Sells itself as a language-based deduction puzzler, but has more roots in tedious point-and-click adventure design than it does in linguistics.
It quickly devolves into stealth segments and long boring stretches of walking between clues. The language puzzles are the central mechanic, but they’re so easy that you won’t spend much time on it. Most of your time will be spent walking between dull Myst inspired puzzles with none of the aha moments that make Myst work.
It quickly devolves into stealth segments and long boring stretches of walking between clues. The language puzzles are the central mechanic, but they’re so easy that you won’t spend much time on it. Most of your time will be spent walking between dull Myst inspired puzzles with none of the aha moments that make Myst work.
This review contains spoilers
Incredibly satisfying play. I found each civilization charming, bar the last. Countless thoughtful dev decisions, like how every time I reached for my physical notepad my protagonist would take the note themself. What a lovely experience, I'm not sure I've ever felt so intuited. The above is supported by a beautiful visual style and fixed camera compositions, fortified by an impactful score.
The only significant complaint I have is achieving the true ending, I love the idea of the inter-language translation puzzles found within each warp point, but the lack of a way to see the meaning of all your completed glyphs at once via a toggle or something of the like made these feel like pulling teeth. It's a slap in the face that the game expects me to individually hover over every glyph as I attempt to craft phrases, that aspirationally should feel the opposite. Especially when solving for the Bards whose sentence structure is a bit juggled and often takes some tries (for me at least). This problem confuses me, considering essentially every other decision in the game felt more player-friendly than anything I've played, how did this one slip through the cracks?
Nonetheless, I still had a great time and will happily recommend this to any puzzle game enjoyers.
The only significant complaint I have is achieving the true ending, I love the idea of the inter-language translation puzzles found within each warp point, but the lack of a way to see the meaning of all your completed glyphs at once via a toggle or something of the like made these feel like pulling teeth. It's a slap in the face that the game expects me to individually hover over every glyph as I attempt to craft phrases, that aspirationally should feel the opposite. Especially when solving for the Bards whose sentence structure is a bit juggled and often takes some tries (for me at least). This problem confuses me, considering essentially every other decision in the game felt more player-friendly than anything I've played, how did this one slip through the cracks?
Nonetheless, I still had a great time and will happily recommend this to any puzzle game enjoyers.
As someone who doesn't typically click with puzzle games (see Cocoon) Chants of Sennaar really gripped me the entire way. Figuring out what words meant through context clues alone, making up sentences with glyphs I didn't know was very satisfying and made me feel smart, and the drive of the game being essentially the thirst for knowledge was really unique. The narrative wasn't exactly mind blowing but it engaged me enough that I found myself pushing through to the conclusion and completing as much of the game as possible (22/25 achievements). Highly recommend this one.