izigame.me

Chants of Sennaar might be one of the most important games of our time. At a time where protectionism and nationalism are on the rise again, this game reminds us of the value of human connection. It is a marvelous game about people and language. It gives us insight in how language is conceived as a means for self-expression but also how, in turn, language shapes our thinking as well. It’s a game I’ll be thinking about for a long time.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. What is Chants of Sennaar? At its core, this is a puzzle game. You take the role of a foreigner, a visitor who embarks on a journey to climb The Tower, an enormous structure heavily inspired by the tower of Babel. Why do we do this? It remains unclear. All we know is that our purpose is to climb and reach the top. There’s a catch though. The tower is inhabited by various peoples whose languages we don’t speak. Yes, that was not a typo, it’s peopleS and each has their own language, culture and values. It is now your task to infer the meaning of symbols and words from environmental clues. Slowly, you fill your dictionary with terms. At first, you can guess wildly what something may mean. When the game has determined that you have gathered enough hints to deduce the meaning of a word, it presents you a new page with a bunch of illustrations. It is now up to you to input the correct word for each illustration and if you’re correct, the game will lock your choice and another translation will be added to your dictionary. This way, you slowly fill up the pages and eventually gain an understanding of the entire language.
I love how, for each language you learn, and there are five in total, you not only learn words but also learn a lot about the civilization these words stem from. Let me give you an early-game example. The first group of people you meet are the Devotees a god-fearing people who are all about worship, prayer and devotion. Their language reflects that. Many terms are about exactly that – the church, god, lots of religious terms in general. On the next level, you encounter the caste of Warriors. Their language is completely different. Not only do their symbols look edgy, hard and abstract, their communication revolves around terms of battle and warfare, about duty, strife and the fight against the impure ones. As you ascend the tower, you will come across a whole variety of people and it’s fascinating to see how their language reflects their culture, societal hierarchies and religious beliefs.
These differences are also illustrated by the visual design of each level. I haven’t mentioned this yet but let me tell you that Chants of Sennaar is mesmerizingly gorgeous. I’m sure this comparison has been drawn a lot in other reviews, but the style of this game strongly reminded me of the works of Jean Giraud aka Moebius. Seriously though, if you haven’t checked out his stuff, you absolutely should since this guy has created some of the most influential art for other contemporary media. Works like Dune, Panzer Dragoon, Sable and now, this game, are all heavily inspired by this man’s style. It’s one of my favorites and it is beautifully conveyed here.
What stuck with me was how each level of the tower differs significantly from the others by its visual design alone. The plane of the Devotees is engulfed in warm orange and yellow colors. The architecture consists of large cathedrals, round arches, comfy banks and intricate balconies. On the next floor where the Warriors reside, the game draws a very different picture. Warm colors are replaced by a cold cyan and a contrasting magenta. Buildings are simple, no winding streets, no art or any kind of decoration, a truly “form follows function” approach to architecture. These are just early-game examples but the game keeps doing this as you make your way towards the top. You always feel like stepping into another world by leaving an area and entering another and in a way, you are.
One aspect I didn’t appreciate at all is the occasional backtracking the game is requiring you to do. These areas tend to be huge and there is neither a map nor a quickly accessible fast travel option. You do unlock a teleportation system at one point taking you from one plane to the next but the levels themselves remain exorbitant in size and sometimes impossible to navigate. I’m not gonna give anything away but let me just say that there’s a sewer system and yeah, it’s just as bad as you are imagining it right now. Well ok, it’s actually not too bad but still, there are sections in the game that had me completely and utterly lost.
Another mechanic I didn’t care for too much is the stealth. Yes, there are a couple of stealth passages and they’re just not interesting at all, not on a gameplay level, nor as some kind of narrative commentary or some such, it’s just annoying. Thankfully, there really are only a few but the game could do without them and not lose anything of value, it just feels bloated.
Same goes for the replay-function this game offers at key moments. Sometimes, a conversation or an action of a character in the world can tell you a lot about a certain symbol’s meaning or give you context information about the world. Since you can miss those, the game lets you replay scenes at will. The thing is, whenever you do that, the entire thing starts from the beginning and you have to sit through everything at normal speed. These scenes can take foreeever and you have no way to fast-forward the dialogue.
These are just some minor issues that, in no way, spoil the overall experience at all. I enjoyed pretty much every minute of this game despite the occasional backtracking or slow-down. This is a game close to my heart. The final stretch is nothing short of amazing and remains a testament to humanity and the merits of collaboration and communication. During your playtime, you will constantly be confronted with notions of isolationism, social hierarchies, supremacy and even truly grim topics like slavery. In a way, the true antagonist of Chants of Sennaar is segregation based on fear and I feel like there isn’t a timelier subject for us as humans right now. We have to do better.