Thanks for sharing. I'd like to share this with my work team (which is a completely different industry than Obsidian) for your Confluence and SPECIALLY the meeting section at @20:55, you conveyed this in a way which should be extremely clear to my mgmt why meetings upon meetings are not helpful for our team.

[@phyconet]

It's great having one of the major creative minds in the industry talk about their process of making video games remotely. I always find your talks insightful and a real gift to future game designers. I loved pentiment and I look forward to anything (games or otherwise) in the future.

[@JiF28]

Everything you do is good dude

[@kleiothemuse6832]

I just finished Pentiment and I had an amazing experience! I got really emotionally invested in all the characters and even cried a number of times. This game will be with me for a long time and I'm already excited to replay it after some time has passed to discover some of the stories I missed in my first playthrough and meet the wonderful people again that you and your team created. Thank you♥

[@ImOnlyJoeKing]

Great advice on keeping meetings brief, focused and structured!

[@faranhjar]

another banger thank you for uploading mr. sawyer

[@pondopondo1497]

This was great, man. Actually helpful.

[@morkmon]

Thanks for just posting this to youtube, I love learning how my favorite games are made

[@FloralGiant]

Always cool getting a look behind the scenes like this, thanks for uploading this here. You all did a wonderful job with Pentiment!

[@bamboo772]

A few days ago, Pentiment finally had a Chinese version, the story is very exciting, thank you.😌

[@minglessdreamar5264]

Nice stache Josh. You're rocking it, can't wait for your next project.

[@felipemfarias]

This was one of my favorite games last year. Congratulations to the entire team for the awesome product. Now I'm just hoping to have a physical edition to buy it amd have it in my shelf

[@ohaRega]

Man, you're a literal god for sharing all of this. Thank you! Subbed.

[@SimonSlav-GameMakingJourney]

Thanks, these talks are very useful and appreciated. I'm glad you and the team were satisfied with the game and development (96% on steam tells me you weren't the only one :D ). I hope you're doing well and will continue making these.

[@afaultytoaster]

40:15 I liked the 3d part at the end. The difference in art and presentation style felt like I'd suddenly left one world and entered another, which I had, since we were meant to be looking at these murals from the future, right?

[@immajellal5325]

I hope smaller games with a clear focus on one idea from Triple A Studios become more common again compared to mammoth sized projects which take 5,6, 10+ years to come to fruition. Still have to play Pentiment but I look very much forward to it, especially as someone who thinks the medieval period gets viewed unfairly negative in the public perception

[@miguelangelpolo774]

Awesome video, very enlightening. Thanks a lot for sharing! Regarding remote work pitfalls, I have the feeling they have been "shoehorned" as pitfalls. Aside from disjoint time zones, none of the pitfalls is an impossible problem to solve for remote teams. And I talk from experience. Like: be vocal about features, have some online boards to track missing work, tech debt, etc..., after calls people should do a quick summary in a related channel, get some camera time for people to hang out: organize cafeterías, encourage teams to enable camera and mic to just "be there"... I mean, I know an office has its perks, and that some people thrive in office space, but that doesn't work for all of us. Pitfalls of office work: commute, ambient noise, more frequent distractions, lack of flexibility... I don't know, that section of the talk seemed very very biased... And I'm too very very biased on the opposite side 😅

[@morganarenewed]

Well done Josh and team! This is awesome!!!!

[@Michael-rt5so]

I just discovered your channel like a week ago and have binged a lot of your content so I was super excited to see you posted this. Love these presentations you put together, I find them super interesting. Thanks for everything you do!

[@adammills4099]

I came for the discussion on WFH but now I need to play this game after hearing Lingua Ignota worked on the music for Pentiment.

[@ianhendrie2828]

This is so cool to see. My friend and I are developing a post-apocalyptic community game remotely and this video feels like exactly what we need. We hope you keep posting great content for aspiring game devs, it's awesome to hear from a personal hero.

[@thisismysuperawesomeusername]

This is really weird,i went on a binge of all your previous videos last night and I just got up to see this. Delighted to hear more from you!!!! Thank you for making really really cool shit!

[@asiemko]

Great talk - very insightful. I became a people manager for the first time last year and to add to that it was an entirely remote team. All of this resonated with me, in particular fewer meetings! Excellent job on Pentiment - congrats to you and the team on the GDC award, as well. Also, glad to hear the game sold 'enough'. I'm very much here for another game in this vein, anthology style. Sign me up for 'Palimpsest'!

[@itsGzim]

My god these videos are so good and interesting, thanks!

[@germanulrich]

Hell yeah dude. Thanks for sharing this! Always looking forwards to see what you make.

[@Joshnpk]

I seriously love this channel and all the amazingly interesting videos you put out.

[@Cyborg_1612]

This was super interesting to learn how remote gamedev works, also ya’ll absolutely nailed it with Pentiment

[@commanderpanda9356]

Hey Joshua I've been watching a bunch of your lectures recently and just wanted to say its been a tremendous help in planning out my RPG I'm developing. Thankyou for the utter wellspring of knowledge you provide.

[@Draenal]

This is just a good watch for management in general. Lots of good nuggets in here for anyone that runs meetings or small teams.

[@shirleyhe4215]

Thanks for the educational video! This was incredibly helpful.

[@deivmars3836]

Loved the game, thanks all the team for doing it and for sharing this informations! ❤

[@DreadSnortt]

JOSH I MOUSTACHE YOU A QUESTION

[@AtreyusNinja]

l o l

[@kennethfender3518]

Shave it for later

[@UberMenschNowFilms]

Quiet! Razor your hand and wait to be called on.

