Chants of Sennaar

Crack a handful of languages and then wield them in this mesmering adventure game.

Chants of Sennaar folds every one of its puzzle-solving bricks into a Rubik’s Cube of a concept, and yet it revels most of all in pan-linguistic understanding. The figure taking their break on a roof, or the grunted “no” from a security guard, or the laughter of a child playing hide-and-seek all serve to remind you of your place in a community. Learning a language stands in for observing and appreciating a culture that’s unfamiliar to you. It’s a lofty goal for a game, and it’s one that Chants of Sennaar achieves.

Chants of Sennaar has a terrifically unique focus on translation, portraying the differences between various cultures’ languages excellently through its enjoyable puzzle-solving. With no other game quite like it, we’d highly recommend getting lost in translation here.

Chants of Sennaar is as defined by its peaks as its valleys. For every moment of mind-blowing, brilliant puzzle design comes an inversely frustrating moment stymied by '90s adventure game logic. The game's ability to teach a player aspects of a language is awe-inspiring, and its way of guiding players along with as little information as possible is intensely rewarding-when it works. Even though it isn't for everyone (or consistently excellent), it's constantly impressive. If you're interested, we recommend checking out the free demo for the game that's available on the eShop, which will help let you know whether or not this game might be up your alley.

Chants of Sennaar is an ingenious linguistic puzzle game that takes the right notes from genre greats like Return of the Obra Dinn.

An immensely clever and unique game, Chants of Sennaar expertly captures the power of language through its well-crafted cultures and its intricate and perfectly-challenging puzzles, turning the art of translation into a captivating bit of gameplay. By the time you'll have validated your last glyph, you'll still be left wanting more, but what we have here still makes for a terrific journey that is not to be missed out on.

The linguistic labyrinth woven into its puzzle design, world-building, and presentation makes Chants of Sennaar nothing short of a towering achievement.

Chants of Sennaar is a wonderfully refreshing puzzle adventure game. There’s huge satisfaction in making progress without the game holding your hand through every step. It reminds me of Tunic in this regard. You’re given only the basic idea of what to do, and the rest is up to your own powers of observation and deduction in order to figure things out and progress.

Charts of Sennaar is an interesting puzzle game made with great care. The graphic and artistic sector is perfect to represent the symbolism enclosed in the "biblical" plot that unfolds between the floors of the new Tower of Babel that is the background to the gameplay.

Chants of Sennaar and the way it explores the relations between different groups of people is really engaging as a game. With language at its core, it highlights both the differences and the similarities between people and cultures. Chants of Sennaar is a puzzle game that deserves attention.