Chants of Sennaar is a creative, inventive, and beautiful game all about translating "languages" and using them to solve puzzles. It provides a fun, cerebral experience that challenges the player while staying logical and reasonable in its puzzles all while providing an exquisite audiovisual experience on top of this.
You play as an unnamed, red cloaked translator who wakes up at the bottom of a tower and must make there way to the top. As you climb, you'll encounter multiple peoples who speak different "languages" you must learn to progress.
I put quotes around "languages" because you're really more learning the scripts or alphabets of these "languages" as well as a couple grammatical quirks. It's about as close as you can get without having full voice acting and actually creating multiple fully spoken conlangs. That's not a knock against the game, just a technical caveat. That being said, how the game tasks you with learning these scripts is incredibly captivating and fun.
You'll learn each "language" by speaking to locals and observing what's around you, whether that's signs, murals, games, books, drawings, etc. Every "language" is hieroglyphic based, so you'll eventually be able to parse out what each character means. This all comes with a handy journal menu that adds any characters you see and allows you to guess at each one's meaning before you've confirmed what they mean. This way, you can get a step ahead and figure out parts of the "language" before the game has confirmed anything. Once you reach a point where the game believes you have enough context clues, the journal will add two new pages of sketches where you can mark what characters mean. You have to get them all correct though or you won't be able to confirm any characters on this set of pages.
This is where my only real nitpick of the game comes in. Sometimes these pages can feel a bit obtuse. I was able to figure out everything by the end, but some sections of each "language" took me a bit longer as there'd be one or two sketches that I wasn't sure what they were. A couple of these I even just got past by trial and error, which is frustrating. For the most part though, rundisc did a good job at making each part understandable. It was far more often that I would have an ah ha moment with some of these sketches rather than be frustrated by them. This is also just a super subjective part of "languages" that you're never going to fully get around. What I think of as "fear," for example, may not be exactly how the developers portray it in that character's sketch.
The best part about this game though, is it doesn't stop at its "languages." Learning each script enables you to progress through the OTHER puzzles that are more adventure style. Getting different items and keys, figuring out recipes or formulas, learning how to navigate certain areas. All of this is enabled by learning each "language," and it feels really fun to become fully "fluent" in each level, allowing you to pass through with ease. It leads really to one of the most satisfying feelings I've had playing a puzzle/adventure like this in a long time. Even more so than my recent playthrough of the masterful Cocoon! I think the reason why is because you have to put in the work not just to solve each puzzle, but also to learn the "language" that allows you even to engage in the first place. It felt like I was really exploring these cultures and immersing myself in them.
The other major gameplay element is the stealth. Some sections have hostile enemies or will just present areas you're not supposed to be. Here, you'll be challenged to navigate rather simple areas with some cover walls, patrolling guards, and the odd pile of rocks to throw to distract said guards. It's all quite simple but elegantly done. The cover system sometimes acted a bit goofy in terms of me "aiming" to where I wanted to go next, but this was a small issue that didn't matter much as I never felt in a rush to navigate these. I will also mention, this is probably only an issue if playing with controller like I was. With mouse and keyboard, you control the character point-and-click style, so you can just click the next cover to go to.
I will say though, gamepad controls work excellently otherwise. There are definite benefits to mouse and keyboard, particularly being able to type in your guesses in your journal with an actual keyboard, but if you're like me and like the immersion brought by "walking" the character around yourself, a controller still works great.
As I mentioned above, this is all wrapped in a wonderful presentation package. The graphics, while technically simple, are beautiful, largely due to some excellent art design. It reminds me of a comic, like an avant garde French comic or something. Maybe I'm a bit off there in terms of actual influences, but the result is simply beautiful. Bright colors and cel shading make each level stand out, and the designs of characters are wonderful as well. The score here is beautiful too, adding needed atmosphere to the different areas effectively while giving some memorable themes at key moments. It's definitely a soundtrack I want to revisit on its own.
There is a story as well, but predictably, it is pretty subtle. That's not to knock its quality though, as themes I won't spoil here become very apparent as you progress and tackle some other optional puzzles and quests. By the end, and especially if you go for both endings, the picture becomes pretty clear, and I have to say it ended up being pretty satisfactory.
All in all, Chants of Sennaar is a fantastic game that I think really should be praised more. I remember first hearing about this game through some YouTube videos and the odd Polygon best of 2023 article, but this really deserves to be a more highly touted indie release from last year. Highly recommend this, especially for other linguistics nerds like me.