[@Thomas_Angelo]

@@kennethfender3518 lmao

[@pabluh18]

Loved watching this! congrats to the team, Pentiment is amazing

[@discographetti]

Awesome insight & snapshot of a very valuable development setup.

[@Vancofe]

Love this type of videos

[@colin-campbell]

Picked up pentiment on steam a few days back. Having an absolute blast with it - I’ve really missed having a game that responds so well to player choice. 10/10

[@LidaLiberopoulou]

Thank you!!!!!

[@Sojournersantini]

Fallout NV in my youth, pentiment in my adult hood. I can’t thank you enough for your depth and intricacy. The world needs more you. Just scatter you around like Jax’s

[@windblownleaf6450]

Always interesting to see non-combat focused RPGs.

[@maydayfigs]

Really enjoyed this. Teams waste so much time in meetings, loved the outline tools.

[@Uberyankee]

Excellent insight, great presentation (as usual), fine mustache.

[@alfmustdie28]

Nice one, thanks

[@Ran2Chaos]

Drank a few beers over the week I played through Pentiment. Loved it and hope that the systems in Pentiment like the mini games and large choice/consequences mechanics get implemented in Pillars 3.

[@gordo6908]

mr sawyer, you always give amazing talks

[@philippmaluta978]

You! Don't you dare call Abigail!

[@fernandozavaletabustos205]

Great conference!

[@nofuture9971]

Love ya man

[@emanuel81111]

Joshua, you and all of Obsidian studios are an inspiration for the art of gaming, im a fan of fallout games since fallout 1. I hope you have the chance to make another fallout , fallout 1, 2 and new vegas is for me and many people a perfect gem of gaming in the history of gaming. Thank you very much.

[@katydaisy7223]

Bangerrr

[@CommieApe]

Yo sweet stache Josh im so excited you dropped another lecture

[@HotCupOfEarlGray]

Another Josh-talk?! Oh hell yeah!!

[@discojoe3]

Wow!

[@AppleSauceGamingChannel]

Wonderful insights into how the team adapted to work changes and how that affected development. Very tightly packed presentation, as expected, given your meeting standards equirements. I wonder how far along the weekly visual media get together Terry Gillian animations, if at all, were included. Hopefully, you have the time and energy to concoct an equally complete view of the design, concepts and influences infused into the game. It's not often that games are set in, non-fantasy or alternative history, historical contexts but there seems to be a degree of zeitgeist, a loose family of such games that have started to sprout at least from Kingdom Come Deliverance onwards. The same might be said of the illuminated medieval imagery\historical paintings cutouts animation that has seen application in different games like 'The Procession to Calvary', 'Potion Craft' or 'Inkulinati', recently and essentially in parallel to your project. You pointed out that over the dev time it required 'evangelists' for the core ideas to shine throughout. Just how much of a hard sell was that in terms of how unusual the game is? Not just for the team but to have the resources allocated to have it made. The Holy Roman Empire and illuminated medieval imagery are hardly what one would expect suits to consider as 'sexy' or commercially palatable.

[@danb9447]

I feel like I'm at a game design lecture by Groucho Marx

[@joshuataff4911]

Lingua Ignota did all the music for Pentiment? Small fuckin world!

[@Noobwater]

The Name of the Rose mentioned

[@EricDaily]

Josh, I feel like the natural next step for these videos is for you to be sitting in a leather-bound chair next to a cozy fire and for some reason you're always closing a new book when you start addressing the audience with slightly surprised, "Oh, hello everyone..."

[@Eupolemos]

Holup - just quickly gonna send a link of this vid to my PO and scrum master xD

[@mynameisdbo1143]

Great listen, absolutely loved Pentiment! Hope that obsidian provide you with the freedom to make further games like this one!

[@ari_isdrawing4293]

Hey, Josh, I doubt you read your comments but I've been watching your videos recently and I've noticed that you studied the history of religion and magic and I also noticed that Pentiment's art style is very reminiscent of the art you'd find on a traditional Tarot de Marseille. Anyways, I was wondering if the art for Pentiment was inspired by old tarot cards (I'm not really familiar with the style elsewhere) and I was also wondering if you've read Meditations on The Tarot, published anonymously despite it being well known to have been written by Valentin Romberg, a Catholic priest. It's a fascinating read and if you haven't read it, you should check it out!

[@graymantube]

Interesting, why you prefer slack over teams, it also has chats and channels, so you can simplify number of apps

[@Alex_Gol]

Holy fucking shit, 'Stache Sawyer!

[@JanPospisilArt]

Good.

[@andrewhanna6613]

Cool game and moustache

[@comradestylin]

666th like. Haha! Thanks for sharing this Josh.

[@MARKHENSTROM]

Josh - your opinion on blackout-style tattoos?

[@kran27_]

funny, you say it was specifically targeted at game pass, i played it on game pass, and it is the only game i've ever played on game pass then bought separately.

[@zerpblerd5966]

this games needs to be availableon GOG I don't do steam nonsense

[@EasyGameEh]

lol, i was shooing this video away for a day thinking it's some yt algorithm joke shoving some random dude into my feed. and then i had an a-ha! moment. and here i am.

[@MARKHENSTROM]

I much prefer your Prophet Comstock beard - but do you, bro.

[@Majber]

do you think Pentiment was a commercial success?

[@lobiankk77]

New Vegas 2 when

[@TheDickBurglar]

Great talk, and congrats on taking Best Narrative!

[@Dr.MantisTobogganMD]

I’m pretty sure Josh realizes that he could be one of the most watched gaming streamers if he didn’t have other obligations; but the Fallout community would need to be aware of when and where the stream is happening. I wish I could erase my memory of Fallout New Vegas, the YEARS just to be wiped away; so I could relive it once again. “Wata fakin waisof tyme.” -Tha Moighty Caesa