Message From Aliens: a language puzzle with the training wheels torn off

Picture opening a program where every button, menu and label, right down to the exit, is written in an alien script, and the only human words on screen are the notes you type in yourself. That's Message From Aliens: a sci-fi puzzle game about cracking a logographic writing system of more than 1,000 glyphs, and it starts the way any sensible first contact would, with counting.

From there it climbs through arithmetic into physics and chemistry, and eventually toward alien culture itself. Nothing ever tells you whether a guess is right, so every glyph that finally clicks is a win you earned all by yourself. Handy helpers hide inside the alien interface too: right-click a symbol for its dictionary page (in alien, naturally) or pull up a list of similar-looking symbols.

Fair warning: this is brutally hard and very math-heavy, and it isn't always obvious what on screen can be clicked. If numbers past school multiplication make you wince, it'll feel like homework from another galaxy. If Chants of Sennaar left you wanting a much tougher fight, though, this is your itch. It's Windows-only for now with a Mac build planned, it hasn't been rated for Deck, and the demo's saves carry over to the full game. The developer is already patching and has a roadmap for more alien science and more messages.