Chants of Sennaar (Rundisc) is a puzzle adventure game, which I was introduced to and played a demo for at GDC 2024. What drew me in was the unique vibrant art style, combined by the unique puzzle mechanic, in which the player must translate and attempt to understand the languages they encounter through murals, writing, and conversations with NPCs.
What I didn’t realize until I started playing the full game, is that Sennaar is based on the Tower of Babel story, in which mankind attempted to build a tower to reach god and was punished by having the language divided, separating the people into different tribes in conflict. As the player progresses through the game, they ascend the tower and encounter different regions with distinctly different tribes, each with their own language including specific grammar structure.
The puzzles were fascinating, and even when they were a bit obscure, I was happy to work through them to learn more about this fascinating world and its communities. The only major downside was that I encountered a glitch, in which several language symbols didn’t “lock in” their meaning; this meant that I couldn’t get the best ending despite completing everything else. But that’s a small quibble in an excellent game.
I completed Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games), a farming management game set in the afterlife. Charon has decided to retire and so tasks Stella, the player character, with ferrying the souls of the dead through the Everdoor to the afterlife. In order to do this, Stella travels on her ferry and gathers up the souls. The player speaks with each soul, learning about their past and working to satisfying their needs, ranging from building a specific home for them, providing satisfying food, and achieving specific objectives. In order to provide these things, the player has to expand their boat, build specific structures and stations, including fishing, farming, a kitchen, spinning thread, smelting, and other buildings required to create the specific items required.
Spiritfarer is a lovely game, with a sweet narrative about showing compassion to folks as they face the joys and wounds of their previous life. However, I think my experience of this game has revealed that farming management games are not quite what I’m interested in. In the last ten hours of the game, I found myself getting annoyed by all the various tasks required to progress when all I wanted to do was continue the narrative.
My frustrations are at least partially on me. Those who love cozy farming management games will likely love Spiritfarer.
Yes, I am still continuing with Balatro (LocalThunk) — and yes, every time I jump into the game, it steals my life for an hour or few. Though, I have slowed down a little bit. I have opened all the decks and now I’m basically trying to beat all the challenges and get all the collectibles.
If you’d also like to know about the books and movies that I enjoyed recently, you can check out my Culture Consumption for December.