I feel ashamed that it took me so long to talk about CHANTS OF SENNAAR. I believe everyone interested in the title already had time to indulge in it by now. Nonetheless, I also want to believe that I can convince even a single soul to check it out by writing this text. Because it is a game. Flawed gem, but still. It's a puzzle game to the core, lacking action and thrills to stir your blood. A puzzle game with slow pacing, sometimes, painfully slow, and with some backtracking that might bore some folks to bits. And yet, its very core stands out from other games with brilliant light, like a beacon, shining with its novelty.
Because the Tower of Babel speaks many languages, and none can understand the other. Well, of course, not exactly the Tower of Babel, but a proper simulacrum of one. It is a fictional world, a peculiar setting of fantastic magic, technology, and a society divided into classes. Each class occupies a ring of the giant tower, forming an exclusive society, with their own culture, ethos... And language. And so, there's strife - misunderstandings are rife when communication barriers keep everyone from sharing ideas or even stem the ability to show compassion. Or empathy.
At the bottom rung are the Devotees, simple folk of humble needs, and so, their sparse language matches that. It's simple, and direct, with very few complexities to mar the communication. Above them sit the Warriors, with words of command, orders, and phrases that are more structured, if direct. Then, there are Bards, who live in their hedonistic paradise, a haven of culture, overflowing with the need to write and parse stories. Their language is wavy, and fluid, a constant deluge of signs that meld with each other. Then on the top, the Alchemists, amid their technological revolution, needed a plethora of new words - for machines, for experiments, for phenomena other cultures below them had never seen, and so, never needed naming.
You are... well... Not exactly sure who you are, as the protagonist. A wanderer, a lost soul who travels through the Tower in an attempt to bring it back to unity. How are you going to achieve it? Simple, really - learn all the languages and act as the intermediary, the translator for the cultures to mend their manifold issues and bring them together, as they once were. But learning the languages from scratch isn't an easy task, and that is where the gameplay comes to the forte - the Puzzles! Context is king. There are many puzzles, and tiny minigames to decipher things, but most of the signs you'll have to decipher in a rather organic matter. That is, if a level opening the doors is marked, you might decipher which symbol means door, open, closed... If someone runs and signs at you aggressively the same sign over and over, that probably means 'run'. A shop selling instruments has a sign over it? I guess that's gonna be music. Or Instruments. Or both!
And so, paying attention to every utterance, to road signs, to posters and remnants of reliefs littering the tower is going to be your bread and butter. Slowly but surely you'll keep unlocking your lexicon, allowing you a greater understanding not just of the language, but of its people. And as you transition to a higher level, to a new society, you'll quickly catch that there are similarities, or some baseline translations in place to kick off your new journey into learning.
I could now wax lyrical about how the culture of each of the societies is described through its language, of its usage... But I never was one to steal someone else words or work, so I will give credit when it is due, and recommend anyone interested in this aspect of the game to watch this video - Fake Languages, Storytelling & Chants of Sennaar - by Ephemera. They explain it beautifully, showing examples of how each of the four languages differ, and how they use certain words to frame their culture in a specific way. It's a brilliant bit of exploration and I recommend everyone interested in this game to check it out!
Another thing I can praise about the game is its presentation. Each of the cultures we encounter is beautifully crafted in their visuals - different color schemes dominate the scenery, and their outfits tell us a story about them as well as their words. The soundscapes are unobtrusive, gentle... meditative, to be sure. But also changing and shifting in accord with the place we are in, matching the people we encounter, helping us be more engrossed in their lore. It's a beautiful journey, and well worth your time.
To sum it up, CHANTS OF SENNAAR is a very unique experience. There isn't a game like it anywhere - an exploration through language, a peek into imagined cultures through the lens of their very words. It might be a little slow at times. A bit frustrating and confusing, when you try to decipher some pesky phrase. But then, I would even dare to claim that it adds to the experience - after all, isn't it confusing and frustrating in real life when you're stranded in a place in which you barely speak a word or two, and try to find your way around? It comes off as a perfectly natural source of frustration, one that adds to the experience. If puzzle games are your forte, definitely give this one a try. And if unusual gameplay is also something you're craving, you will find it here without a doubt.
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