In Chants of Sennaar, Toulouse-based developer Rundisc focuses on translation. By translating their dialects and breaking down their language barriers, you will reunite the Tower’s people.
Through gardens, graveyards, palaces, mines, and more, you’ll meet people and learn their languages for eight to 12 hours. For each language, a different symbol evokes a different culture: Middle Eastern, European, Nordic. The translation scenarios are quite puzzling due to the ordering of words, questions, negatives, and plurals. For you to solve puzzles, you must decode each ideogram one by one and become somewhat fluent in each group’s way of communicating. Only No Man’s Sky has explored it — it’s a unique concept.
The journal is available to you at any time to record your interpretation of symbols. Aside from key details for puzzle solving, the journal pages include pictures that you can match with symbols to discover their meaning. When a full page — three to four symbols — is matched correctly, they will be validated and autotranslated.
The minimalistic art style and very calming background music don’t distract from the focus on translating languages and solving puzzles. There are levers, buttons, math problems, item fetch quests, and the occasional annoying stealth section that all depend on correct translation. Along the way, there are several enjoyable minigames to assist with translating: a game of cards, Flappy Bird, and old-school Punch & Judy mini-theatres.
The game depicts the differences between the languages of various cultures through its enjoyable puzzle-solving. With no other game like it, we recommend getting lost in translation here.
Pros:
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Translation focus.
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Language differences portrayed.
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Variety of puzzles to enjoy.
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Visually minimalist.
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Content is good.
Cons:
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A stealth section that fails.
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No main path guidance.
8 out of 10 for this game.