The Fictional Language of Heaven's Vault

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3 жыл бұрын

This video is about how Heaven's Vault creates a fictional language that you can read. Heaven's Vault is a point & click, narrative adventure game published by Inkle in 2019 and with the unique selling point that Heaven's Vault is a game where you learn to translate a fictional, hieroglyphic language. Putting it in the niche but interesting category of "games about learning languages".
"An archaeologist uncovers a lost history in an ancient space Nebula. Award-winning narrative adventure game with hieroglyphic language puzzles, from the creators of 80 DAYS." - Steam description for Heaven's Vault
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Пікірлер: 39

@Table53 8 ай бұрын

2:12 came back to this video to add a comment as an update: Obviously another game is now the excellent Chants of Sennaar, which I have a review of on this channel and highly recommend playing!

@Table53 3 жыл бұрын

This is the second of two videos on Heaven's Vault - this one looks at Heaven's Vault's fictional, hieroglyphic language while the other is focussed on the game's exceptional, non-linear narrative design. I hope you find this video interesting, and I would highly recommend checking out Heaven's Vault - an absolutely superb game. Thanks for watching!

@ashwinnmyburgh9364 2 жыл бұрын

I started this game the other day, and haven't been able to put it down since. The story is awesome, the premise is great, the language (as a language nut) is excellent and the characters are awesome too.

@Table53 2 жыл бұрын

Completely agree, it's such a wonderful game!

@WingedAsarath 3 ай бұрын

I'm in the middle of playing this game now, and loved your video! I have a bachelor's degree in Linguistics, and am really enjoying Heaven's Vault so far. I picked up on the grammatical markers in the language fairly quickly and was really pleased when I noticed it had them so I could narrow down some of my options for translations more easily. I find myself scouring every single area I visit for every scrap of Ancient before I leave, just because I want to translate more and more Ancient! I played Chants of Sennar last year and loved that, so I was over the moon when I discovered HV existed!

@AdwinLauYuTan 2 жыл бұрын

The hieroglyphics are so similar to the Chinese pictograms that I began to write 人 as the Ancient symbol for person. Maybe I had a little too much fun deciphering something so close to home.

@Table53 8 ай бұрын

Seems like that shows where some of the inspiration for the language came from!

@leviosaalgniq3715 8 ай бұрын

it's bit of like the Oracle bone script for "human"(「人」)

@filurenerik1643 3 жыл бұрын

This was really interesting to watch! I really gotta play heaven's vault some time.

@Table53 3 жыл бұрын

I'm glad you liked it!

@adalfe539 5 ай бұрын

This year a new video Game appeared with similar mechanics, chants of sennar

@Table53 5 ай бұрын

I've played it! It's an excellent game, I put up a review of it on this channel around when it came out too I think it was my favourite game of 2023!

@Medwaypvb 7 ай бұрын

Only just seen this video and it’s great! 👍 One minor correction though: you say Jon Ingold is the Founder of Inkle, but he’s a Co-founder with Joseph Humfrey. ☺️

@Table53 7 ай бұрын

Thank you! Ah okay, that would have been better to say!

@Diablon76 Жыл бұрын

I've just discovered your channel, and have just binged many of your videos in a row. Your work is excellent, it reminds me a lot of channels like AI and games or GMTK, in both presentation and quality. You deserve a lot more attention, wishing you the best of luck!

@Table53 Жыл бұрын

Thank you! That's really high praise, this is one of a couple of videos where I was definitely thinking of GMTK when writing it! (although I definitely haven't got quite his level of polish!)

@FungIsSquish 8 ай бұрын

I would recommend From Earth to anyone who likes games with language aspects like this, it’s a really well thought out game and while it’s unfinished it’s still very fun

@Table53 8 ай бұрын

Thanks for the recommendation! I don't think I'd heard of that before, I'll keep an eye on it

@Soken50 5 ай бұрын

Do you mean the HL2 mod ?

@MrWatchAndwatch 3 жыл бұрын

Never have I been happier to see an ad on a video. Congrats on 1k again 😁

@Table53 3 жыл бұрын

Haha, thank you!!

@Lansver 9 ай бұрын

Hey, I loved your content! I'm a game designer doin' some research and your video was really comprehensive and helpful for me, thanks! Subbed.

@Table53 9 ай бұрын

I'm glad you liked it!

@Mezurashii5 3 жыл бұрын

Awesome as always :)

@Table53 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you!

@alexishassler Жыл бұрын

Brilliant, a wonderful channel and a super interesting video.

@Table53 Жыл бұрын

Thank you! Glad you liked it

@jon_nova Жыл бұрын

Great video! i never played a game so slow, but so engaging.

@Table53 Жыл бұрын

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

@truegemuese 2 жыл бұрын

My understanding of some symbols went so far that I could translate a few sentences that Aliya couldn't, because she didn't know two words in a row and there were no spaces. Spoilerwarning: The sentence was "great path begins where (the) waters join", I lacked "to begin" and "where", but "to begin" is just verb marker/to do + beginning (which I already learned) and where is interrogative marker + place symbol.

@Table53 2 жыл бұрын

I remember finding that as well! I don't remember if the game ever explicitly tells you about the 'marker' symbols that show nouns/verbs etc. It was always very cool though, and shows how good a design the language for HV is!

@truegemuese 2 жыл бұрын

@@Table53 The game doesn't tell you, but it's quite apparent.

@ross6021 Жыл бұрын

@@Table53 I believe Huang tells you when you exit Iox for the first time. f you've gotten "Holy emperor" correct, he'll remark that the first glyph of holy is the glyph that means the word is an adjective and confirm the word "holy"

@plantagominor722 2 жыл бұрын

Tiny correction: when you give texts to Huang in which you have at least one word have mistranslated, he will tell you what one of the glyphs means, to point you towards the right answer.

@Table53 2 жыл бұрын

What did I say in the video? It's been a while I don't remember every detail haha That's cool, I don't think I was actually aware of that. Even after three playthroughs I dont think I interacted with Huang a lot!

@plantagominor722 2 жыл бұрын

@@Table53 You said that at no point does the game tell you what the individual symbols mean - but Huang will occasionally tell you one. Like I said, tiniest correction.

@Table53 2 жыл бұрын

@@plantagominor722 ah okay, I misunderstood your comment as well I thought you meant words! I hadn't remembered that at all, thanks for mentioning it

@plantagominor722 2 жыл бұрын

@@Table53 fantastic breakdown btw

@Table53 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you!