You play as an unnamed, red cloaked translator who wakes up at the bottom of a tower and must make there way to the top. As you climb, you'll encounter multiple peoples who speak different "languages" you must learn to progress.
I put quotes around "languages" because you're really more learning the scripts or alphabets of these "languages" as well as a couple grammatical quirks. It's about as close as you can get without having full voice acting and actually creating multiple fully spoken conlangs. That's not a knock against the game, just a technical caveat. That being said, how the game tasks you with learning these scripts is incredibly captivating and fun.
You'll learn each "language" by speaking to locals and observing what's around you, whether that's signs, murals, games, books, drawings, etc. Every "language" is hieroglyphic based, so you'll eventually be able to parse out what each character means. This all comes with a handy journal menu that adds any characters you see and allows you to guess at each one's meaning before you've confirmed what they mean. This way, you can get a step ahead and figure out parts of the "language" before the game has confirmed anything. Once you reach a point where the game believes you have enough context clues, the journal will add two new pages of sketches where you can mark what characters mean. You have to get them all correct though or you won't be able to confirm any characters on this set of pages.
This is where my only real nitpick of the game comes in. Sometimes these pages can feel a bit obtuse. I was able to figure out everything by the end, but some sections of each "language" took me a bit longer as there'd be one or two sketches that I wasn't sure what they were. A couple of these I even just got past by trial and error, which is frustrating. For the most part though, rundisc did a good job at making each part understandable. It was far more often that I would have an ah ha moment with some of these sketches rather than be frustrated by them. This is also just a super subjective part of "languages" that you're never going to fully get around. What I think of as "fear," for example, may not be exactly how the developers portray it in that character's sketch.
The best part about this game though, is it doesn't stop at its "languages." Learning each script enables you to progress through the OTHER puzzles that are more adventure style. Getting different items and keys, figuring out recipes or formulas, learning how to navigate certain areas. All of this is enabled by learning each "language," and it feels really fun to become fully "fluent" in each level, allowing you to pass through with ease. It leads really to one of the most satisfying feelings I've had playing a puzzle/adventure like this in a long time. Even more so than my recent playthrough of the masterful Cocoon! I think the reason why is because you have to put in the work not just to solve each puzzle, but also to learn the "language" that allows you even to engage in the first place. It felt like I was really exploring these cultures and immersing myself in them.
The other major gameplay element is the stealth. Some sections have hostile enemies or will just present areas you're not supposed to be. Here, you'll be challenged to navigate rather simple areas with some cover walls, patrolling guards, and the odd pile of rocks to throw to distract said guards. It's all quite simple but elegantly done. The cover system sometimes acted a bit goofy in terms of me "aiming" to where I wanted to go next, but this was a small issue that didn't matter much as I never felt in a rush to navigate these. I will also mention, this is probably only an issue if playing with controller like I was. With mouse and keyboard, you control the character point-and-click style, so you can just click the next cover to go to.
I will say though, gamepad controls work excellently otherwise. There are definite benefits to mouse and keyboard, particularly being able to type in your guesses in your journal with an actual keyboard, but if you're like me and like the immersion brought by "walking" the character around yourself, a controller still works great.
As I mentioned above, this is all wrapped in a wonderful presentation package. The graphics, while technically simple, are beautiful, largely due to some excellent art design. It reminds me of a comic, like an avant garde French comic or something. Maybe I'm a bit off there in terms of actual influences, but the result is simply beautiful. Bright colors and cel shading make each level stand out, and the designs of characters are wonderful as well. The score here is beautiful too, adding needed atmosphere to the different areas effectively while giving some memorable themes at key moments. It's definitely a soundtrack I want to revisit on its own.
There is a story as well, but predictably, it is pretty subtle. That's not to knock its quality though, as themes I won't spoil here become very apparent as you progress and tackle some other optional puzzles and quests. By the end, and especially if you go for both endings, the picture becomes pretty clear, and I have to say it ended up being pretty satisfactory.
All in all, Chants of Sennaar is a fantastic game that I think really should be praised more. I remember first hearing about this game through some YouTube videos and the odd Polygon best of 2023 article, but this really deserves to be a more highly touted indie release from last year. Highly recommend this, especially for other linguistics nerds like me.