Cute, short, to the point. Kinda loses its charm if you manage to figure out the cipher. Could use a bit more meat on its bones narratively too.
A point and click adventure game where you spend time trying to learn where you are, but on top of that, you have to try and learn a language. Kinda fun, but it's mostly just spent trying to figure words out in the end. Cute little story, though I probably didn't get the good ending.
Cute game with an interesting premise, but quite simple in its execution.
Grabbing as much as you can and trying to soak in and decode everything you see is thrilling in the beginning and there is definitely a sense of accomplishment, but could feel repetitive by the end as the game IMO lacks variety in the activities it actually offers you. Even if you have most of the words figured out, it is very easy to miss certain special scenes if you haven't clicked around the house enough, which again invites repetitiveness... which is a shame, really! Despite everything, the game did a good job leaving just enough hints about the characters to make me wonder and wish there was a way to get to know their stories more, which is a nice bonus to the actual language-cracking gameplay.
All in all a curious little thing with its ups and downs, and if you are into riddles or language learning, I would recommend giving it a shot!
Grabbing as much as you can and trying to soak in and decode everything you see is thrilling in the beginning and there is definitely a sense of accomplishment, but could feel repetitive by the end as the game IMO lacks variety in the activities it actually offers you. Even if you have most of the words figured out, it is very easy to miss certain special scenes if you haven't clicked around the house enough, which again invites repetitiveness... which is a shame, really! Despite everything, the game did a good job leaving just enough hints about the characters to make me wonder and wish there was a way to get to know their stories more, which is a nice bonus to the actual language-cracking gameplay.
All in all a curious little thing with its ups and downs, and if you are into riddles or language learning, I would recommend giving it a shot!
Chants of Sennaar got me on a little cosntructed language kick so I plowed through this one over night. The core idea to have a single character who relays the language to you and wishes you to help learn it is pretty incredible. The execution is... poor to say the least.
The language itself is, and I'm sorry to say this, lame as shit. I don't even mind that vocabulary (huge spoilers!) basically being encoded English, but there's just no consistent rules to grab on to, like the ways plurals are constructed, differences between verbs and nouns, tenses, word order, nothing! The grug speak comments are fully warranted here.
The other fault of the game is that it uses language as purely descriptive tool. You'd think that it'll utilize the strength of the medium and let you engage in conversations of some manner with your virtual friend. But no, your primary way of learning is to point at items in the house and make your oomfie espouse the descriptions. You can have the same experience in your own house with google lens set to Dutch, it's just so cursory and boring.
There are glints of cool environmental storytelling, and the "hidden twist" would be awesome in a game with actual structure, if there was an emphasis on emotional bond you create by overcoming linguistic hurdles. But as things stand, 7 Days is such a waste of a great concept.
The language itself is, and I'm sorry to say this, lame as shit. I don't even mind that vocabulary (huge spoilers!) basically being encoded English, but there's just no consistent rules to grab on to, like the ways plurals are constructed, differences between verbs and nouns, tenses, word order, nothing! The grug speak comments are fully warranted here.
The other fault of the game is that it uses language as purely descriptive tool. You'd think that it'll utilize the strength of the medium and let you engage in conversations of some manner with your virtual friend. But no, your primary way of learning is to point at items in the house and make your oomfie espouse the descriptions. You can have the same experience in your own house with google lens set to Dutch, it's just so cursory and boring.
There are glints of cool environmental storytelling, and the "hidden twist" would be awesome in a game with actual structure, if there was an emphasis on emotional bond you create by overcoming linguistic hurdles. But as things stand, 7 Days is such a waste of a great concept.
trash. badly executed. feels empty. doesn't have a real ending. the caveman speak ruins it really hard too. sorry guys
Probably the most ive ever been disappointed by a game. An enthralling mystery, writing on a notebook giddily trying to figure out the secret code and when I finally did so... deflated, utterly uninteresting, the worst possible answer the game could have had for how the code works. There's a story in the background here, but I was so dismayed I didnt care to look too deeply into it.
pretty damn interesting! takes the "learning a language from scratch" puzzle a bit further with 2 key differences.
1. the player does not learn from ancient artifacts, but a character who is trying to help you
2. the language is more than just an English font swap
by the end my comprehension wasn't as high as I'd hoped but i enjoyed it
1. the player does not learn from ancient artifacts, but a character who is trying to help you
2. the language is more than just an English font swap
by the end my comprehension wasn't as high as I'd hoped but i enjoyed it
This review contains spoilers
this is so well done!
there is an actual story behind everything happening in this game and you won't even notice it happening on the first playthroughs.
it's just after you decipher the words, and try to put everything together that you can see the dark and mysterious story behind it all.
and the fact that you were swimming in all of it the whole time makes it much grimmer.
Overall it's awesome! if you like visual novels and want one of those fnaf-like stories that you have to figure out yourself
do not hesitate, get it now! and you'll learn some things about deciphering too.
if you played it and couldn't figure out the story and want a short version, here is my theory:
but be careful! do not spoil it for yourself cuz it's much more fun playing and understanding it yourself.
you're a man (i doubt about genders in this game so don't mind me you can think of both of them as men or women, doesn't make any difference) called boyel, boyel led a rebellious army during the war, and he won! but disappeared after that...presumed dead, his lover wanted him back so she learned alchemy and the knowledge of the resurrection, she kidnapped many people and used all of them as test subjects(evidence in alchemy and secret room), and she succeed in creating something, but all of her creations only lived 7 days and died after that, and of course, they didn't have a single memory anymore, she will try this method of using human blood and flesh every time you fail in the game and get a common ending, you can tell this by the rising number of black squares on the note in alchemy room every time you get that ending, so you're name is boyel, but you're not the real boyel, as the visitor in day 5 looking for boyel won't recognize you, you're just one of the hundreds of regular people trapped in the hands of Theo trying to resurrect their husband/boyfriend
there is an actual story behind everything happening in this game and you won't even notice it happening on the first playthroughs.
it's just after you decipher the words, and try to put everything together that you can see the dark and mysterious story behind it all.
and the fact that you were swimming in all of it the whole time makes it much grimmer.
