Language is one of the most important means of communication in the world. When someone speaks the same language, you immediately feel some connection. When this is not the case, it is often immediately apparent how difficult it is to make the connection. An idea that is played a lot in Sennar’s songs.
Sennar Songs is a puzzle game with a strong focus on language. As a player, you end up in something like the Tower of Babel, where different groups live, each with their own language. the problem? You don’t speak that language either, so you have to piece together what everyone really wants to say.
You actually do this by constantly inferring what the avatar means based on their actions. This is very evident in the first moments, when a character explicitly asks you to open the gate, for example.
Each time you collect a few words, you put the correct glyphs in your notebook with the correct meanings. If she succeeds in doing so, her true meaning will always be filled in the dialogue in the game’s sequel.
The nice thing is that the game gives you the option to fill in the words yourself. For example, if you think the glyph means ‘help’, you can write it in your handbook at the moment and it will always be populated that way when other characters are speaking. This way you can always experiment and learn the meaning of something step by step.
Later in the game, you can also associate avatars in two languages. If you end up with the next group and they ask you the same thing as another group before, you can point out that the two glyphs mean the same thing.
In addition to puzzles, Chants of Sennaar also contains “normal” puzzles that you also encounter in other games, and it also contains small pieces of stealth. This way you don’t have to worry all the time about what all those weird characters are trying to tell you.
Visually, Chants of Sennaar looks like a colorful Escher-type spectacle, though you won’t get lost for the whole time. The bright colors are always present and provide an eye-catching scene when playing Sinnar’s anthems.
