My official review for the game

[Porphyrios]

I wanted to share my review for the Chants of Sennaar here also. I just wrote it on Steam. So here is my review:

Chants of Sennaar is a language decipher puzzle game that has five languages to decipher. Overall the game was quite a good puzzle game. I could recommend it to puzzle players. I could write my review in four main categories: music, art, game play and puzzles.

First of all I would like to write about music. It was minimal and atmospheric and it fit in the game very well and sound design was also arranged pretty well.

The second review point is art of the game which was a minimal yet interesting looking game. The game was okay to my eyes and the art did't have too much details but enough details to keep the game interesting to explore all the places.

In my third review point I want to aim, how I felt the game play. Clicking was nice way to move the character where the player want the character to go. It was not the problem at all. Though I have some critique in terms of game play. It's a little bit too overwhelming regarding the maps in general. The maps are quite big ones and the players must remember a lot of labyrinth types of mazes without having in game map. It would've been neat to have map in the game like map updates when the player gets in the new unseen area. The other game play critique is how collectables from environment is "introduced". For my perspective it did't have very clear that I could grab bananas for the monkeys that was playing the machines that showed information about bards and warriors. And it wasn't clear to me that i could take a torch from the windmill. There did was a cat that the player could pet but I don't consider it the perfect way to introduce crucial puzzle parts. The better way would've been giving the player treasure type of map that would've showed where the items are in the areas. Then it would've been more clear.

The fourth review point is puzzles. The game was okay puzzle-wise. I could say that hardcore puzzle players maybe feel a little bit slapped in their faces with the game. I do believe that some of them could find the game being interesting enough to play it till the end. The puzzle was to understand the languages of the game. I have some critiques in the perspective of the puzzles. Although deciphering the languages gave a little challenge, they had some flaws. The first and the last languages were the best languages in the game to decipher because those had deeper meaning in their word and sentence structures. It was neat to realise things like lines that indicated to be as verbs and certain lines ware indicating as humans etc. It was cool to note also regarding to the last language that combining the lines gave deeper meaning to the words.
I really did not understand what three other languages wanted to teach me. Those were kind of random to me.

Maybe it would've been better if you were to develop two or three bigger games. It could've been a better that the game was to be more interactive with the languages. Like the players are learning to talk and interact with the the other people in the game. Like one game would've focused on two or three languages and the second the rest of the languages etc.

I do believe that for hardcore puzzle players one neat feature would've been hiding the English translation and giving the players an option at the beginning of the game whether they want to see English translations for the words or not. Or maybe giving some players an option to play the game with solving easier languages and putting hardcore puzzle players to the test during the game so that both players could enjoy the game.

I would like to give 7,5/10 to the game. It had potential to be even better. It was nice to play the game and I enjoyed it a lot even if it had some critical standpoints to my liking.

[Klampus]

LOL, Just out of curiosity, how is this "official"?

Are there other reviewers out there who are impersonating you?

[Porphyrios]

Originally posted by Klampus:

LOL, Just out of curiosity, how is this "official"?

Are there other reviewers out there who are impersonating you?

My notion of official review is then when I actually wrote a review on Steam's review post. It's maybe silly perspective but every formal thing is for me official things.