Overall it's awesome! if you like visual novels and want one of those fnaf-like stories that you have to figure out yourself
do not hesitate, get it now! and you'll learn some things about deciphering too.
if you played it and couldn't figure out the story and want a short version, here is my theory:
but be careful! do not spoil it for yourself cuz it's much more fun playing and understanding it yourself.
you're a man (i doubt about genders in this game so don't mind me you can think of both of them as men or women, doesn't make any difference) called boyel, boyel led a rebellious army during the war, and he won! but disappeared after that...presumed dead, his lover wanted him back so she learned alchemy and the knowledge of the resurrection, she kidnapped many people and used all of them as test subjects(evidence in alchemy and secret room), and she succeed in creating something, but all of her creations only lived 7 days and died after that, and of course, they didn't have a single memory anymore, she will try this method of using human blood and flesh every time you fail in the game and get a common ending, you can tell this by the rising number of black squares on the note in alchemy room every time you get that ending, so you're name is boyel, but you're not the real boyel, as the visitor in day 5 looking for boyel won't recognize you, you're just one of the hundreds of regular people trapped in the hands of Theo trying to resurrect their husband/boyfriend
Didn't finish it, I played for half an hour and realized it wasn't really for me. I had trouble deciphering pretty much all the words and I wasn't willing to put in the time to grind it out. The idea with the game is you can't understand what the other character is saying so you have to decipher from context clues and the like. I watched somebody else play it for an hour to get a better idea of how it works and see where I went wrong. For one, even the phrases after you translate are still not proper english, so for example, the people I watched ended up with the prompts "container drink" for a water bottle I think. This makes sense, because I'm pretty sure other languages construct sentences like that, but without knowing that the game would structure sentences like that, I found it hard to get anywhere sadly. This game definitely needed some kind of tutorial or practice prompt at the beginning, you're kinda just dropped into things with no explanation. I might give the game a shot again in the future, because knowing what I know after watching others playing the game helped immensely.
A very bittersweet game, genius in it's execution. Taking the place of a person with amnesia, you must learn an unknown language only based on context clues from your caretaker. There are few handouts, and how you come to understand the language and what you intrepret from it is fully up to you.
There are very few games in this world that click with me like this game did. The open trial and error of trying to desipher the few rooms you get to work with was so much fun, and so endearing. I kind of wish this imaginary language was real so that I might of learned something, because while I struggle learning languages traditionally I had an absolute blast here. The satisfaction of piecing together a sentence and fully understanding it all on your own is immense, and I wish there was more of it. Its a short game on its own, though youre encouraged to play through it multiple times as you learn new words and can comprehend more of what your caretaker is saying. Knowing more about this game is worse I'll say, because while it is useful to know about what rules and structures this game's grammar follows, it also kind of sucks the enjoyment out of figuring it out on your own.
You are only spoken to in three words per sentence, though nonetheless the game is very touching. There is something very simple and comforting about it, almost feeling childlike. The joy of being able to understand someone, even vaugely, is reflected in the other's relief at finally being understood. It is gratifying and sad, left me wanting to see more. For its limited amount of words, it still manages to build something up around you and leaves you in constant discovery. The only downside is that there are only 2 or so music tracks in the game, which play on loop constantly. Grating sound design aside, I very much enjoyed playing this fresh attempt at a puzzle game. I will be keeping an eye on this dev, for sure.
There are very few games in this world that click with me like this game did. The open trial and error of trying to desipher the few rooms you get to work with was so much fun, and so endearing. I kind of wish this imaginary language was real so that I might of learned something, because while I struggle learning languages traditionally I had an absolute blast here. The satisfaction of piecing together a sentence and fully understanding it all on your own is immense, and I wish there was more of it. Its a short game on its own, though youre encouraged to play through it multiple times as you learn new words and can comprehend more of what your caretaker is saying. Knowing more about this game is worse I'll say, because while it is useful to know about what rules and structures this game's grammar follows, it also kind of sucks the enjoyment out of figuring it out on your own.
You are only spoken to in three words per sentence, though nonetheless the game is very touching. There is something very simple and comforting about it, almost feeling childlike. The joy of being able to understand someone, even vaugely, is reflected in the other's relief at finally being understood. It is gratifying and sad, left me wanting to see more. For its limited amount of words, it still manages to build something up around you and leaves you in constant discovery. The only downside is that there are only 2 or so music tracks in the game, which play on loop constantly. Grating sound design aside, I very much enjoyed playing this fresh attempt at a puzzle game. I will be keeping an eye on this dev, for sure.
One of the most unique concepts i've seen in a game all wrapped in a cute artstyle and depressing story
I love the core concept, the implementation is deeply flawed. There is something about how the core mechanic is done which ruined a lot of the interest for me. It's not a bad game, but I want the idea done better.
my love, you are speaking in wingdings
Very unique concept; there are moments that feel just as satisfying as learning a real language. While its execution is pretty rough around the corners, I think the author has potential to make something very cool and significant if they refine their skills and expand upon the idea further.
Trying to decipher the language is really cool, but damn it was hard to get by. Cool concept
Best concept for a game I've seen in a while. Also, this is so sad.