Chants of Sennaar

i liked this game, i really did, it made me feel smart when I figured it out. It's a shame I can't play more of it, because of a common softlock bug that traps you in a dark maze, by not loading in another screen when you go in any direction from the saw pedestal room. Sorry for the 3 stars, and my returning of this, I might get it after that gets fixed. sorry gog.

Bien que je l’aie déjà fait sur Steam, je l’ai repris sur GOG pour les soutenir. C’est le jeu que j’ai fait qui exploite le mieux la relation entre culture et langue. C’est à la fois super intéressant conceptuellement, mais surtout, ne parlant que français et anglais, j’ai enfin pu vivre concrètement en quoi la langue est créée par et influence la culture. La difficulté s’ajuste naturellement, parce que la compréhension de la langue devient plus facile à mesure qu’on explore. En plus, ce sont des compétences qui ne reposent pas sur ce qu’un gamer a l’habitude de voir, donc je pourrais le recommander à tout le monde. Le seul reproche que je pourrais faire, c’est un manque de profondeur philosophique. Le fait de ne pas exprimer une réflexion explicite renforce l’ambiance de conte du jeu, mais ça atteint une certaine limite.

I played the demo a long time ago as was excited to see this come to GOG. Unfortunately I can't play it because I can't agree to the EULA. "The Multimedia Program is not sold, but rather is licensed to you by Focus Entertainment. As such, your License does not grant you any title or right to ownership of the Multimedia Program." This goes against one of the primary principles here at GOG and why we buy games here. Even if I could ignore the abuse (listed in other reviews which, sadly, I saw too late): "You hereby acknowledge that you have read and understood the License Agreement and have agreed that the action of installing the Multimedia Program is a confirmation of your agreement to be contractually bound by the following provisions." There's no way I can read & understand 14 pages of legalese. This makes me sad because I enjoyed the demo & would love to support indie development.

I've grabbed this game because of its theme and the reviews claiming it is brilliant and a must for anyone puzzle positive and more so linguistic. I have a talent for languages and understanding from patterns and symbolism. I have a thing for figuring out grammar and the meaning of idioms etc. in languages. I thought I'd be a perfect match of a target audience. Well... it turned out this game is overhyped. The puzzles are pretty meh and the linguistic part about it is laughable. You get very little clues based on which you are supposed to make assumptions and for some obscure reason (probably not to make it too easy) the clues make you think in a very obvious way while the result is many times incorrect and you have to rely on hit and miss combinations. Yes, hit and miss because that is many times what this game is about. You don't really have to understand anything, it's a matter of trying to try hit the combination and viola all of a sudden the correct one will lock in and make you a power fantasy linguist. What a laugh.

TL;DR: If you buy it a month after release and don't need a high challenge level - this is actually quite good. Recommended for your kids aged 12-16 (benign themes, challenge on the teenage level). ======= Up front: * Current state of the game is BROKEN, but a developer patch & quickfix exists somewhere on the forums. * Current state of the EULA is THEFT & but good luck to Focus or Rundisc if they ever try to enforce it. ======= As for the game itself: It's an ATMOSPHERIC puzzler. The difficulty is easy-to-mid and an average shmuck should have no problems and should not get stumped at any point. It makes you think that there's wiggle-room and that you don't have to 100% all the puzzles, but that's misleading and to complete even the first ending you likely need most, if not all the glyphs to be decoded. Oh, yeah, it's a "decode the runes" game if you didn't know. There are several languages to decode and there is light worldbuilding and lore around the way that they interact and are constructed. Unfortunately the closer you are to the endgame, the more convoluted the scenarios of learning the languages get and the last language decoding was deeply immersion-breaking. Still, the atmosphere in general is on-point and makes you want to dive into the world. Game is very linear and, while it gives you an illusion of sprawl, it's only local sprawl and ultimately you will have to explore 90% of the area to complete major tasks. Sometimes the contrivance of your path is a bit too much though. Themes are benign, mild and rare scares, no sexual content, very mild violence/death references, politically a mostly inferred anti-authoritarian skew, no "wokism" (if that's your deal-breaker). Accessible to hearing-impaired and color-blind by default. Clicking proficiency required, but not at high speed. And they made "medieval Flappy Bird", which I found particularly hilarious.