A conlang game is a game that asks the player to learn a fictional constructed language. Recently there have been a few well-known examples, namely Heaven’s Vault (2019) and Chants of Sennaar (2023). And so we may speculate about the emergence of a new “genre” of conlang games. Of course, two games does not a genre make. So I am here to tell you that I have played no fewer than six conlang games, and I’m going to briefly review each one.

Chants of Sennaar

Chants of Sennaar is a point and click puzzle adventure about climbing a tower. The NPCs you meet all speak to you in a series of symbols, and you slowly piece together each symbols’ meaning to solve puzzles. Then, once you’ve mastered a language, you climb to the next level of the tower, where there is another society with a mutually unintelligible language.

Chants of Sennaar is hands down the most accessible game in this list, consisting of a series of carefully crafted puzzles. Not only is the game broken up into a series of simple languages, each language is broken up into stages where you have a reasonable number of symbols to juggle, and a breadcrumb trail to solve them. If you want a taste of conlang but don’t want to get deep into the weeds, this is the only game I would recommend.

Heaven’s Vault

Heaven’s Vault is a branching narrative game about doing archaeology. In a world where most people believe in the Loop, a repeating cycle of history, Aliya is seemingly the only person who wants to figure out what actually happened, and how they got to where they are. She explores ancient ruins, translates ancient script, sails through space rivers, and acts rudely to her robot companion.

Jan Misali described the language as an “ideographic oligosynthetic English relex”, and said it was pretty simple by the standards of a constructed language. However, by the standards of what a player can be expected to learn in a game, it’s fairly complex. Players will not fully translate the language by the end of the game–there’s a new game plus for that. The game also often lets incorrect translations stand, only confirming or disconfirming answers after a long delay. The conlang feels like an esoteric mystery that you may never fully grasp, but it’s oh so tantalizing.

Heaven’s Vault contains a unique and compelling translation game, but I get the sense that this was only one part of a larger vision. Players who are only interested in the conlang may be annoyed by long stretches of time between translations. The sailing is beautiful but exceedingly languid. The narrative’s branching structure feels deliberately opaque, like they don’t want the player exploring different paths, and would rather evoke regret about the road not taken. During new game plus, I got frustrated with the game’s slow pacing, and I suppose the rest of the game’s mysteries will remain unknown to me.

Sethian

Sethian is a minimalist puzzle game where you interact with a computer using an alien language. It’s nice to have a game that lets you actually use a language rather than just translating into English. (Chants of Sennaar also does this, but just a bit.) However, the computer interpreter has strong limitations, basically only ever responding to a limited number of sentences. The game uses a notebook to hint you through what you need to say, and then the game very suddenly ends.

Sethian doesn’t have a complete conlang, so much as it gestures at the idea of a conlang. There are hundreds of characters that are available in the computer terminal, but never used. But for all its limitations, Sethian will certainly not waste your time. It’s also the oldest game on this list, dating to 2016.

Epigraph

Epigraph is a monolithic puzzle game. You are provided with several artifacts with an unknown language, and a few translator’s notes. That’s it, that’s the puzzle. Have at it, until you figure it out. You might stare at it for an hour before knowing where to even start.

Epigraph feels like it was made by more of a linguistics geek than any of the others on the list. It pays attention not just to translation, but also grammar, phonetics, and linguistic evolution. However, like Sethian, it doesn’t contain a complete conlang, and only gestures at one.

Although this list is primarily interested in the conlang aspect, I wouldn’t downplay the uniqueness of a game with one single mega puzzle. Despite the intimidating presentation, this puzzle definitely wants to be solved. And there’s something distinctly gratifying about solving a single large puzzle over the course of a few hours.

Seven Days to End With You

Seven Days to End With You is a short visual novel where you wake up next to an anime girl, but you can’t understand anything she says. Is she taking care of you after you fell ill? Did she kidnap you? Unknown, because you can’t communicate. There aren’t really enough contextual clues to fully translate the language, and the marketing material claims that it’s up to the player to interpret.

However, I’m going to spoil the game a bit, and tell you that this is not true. The language can be fully translated. The anime girl just speaks English with a substitution cipher (albeit not a simple substitution cipher). Hmm… that’s not a real conlang! Although the game is based on a cipher, I do think the intent is to leave it up to player interpretation, just like the marketing says.

I admit that I am not a fan of the game’s story, but it has a few interesting ideas. The previous conlang games in this list have various ways to confirm or disconfirm translations, but this game mostly just doesn’t. It lets you live unknowingly with your mistakes.

Kevin (1997-2077)

Kevin is a giant canvas filled with a pictographic language. Ostensibly it tells Kevin’s personal story, although it extends into 2077 so it must be at least partly fictional. There’s very little to go on to perform translation, but each pictographic symbol is a drawing of something, and you can guess based on what that something is. Context helps to translate the rest.

I understood some of it, but did not get very far. Kevin gives the impression of a very weird personal game, with all the sharp edges that implies. When a designer is very close to a game, they tend to think it’s relatively easy, and cannot see how obtuse and inaccessible it is to other people. Perhaps for Kevin, this was part of the artistic vision. It feels like it only wants to be understood by a small, intimate group of players. Every other player can have the experience of marveling at it until they give up. There is something interesting and compelling about that experience, but it’s thoroughly niche and unconventional.

The designer, Kevin Du, recently released another conlang game titled Ginger. I have not played that one, but it looks along similar lines, perhaps with the additional polish that comes from experience.

Conclusion

What can we conclude from this list? Conlang games… are not a genre. Every single one of these games is doing something completely different! I think a game dev who puts a conlang into their video game is the kind of game dev who puts lots of crazy innovative ideas into their games.