Chants of Sennaar is an adventure game about wandering through a layer cake of fantasy civilizations, having to learn their languages and understand their values to properly solve adventure game puzzles. Half of that description really appeals to me! When I play tabletop games, I'm the player who annoys the other players and sometimes even the game master with questions about the world and the people in it and how it all works. In that sense, the game is very successful; most of the game's five civilizations are more complicated than they appear, and understanding their values and what they hold dear helps greatly with the translation aspect.
However, with that said... I had some trepidations about the translation aspect. I'm not great at that in real life! I will say it's largely more intimidating than it seems; the game contains multiple redundancies for practically every word and concept, and it's designed with a lot of Anti-Frustration Features to sand off the rough edges of the monumental task of trying to translate one language entirely from scratch, let alone five. If all else fails, the game sometimes makes straight-up brute-force translating words surprisingly viable, although it always feels terrible and you feel terrible for doing it.
For those who don't feel "graphics" means "impressive photorealistic technical achievement," the game's aesthetics are also great, with gorgeous colors and striking, sometimes even imposing character designs that help each area of the game and each unique culture feel distinct from one another. It also has pretty good sound design, with individual simlish tones distinguishing the various cultures, and the sound effects really adding to the immersion factor. It does a lot with a little.
Gameplay-wise, it's a lot of puzzles, most of which incorporate the translation aspect in some way. Sometimes you're just trying to use the languages to hunt for clues, and sometimes you're having to work out how to use machines or follow directions, and it's all pretty well handled. The one bit that really stumped me was, fittingly, when I was required to actually do math, and even then, only because I was overthinking something pretty simple to understand. The major highlight is using mastery of both of their languages to try to connect various estranged civilizations together, a tricky task that requires a fair bit of Cultural Translation to fully accomplish, but when you do it right you're rewarded by seeing both cultures change for the better.
That said, there are also a few "action" sequences, relying on timed stealth or platforming. I didn't find them that hard; they still have puzzle elements and the checkpointing is pretty generous, but they can be frustrating, especially since they're heavily concentrated in a few specific areas of the game. And the last area, while eerie and intriguing, is a bit of a letdown when it comes to the translation element, handing you the final language on a silver platter and leaning more heavily on the action sequences, although I admit that was partly because I'd already done the good part (using various languages to connect the civilizations together) much earlier in the game. And while there is a sort of fast-travel system, I also wish there were some way to speed up the process of physically moving across non-action sequences while backtracking.
I beat it in a couple of days, but that was partly because it was one of those games that kept me up well past my bedtime, consumed by the desire to do just a little more exploration or translation. If you like fantasy cultures and adventure game puzzles that aren't total dreck, you'll probably have a great time even if, like me, you aren't very good at other languages.
VideoGame A Journey Into Colors, Cultures, and Weird Foreign Grammar
Chants of Sennaar is an adventure game about wandering through a layer cake of fantasy civilizations, having to learn their languages and understand their values to properly solve adventure game puzzles. Half of that description really appeals to me! When I play tabletop games, I'm the player who annoys the other players and sometimes even the game master with questions about the world and the people in it and how it all works. In that sense, the game is very successful; most of the game's five civilizations are more complicated than they appear, and understanding their values and what they hold dear helps greatly with the translation aspect.
However, with that said... I had some trepidations about the translation aspect. I'm not great at that in real life! I will say it's largely more intimidating than it seems; the game contains multiple redundancies for practically every word and concept, and it's designed with a lot of Anti-Frustration Features to sand off the rough edges of the monumental task of trying to translate one language entirely from scratch, let alone five. If all else fails, the game sometimes makes straight-up brute-force translating words surprisingly viable, although it always feels terrible and you feel terrible for doing it.
For those who don't feel "graphics" means "impressive photorealistic technical achievement," the game's aesthetics are also great, with gorgeous colors and striking, sometimes even imposing character designs that help each area of the game and each unique culture feel distinct from one another. It also has pretty good sound design, with individual simlish tones distinguishing the various cultures, and the sound effects really adding to the immersion factor. It does a lot with a little.
Gameplay-wise, it's a lot of puzzles, most of which incorporate the translation aspect in some way. Sometimes you're just trying to use the languages to hunt for clues, and sometimes you're having to work out how to use machines or follow directions, and it's all pretty well handled. The one bit that really stumped me was, fittingly, when I was required to actually do math, and even then, only because I was overthinking something pretty simple to understand. The major highlight is using mastery of both of their languages to try to connect various estranged civilizations together, a tricky task that requires a fair bit of Cultural Translation to fully accomplish, but when you do it right you're rewarded by seeing both cultures change for the better.
That said, there are also a few "action" sequences, relying on timed stealth or platforming. I didn't find them that hard; they still have puzzle elements and the checkpointing is pretty generous, but they can be frustrating, especially since they're heavily concentrated in a few specific areas of the game. And the last area, while eerie and intriguing, is a bit of a letdown when it comes to the translation element, handing you the final language on a silver platter and leaning more heavily on the action sequences, although I admit that was partly because I'd already done the good part (using various languages to connect the civilizations together) much earlier in the game. And while there is a sort of fast-travel system, I also wish there were some way to speed up the process of physically moving across non-action sequences while backtracking.
I beat it in a couple of days, but that was partly because it was one of those games that kept me up well past my bedtime, consumed by the desire to do just a little more exploration or translation. If you like fantasy cultures and adventure game puzzles that aren't total dreck, you'll probably have a great time even if, like me, you aren't very good at other languages.