Chants of Sennaar

Chants of Sennaar is a 2023 adventure video game developed by Rundisc and published by Focus Entertainment. It was released for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on 5 September 2023. The game is inspired by Heaven's Vault and Captain Blood. The gameplay mostly revolves around solving puzzles and minigames which generally require decoding and understanding the fictional languages of the tower. It also features occasional sections of stealth gameplay. The plot is inspired by the Tower of Babel myth, with the player translating between various different tribes that do not understand each other, as they speak different languages.

The game received positive reviews.

Gameplay
The player explores a structure inspired by the Tower of Babel – which the titular Sennaar refers to – full of people who speak fictional languages, represented by logographic writing systems. Encountered languages must be translated using clues such as non-verbal communication used by non-player characters, illustrated signs, or other contextual clues. The player is aided by a notebook that contains the list of graphemes the player has encountered up to that point, and they may type in a word they assume is the meaning for a grapheme, which is then displayed above that grapheme the next time they encounter it. Once the player encounters enough graphemes, the notebook offers tests to see if a player has correctly translated the graphemes by displaying drawings of nouns, verbs or adjectives which the player must match the correct grapheme to; if the player correctly matches all graphemes to meanings on the page, those graphemes will be considered solved, and their real meaning will be displayed above them. If all graphemes from a sentence are solved, a full translation is shown. As the player progresses higher through the tower, they encounter new languages that must be translated.

Different languages have different writing systems and different language characteristics: some languages signify plural as repeating the word (e.g. "doors" is written as "door door"), while others have a separate grapheme for marking the previous or next noun as plural (e.g. "[plural] door" or "door [plural]"). Different languages also can have differing syntax, putting the predicate and subject in different places of a sentence. The graphemes themselves may also provide hints towards the meaning, with languages having determinatives (e.g. verbs, or nouns that involve humans).

Some areas introduce stealth gameplay; if the player is caught, they are sent to the entrance of the area, where they may try again.

Plot
The protagonist awakens from a sarcophagus situated at the ground level of a large spiraling ziggurat. Through exploring the mysterious structure, they find that every level is home to a distinct caste of people with their own culture and language. The protagonist must decipher each caste's language, using the knowledge gained to help them ascend to the next level.

First, they encounter the Devotees, who seek a god-like being believed to be at the top of the tower. The Devotees are blocked by the imposing Warriors, who have a sworn duty to drive away those they consider "impure", while awaiting a message from the revered Bards on the level above. The Bards celebrate beauty and the arts, though their hedonistic lifestyle is only possible through the involuntary servitude of some of their members. They mock the idea of ascending further up the tower, as a deadly monster is said to devour those who try. The protagonist is able to elude the monster and find the Alchemists, a group of miners and scientists conducting esoteric research. They then have to discover how to unlock a giant gate to the tower's highest level, where its mythical creators reside.

Beyond the gate, the protagonist finds the technologically advanced Anchorites, who wear virtual reality headsets at all times, shutting themselves away from the rest of the tower which they consider doomed. In a secret chamber, one of the Anchorites explains that their people built the tower long ago and were its first residents. Others then arrived and populated the lower levels, but would not communicate due to fear and misunderstanding, thus forming the castes. The Anchorites live in self-imposed exile, a state of detachment perpetuated by their computer system's AI called Exile, which artificially prolongs their lifespans and attempts to preserve the static status quo. The protagonist discovers they were created to reconnect the castes; they are then tasked with dismantling Exile and translating between the castes using communication terminals on each level.

Through the protagonist's efforts, the Devotees win over the Warriors by playing music and invite the Bards' servants down to their abbey; the Warriors assist the Alchemists in dealing with the monster; the Alchemists teach the Bards about their shared ancestry and help the Devotees with their dying plants; and the Bards perform a concert for the Warriors. Eventually, the Anchorites are able to connect with the other castes through the terminals as well.

Nearing the end of their mission, the protagonist is captured by the Exile AI as the protagonist attempts to climb to the highest point of the tower. The protagonist reawakens and finds a ceremonial altar, but it does not activate. The game seemingly ends with the protagonist's disappointment, restarting at the sarcophagus. This time, however, the world has a glitched, uncanny quality to it, devoid of most characters and appearing damaged. The protagonist traverses the tower again, while Exile attempts to torment them. The protagonist eventually manages to break free from Exile's virtual reality and defeat Exile.

Upon returning to the real world, they find the Anchorites now disconnected from their headsets, socializing with one another and expressing gratitude. Resuming their mission, the protagonist is finally able to activate the altar at the tower's peak, with several others in observance. The altar lights up and displays a series of glyphs, representing the ideals of each caste (God, Duty, Beauty, Transformation, Exile) as fundamentally similar. The game ends with members of all castes on top of the tower conversing, having overcome the language barrier.

Development
Chants of Sennaar was developed by a two-man team, Julien Moya and Thomas Panuel, along with three freelance programmers. The game was developed in France. The two had previously worked together on the game Varion, released in 2018; while it had few sales, they felt it helped to demonstrate that they could develop and release a full game on their own. They came up with the idea for Chants just at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Initially, they wanted to have a game about a protagonist that used stealth, but Moya had played Heaven's Vault, a 2019 game with a similar mechanic around language deciphering, as well as the 1988 game Captain Blood. The pair felt that they could better implement such a system into their game. They worked on the game over the next year and a half. Design of the game was influenced by a church in Toulouse as well as Roman architecture designs and from other French artists.

They brought it to the 2021 Gamescom convention, seeking out a publisher to help with marketing. Focus Entertainment saw potential in the game and offered to help fund the rest of the game's development. With the extra funding, they were able to bring a freelance sound designer to help add sounds and music to the game over the next two years.

Chants of Sennaar was released for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on 5 September 2023.

Reception
Chants of Sennaar received "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic.

Eurogamer likened it to innovative Amiga games and called it "a fascinating, thoughtful game". Although Polygon found the puzzles occasionally frustrating, they said, "When Chants of Sennaar is on a roll, there's really nothing else like it." Hardcore Gamer praised its concept and called it "immensely clever and unique". They especially liked the epiphany of solving what words mean and learning about the different cultures. Digital Trends praised what they felt were "ingenious puzzles", "thoughtfully built languages", an "engrossing setting", and "striking art style". They ultimately selected it as an editors' choice. Commenting on its lack of pleasurable hooks, Slant Magazine described Chants of Sennaar as "an interesting and impressive game that ultimately feels more than a bit academic". Push Square "highly recommended" the game, which they found "terrifically unique", though they found the stealth sequences irritating.

Zachary Small of The New York Times named Chants of Sennaar as one of his top ten games for 2023.