A beautiful puzzle adventure about linguistics, culture, and the benefits of understanding one another, inspired by The Tower of Babel.
Chants of Sennaar does a fantastic job with its ludonarrative; The goal is to decipher the languages of different civilizations, achieved by analysing environments and conversations. All the while, we learn about their ways of life and what led them to the current day and the lives they live. This dual purpose really resonated with me, and I personally think it struck an absolutely perfect balance between gameplay depth and narrative substance.
I adored the use of different linguistic mechanics that make you turn your head a little when it comes to certain puzzles (as well as the different script styles inspired by existing languages). It may not be as intricate as it could have been, but it’s enough to make you go “ahhh! cool!” when you notice certain things for the first time.
Thinking about it from the opposite perspective, it was clear that a lot of care was taken into simplifying certain aspects to make sure the puzzle solving felt smooth, accessible and rewarding. An example of how this is done is the removal of many “less interesting” words in the glyphs given to you, such as “the”, and “a”. We only have to focus on the parts that are meaningful to the purpose of the game and its world. The translation experience is finely crafted for that of a game player, and not that of a PhD student, which is what keeps it fun!
Many reviews complain about the stealth sections breaking up the pacing, I disagree with this, possibly due to me being a huge sucker for the narrative. I just found that these sections blended in with the journey so well, added in a unique feeling throughout the exploration that otherwise wouldn't have been felt, and did way more good than any harm they may have done by taking you away from puzzles. They don’t take up that much of the game anyway, and some of them had dialogue to analyse throughout! Keeps the brain thinking in both ways.
Great presentation, with an especially amazing soundtrack. Even though a fair bit of the game had me slowly backtracking, it was just too striking of a world to get very upset about it.
This is definitely up there as one of my favourite puzzle games and I recommend it to anyone who thinks it sounds remotely fun. The morals told are reflected greatly within the gameplay, which is also executed extremely well.
Chants of Sennaar does a fantastic job with its ludonarrative; The goal is to decipher the languages of different civilizations, achieved by analysing environments and conversations. All the while, we learn about their ways of life and what led them to the current day and the lives they live. This dual purpose really resonated with me, and I personally think it struck an absolutely perfect balance between gameplay depth and narrative substance.
I adored the use of different linguistic mechanics that make you turn your head a little when it comes to certain puzzles (as well as the different script styles inspired by existing languages). It may not be as intricate as it could have been, but it’s enough to make you go “ahhh! cool!” when you notice certain things for the first time.
Thinking about it from the opposite perspective, it was clear that a lot of care was taken into simplifying certain aspects to make sure the puzzle solving felt smooth, accessible and rewarding. An example of how this is done is the removal of many “less interesting” words in the glyphs given to you, such as “the”, and “a”. We only have to focus on the parts that are meaningful to the purpose of the game and its world. The translation experience is finely crafted for that of a game player, and not that of a PhD student, which is what keeps it fun!
Many reviews complain about the stealth sections breaking up the pacing, I disagree with this, possibly due to me being a huge sucker for the narrative. I just found that these sections blended in with the journey so well, added in a unique feeling throughout the exploration that otherwise wouldn't have been felt, and did way more good than any harm they may have done by taking you away from puzzles. They don’t take up that much of the game anyway, and some of them had dialogue to analyse throughout! Keeps the brain thinking in both ways.
Great presentation, with an especially amazing soundtrack. Even though a fair bit of the game had me slowly backtracking, it was just too striking of a world to get very upset about it.
This is definitely up there as one of my favourite puzzle games and I recommend it to anyone who thinks it sounds remotely fun. The morals told are reflected greatly within the gameplay, which is also executed extremely well.
8 Comments
Damn, I never heard about this but it sounds awseome. And it has stealth ? Gotta put it on my list. Great Review.
@sirconnie Yes! Puzzling, that language was. ;) The more I think about it, the more each language has alot to love, with respect to the civilizations that used them.
@novaniles the stealth is like, 5-10% of the game at most and not very interesting from a gameplay perspective, so don't set your expectations too high hahaha. Still I think they are utilised well within the game.
Random thing I'd like to comment since it's related is that apparently this game started actually out as a stealth / infiltration game, and then one of the devs played another game called Heaven's Vault, which was very heavy on language deciphering. Interesting!
@novaniles the stealth is like, 5-10% of the game at most and not very interesting from a gameplay perspective, so don't set your expectations too high hahaha. Still I think they are utilised well within the game.
Random thing I'd like to comment since it's related is that apparently this game started actually out as a stealth / infiltration game, and then one of the devs played another game called Heaven's Vault, which was very heavy on language deciphering. Interesting!
woah if you haven't played Heaven's Vault i can recommend it! the gameplay with deducing the language is similar to Chants of Sennaar and it has a NG+ mode where it makes all the text harder and your translated words carry over, it's really cool!
I'd seen the cover of this but didn't realise what it was actually about. This has increased my interest in it quite a bit. To the wishlist.
Usually see critique on the stealth sections, so my eyebrows hit my hairline once i saw you like them. Very interesting. Think im more intrigued to play this now.
@fallengrace @detectivefail glad to hear it, also you must have a very impressive hairline 🤔
sirconnie
20 days ago