Разработчик: Duang! Games, LLC
Описание
An Original Language
Unlike in other games, Sethianese is a more earnest attempt at creating a fictitious language, using its own unique grammar and vocabulary rather than simply substituting words and letters one-for-one with English. The game's language borrows elements from Chinese, American Sign Language, and other real world languages, in addition to some features which have no real world counterpart.
Over 100 Handwritten Pages
Assisting you in your investigation are your handwritten journal and dictionary, easing you into the game's bizarre language, providing you with a reliable reference, and introducing you to the literature and lore of the world.
Multiple Endings
Those who comprehend the game's language will find peace, but only those who master its world will truly see the end of Sethian.
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- OS *: Windows XP or later
- Processor: 2.0 GHz
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: 128 MB
- Storage: 210 MB available space
Mac
- OS: OSX 10.6 or later
- Processor: 2.0 GHz
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: 128 MB
- Storage: 250 MB available space
Отзывы пользователей
this game is good but i feel like there's a lot missing from it
Such a shame there's no neutral rating instead of a like or a dislike. The concept of studying the language and philosopthy of an alien civilisation is phenomenal; unfortunately this is not a puzzle game — it's a walking simulator. The notebook guides the player question by question, sign by sing throughout the game, and asking almost any diffrent question will result in the computer responding 'I don't understand'. I feel like the game would have benefited from more side content and slower progresion that would have given the player the time and opportunity to actually learn the language on thier own, especially as vast majority of avaiable signs are completely useless.
The thumbs up is because I like conlangs - read review to the end.
The first half of the game is an interesting linguistic thought experiment. Talk with an ancient computer about their mysteriously absent people, in a language that you the player have to figure out on the fly. The in-game journal helps a lot at first, but after a certain point the only way to progress is to copy sentences from the journal word for word, and hope you don't mix up ' and `.
I wish the interpreter understood more inputs, and was more consistent about whether proper nouns needed to be encased in the equivalent of Capitalization or not (or at least understood it when you got that wrong). I wish I could ask more general questions -- things like "where did the other people go", "why didn't everyone go", "what is your government", "when did they go", "did mr saydo do that too", "who made you", "what is hightime", "what do you want", "are you alive", "are you free", "I want to understand", "discuss (keyword)", etc. Being able to ask for the opposite of words like big and small and old and new. I also wish the grammar for complex sentences involving "that" or "about" had more clear usage examples with words that were already known. Maybe if the dev got playtesters to submit questions in sethian somewhere, and implemented answers to the most common (or interesting) 50 valid questions? Since the engine's done, it seems like adding more answers could be pretty fruitful to expand gameplay.
As far as quality of life features, it would be incredibly handy to be able to left click on runes the computer said to me, to type them back in, instead of having to find them all manually in the keypad. Additionally, having a few very common-use symbols being either on the first page of the keypad (specifically "high") or having two pages of the keypad visible at once would be helpful to minimize paging back and forth. Having the computer's text visible via scrolling forward and back through the whole conversation would also be neat, instead of the current page-based system, but that's nitpicking.
Overall, fascinating game if you love linguistics or cryptography. But if you hate railroading, you'll get frustrated around the time you unlock the word "why".
As others have pointed out, the biggest problem here is everything is very precisely pre-determined.
What you should be able to do is ask whatever question you want to ask, once you understand the syntax of the language.
What instead you'll realize is you can only ask the specific questions the game wants you to ask.
it feels very... limiting. and not what I signed up for.
The concept of this game is *really* cool. I love language translation games, and the idea of talking with a computer in a custom language is really engaging to me.
However, the execution falls flat. The "knowledge base" of the computer has very limited information, and so if you try to ask it questions you came up with yourself, you'll usually just be left with a generic confused response, even if your question made perfect sense grammatically or contextually.
While I enjoyed the first little bit of expermenting with the language and trying to find what symbols mean, I quickly ran up against this wall, and the only real way to progress was simply to look at what the game wants you to say, exactly, in the journal. If these pages were here as a way to guide players who got stuck, I honestly wouldn't be bothered, but the fact that it's impossible to progress without them (because they're effectively the only questions that actually have answers coded into the computer) is frustrating.
Ultimately, I think if you want to make a game like this where you can actually say any sentence in a language, you need the game to actually be able to respond to a reasonable proportion of them. If you need to phrase your question in the exact way that was coded in, it's just a guessing game and it removes all the fun logic that comes from exploring the language yourself.
liked it
interesting concept, but it's barely implemented. there's only one question at a time you can use to progress, and there are only two endings to my knowledge (despite the description's claim of "multiple". i guess it's true but the implication is that there would be more). the in-game notebook also reveals the meanings of every relevant glyph and most relevant phrases yet is also incomplete in that it only explains three punctuation glyphs, and some may find it inaccessible because it's poorly handwritten. definitely not worth £4
So for the price, I think that this is a really interesting game - my main issue with it, is that I wish there was more.
The premise is super interesting and talking with a robot that - very clearly - has its own strong opinions proves really delightful. However, I never got to the point of proper mastery in the language, nor did I get a proper sense of the philosophical questions being posed properly. Which is a shame, both are really interesting.
In terms of gameplay, in the beginning it does hold your hand a little toooo much. Directly showing you what to input is maybe a little too much, and at times it feels less like a puzzle game and more like you're just following directions.
In contrast, the ending felt entirely hands off. There's a point where I couldn't even get more notes, and due to the very linear structure of the game, it's hard to know how to actually progress.
The sweet spot, however? So good.
I do recommend it, again, largely due to the price. It's a cheap little game, and I really hope that Duang games expand on the language and the concept - I would love to play something like Heaven's Vault with this language system and some of the premise.
This game's exploration of its own premise is wafer-thin. Multiple times throughout my playthrough, I tried asking the computer a question I felt it obviously wanted to answer, adhering to the grammatical rules of the language as best I could. Every time it totally failed to understand what I was asking. This happens with the vast majority of the questions you try to ask the computer, and it's paired with an over-reliance on the computer limiting itself from speaking further when you ask for clarification on some of the things it says. The sheer unwillingness on the computer's part to work with you in trying to understand what it's saying compels you to just pull up a walkthrough and ask the questions you're supposed to ask, in which case the game will take you roughly two hours to beat. By contrast, a game like Chants of Sennaar gives you so many threads to follow that you feel pretty stupid if you have to look online for the solution. The game advertises you mastering the language, but by the time you reach the good ending, you still won't know what even half the words mean. I understand this plays into the narrative the game is pushing, but it leads to a very unsatisfying experience.
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Duang! Games, LLC |
| Платформы | Windows, Mac |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 23.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 64% положительных (96) |