Chants of Sennaar

I wish I could give myself memory loss so I could re-live the wonder of playing this game for the first time again. Not only are the graphics and soundtrack gorgeous, the gameplay is incredibly satisfying and intuitive. At no point does the game hold your hand, but every step and every puzzle is set up to incrementally introduce you to new concepts and allows you to arrive to the solution entirely on your own. As someone who has been playing puzzle games (both IRL, tabletop, and digital) for over a decade, I have never played a puzzle game like Chants of Sennaar. I'll be forever chasing the thrill of playing Chants of Sennaar!

Really cool puzzle & adventure game. The notebook makes it a bit easy but I enjoyed discovering very much. France made another banger indie huh

Chants of Sennaar premise, on theory, is such a good idea. And then, it actually delivers on that idea. You are thrown into this mysterious tower filled with different peoples, different cultures, and, most importantly, different languages. But the game does not tell you what anything means, you have to figure it out. You observe symbols, connect them to objects, actions, people, places, and slowly start building meaning from context. The system is genuinely satisfying. Every time you understand a word, a phrase, or a grammatical pattern, there is this tiny “aha” moment. The game does not hold your hand. There are no obvious hints. You can highlight interactable objects, which helps with exploration, but the thinking is mostly on you. Visually, the game is minimal, but gorgeous. It has this clean, elegant style that makes each area feel almost like a small illustrated diorama. The movement even reminded me a bit of Monument Valley, with its click-based navigation and composed screen layouts. That is not really a criticism, because it might be intentional, but on PC I did sometimes wish I could just move with WASD instead of clicking around with the mouse. The only part where the game really frustrated me was the third level of the tower. Not because of one design choice, but several stacked together. The symbols were harder to distinguish, the sentence structure became more unusual, Yoda-like, and then the game also threw in a maze you had to navigate to find clues. Alone, each of those things would probably be fine. Together, they made that section feel heavier than the rest of the game. The fourth level is the peak of the game. The level design, puzzles, soundtrack, and atmosphere all come together beautifully. It feels like the game fully understands what makes itself special and builds an entire section around that. Then the last level of the tower is a bit simpler, but the endgame takes the whole concept to another level. Without spoiling anything, you will have to use everything you built throughout the journey. It is not just clever mechanically. It also ties directly into the story. And the real ending gives the whole thing a very nice closing. The length is also perfect. Nothing feels stretched out for the sake of it. The game says what it wants to say, explores its main idea properly, and ends before the concept becomes tired. TL;DR; A gorgeous, clever, and very unique puzzle game built around language, observation, and discovery. One level gets a bit frustrating, and mouse movement on PC is not ideal, but the overall experience is excellent. The late game and true ending are fantastic payoffs to everything the game teaches you. 9/10