Explore rich cultures and broaden your horizons in Chants of Sennaar.
Language is the way we communicate with each other. As the myth of the Tower of Babylon once stated, if we could not have exchanges and be able to know what each other is trying to say to one another, the world would go up in flames. People need to understand each other, especially in such a fractured world like the one we live in. Chants of Sennaar navigates this theme rather masterfully with its intuitive yet, to this day, unexplored language-based voyage.
Developed by indie studio Rundisc and published by Focus Entertainment, Chants of Sennaar is a unique narrative adventure in which you are a Traveler with the ability to learn and decipher the many cultures surrounding you and may, perhaps, try to unite them through patient mastery of each of their customs and traditions. Even before starting the game, a spiritual-like atmosphere permeates the narrative.
You begin walking as a hooded character towards a closed door and a lever next to it in a yellow-hued temple. You first approach a notice board with unknown glyphs in front of you. With it being the first puzzle to understand, it is presented with a degree of approachability and simpleness. You easily understand that, with a lever next to you that opens a door, one glyph means “door” while the others mean “close” and “open”.
From there, Chants of Sennaar is fair game for its particular set of puzzles that are not usually seen in any kind of game. You have to write what you think is the meaning of each glyph in your notebook, and from there, keep on trying to make sense of the different puzzles and scaling difficulty.
One of the first ever elaborate main quests you are inadvertently tasked to do involves trying to find a preacher to get on with the church procedures. But with a simple task, this leads you to three contrasting areas, each with its glyphs, puzzles, and people to talk to that the narrative is very naturally intertwined with the rest of the story.
Among the most satisfying feelings that this odd and distinctive game can give you is to complete the translation of all the glyphs to one or the five languages exposed to you as a gamer. When that eureka moment strikes, and while this is not a detective game, it feels very rewarding to go through each glyph and try to understand what each puzzle and eventual glyph will become a part of the show.
Although it is possible to fall prey to frustration early on due to the lack of cohesion with the puzzles, as long as you progress with the game, it always finds a way to help you move forward with new words and never stays too long in one area. In other words, Chants of Sennaar knows it is not a simple game, but it also wants to give you a helping hand to experience it all.
Stealth sections include sliding sneakily along walls, pretending to pray a la Assassin’s Creed, or simply throwing rocks to distract a guard and enter a restricted area. These sections are noted by the change in color from bright yellow to grayish tones.
While you can get caught hiding, and this makes the chase all that more nerve-wracking, the checkpoints are quite lenient and will immediately respawn you just where you were before you were caught, leading to a not-as-stressful gameplay experience. Well-timed movements will reward you for your precision.
Patience and perseverance are essential to understanding Chants of Sennaar. As you grasp one language and culture after another, the complexity of each puzzle becomes ever greater, and only by the might and mettle of your wisdom may you prevail in the trials of this game.
When all else fails, a trial and error are possible, and the game will accept your entries with no penalty for as long as you wish to try, but it is not recommended to do so, and if you have a keen and watchful eye and a handful of patience, the solution might be staring you in the face with no need to deal with all that frustration.
When you start progressing a bit more on Chants of Sennaar, instead of guessing what each glyph represents, the game will instead sketch out several actions or places depending on the need required for what the glyph is supposed to mean. This is where the situation can get either tricky and complex, or just breeze through it. If you were correct about your assumptions as to what the glyph meant, it would be a cakewalk.
Otherwise, with the help of your previously solved puzzles, you can backtrack and try to make better sense of what the words mean. Either way, the game is not too enamored with the idea of becoming a linguist, but just to try and see things from a different perspective and use your intuition.
The original soundtrack and sound design of Chants of Sennaar is something that will stay with you long after you play. Haunting choirs, light guitars, and more are part of the carefully crafted music. Water running down the stream, wind blowing peacefully, and the calming chirping of the early birds are also some of the sound effects you’ll find as you rummage through the temples of Sennaar.
With the help of colorful murals, observing actions of other characters, and signs next to objects, you can decipher each glyph. Even though they do not give you the answer straight, Chants of Sennaar also wants you to be a part of the adventure and witness the events occurring in the game.
One of the best feelings once the ball is rolling is when you have to match newfound glyphs with their meaning, and you nail it in one go. The rush of thinking you should have studied ancient languages starts to creep in after that.
The excitement of learning a new language is not lost in the process of playing Chants of Sennaar. For anyone who has ever traveled to a foreign country, Chants of Sennaar will resonate quite profoundly, as the process of frustration and trying to learn a language, making mistakes, and eventually being able to finally make yourself be heard and understand each other is one of the most profound life experiences you can have. And this game can recreate those moments with every interaction with the people around you.
Exploring five intricately designed languages with their respective glyphs, pronunciations, and peoples, it is simply mind-boggling to think of the process of how each of these individual ways of communication was conceived with such breadth and scope.
While some languages are inspired by Arabic and other Middle Eastern civilizations and others by the prominent Nordic tribes with their respective runic alphabet, Chants of Sennaar makes sure to establish its own story without borrowing too much from real-world influences.
Chants of Sennaar, once it clicks, undoubtedly makes you feel like a linguist and paleographer with its glyph-based and gesture-implying puzzles. Throughout the course of your playthrough, you will find the spark of languages and their history might make you want to study further your own and our world’s most profound historical writings as you decipher what each language has to offer.
