Scaling the Tower of Babel in Chants of Sennaar
If you woke up one day in a place where no one spoke your language, how would you connect with the people around you? Chants of Sennaar explores this question. The game is loosely based on the mythical Tower of Babel, and you are on a quest to get to the top of the tower. Comprehending languages is crucial to solving the puzzles that let you progress.
I absolutely adore linguistics, and this game spoke to me. A major part of this game is figuring out what words mean based on context clues and filling in a dictionary with your discoveries. You can annotate guesses using a keyboard, and the game translates the foreign symbols with what you've added to the dictionary. This led to some truly hilarious phrases when I guessed wrong: for example, one NPC allegedly told me "you eat mirrors." These incorrect guesses lead to another round of investigation until you finally get words that work. Luckily, you aren't left guessing forever: the game does eventually confirm your understanding of the words.
Chants presents the player with a different language on each floor, and some of them have unique grammar structures. At a certain point, you get to act as an interpreter for people from different floors. This was a lot of fun. Even though this game works very well on the Steam Deck, I would absolutely recommend using a mouse and keyboard for those portions of the game.
I love the puzzles in Chants, and I don't think any of them were too difficult (provided that you are diligent in filling out your dictionary). I'd put them in a range from easy to medium-hard. There was only one mathy one I needed to consult the internet for, and that was because I wasn't paying attention when the hints were presented to me.
The one part I didn't love about this game were the stealth sections, and they are plentiful. I'll admit that this is a personal preference, but I tend to dislike stealth in video games. Luckily, stealth is not particularly difficult in this game, and I was able to complete each of them with a single-digit number of tries.
Finally, I was pleasantly surprised by the cohesive story presented in Chants of Sennaar. I had expected a pure puzzle game with very little overarching plot -- but I was wrong. The inhabitants of each floor have their own backstory, and their story interacts with those of the other floors. Making connections and bridging differences is a major theme of the plot, and it all comes together to create a satisfying ending.
I enjoyed Chants of Sennaar and would recommend it to anyone who has a passing interest in linguistics and a penchant for puzzles. The gameplay, music, and art are masterful, and I'm glad I played it. 3.9/5 (Great).
PS: This game is good for completionists. Getting all the achievements only took me 15 extra minutes.