Chants of Sennaar

Story: Discover the mysteries of a tower with different cultures Game mechanics: Casual puzzle game which you play just with your mouse. Difficulty: Every puzzle is fair and you can solve them with hints from the evironment Design: Each culture is depicted differently and and each language works differently

I'm fascinated by linguistics, and the process by which people acquire language, so this is right up my alley. I really appreciate how the developers anticipated players' actions (or inaction...or lack of attentiveness) and provided a means to replay NPC actions and dialogue in case they missed it the first time around. There is also a fair amount of foreshadowing for some of the more obscure puzles (which, in most cases, you won't even realize until after you've encountered the puzzle, but still). My four gripes with the game are: 1) a lot of thepuzzles can be solved by simply rotating each element systematically until you get the right combination (think of the Eagle/Snake/Whale steles in Skyrim)...although, in some cases, that would require 64 (or 512, in one case) combinations to try; 2) some of the drawings that go with the symbol you're trying to decipher are really off (for example, SPOILER: I already knew what the symbol for "pot" was, and there was a slot in the translation book that showed hands on a pot...but it would not accept the symbol for "pot". Turns out, they wanted you to put the symbol for "make" there, as it was a drawing showing someone MAKING a pot; the drawing really should not have shown the entire pot, and better yet, just shown hands with motion arrows); 3) the geographical layout is really hard to nail down; I've played this three hours, and—except for a courtyard with a stele having symbols on it that tell you where you'll go if you head east, west, or north (and yes, you have to translate the symbols, but that's the cool part)—I really cannot get a grasp of how the different locations are connected; and finally, 4) You can't choose to save the game whenever you want; you either have to trigger an auto save, or use the one save kiosk in the whole game (which doesn't even tell you it saves the game!). Still, overall, a good experience I'd recommend if you like feeling like a master translator!

I finished it without meeting any bug. This game is sometimes very difficult. It is not always easy to understand a drawing and find the glyph represented. You need to find the vocabular and also the gramar of each language. The plural of a noun can be expressed in different ways according to each langage. The order of the sentence can also be different. The only thing I did not like very much is the very end of the game : having to flee a monster using the mouse only is not very interesting neither easy. But the game is worth 5 stars.

I don't think I've ever played another game like this; the "figure out the linguistics" engine for each map is ingenious. Right from the beginning, the storyline is intriguing and engaging. "What is this world? What am I doing here? How did it get this way?" It's right up there with Myst/Riven/etc. as far as driving instant obsession until you finish it. The artwork is easy on the eyes and has a unique style. Each realm definitely has its own thematic "feel" to it, that makes the game feel very well thought-out. There was a game-breaking bug, as others have mentioned, in the bard maze, but the developer has posted a patch for it (check GoG forums), so this turned out to be a minor nuisance rather than a deal-breaker. (Hopefully this patch has been integrated with the GoG build by now.) There is a bit of tedium on each level, when you can't figure out your next move quickly, and have to iterate through all the places you've already been, but that's true in any world-exploring puzzle game. Overall this was absolutely worth my time, and my only regret is that once you've solved it, there's little replay value. Still, I'd recommend this game to anyone who likes a good story and engaging puzzles. It was memorable.

Buy this! Play it! Don't look up spoilers!! Figure out the puzzles yourself!