SCHiM

If you asked gamers to name what elements are most important to a platformer, chances are that shadows would be extremely low on that list. They would point to wanting stylish graphics, great gameplay, a creative world, inventive platforming puzzles and maybe even a cool villain that ties all of these elements together. Who cares about realistic shadows? Apparently, the developer behind the new game SCHiM does, because this is a platformer built around traversing a living, breathing city by jump from one shadow to the next. It’s a simple premise with a lot of charm, but is that enough to carry the game through more than sixty stages of platforming fun? That’s what I want to find out in this review of SCHiM.

This is a game built around the idea that shadows are more than just the thing you cast when standing next to a light source; they are a living creature that silently watches as their host grows up and becomes a responsible member of society. But what happens if our little shadow friend gets separated from our shadow? That’s the brilliant set-up in SCHiM, an epic adventure where a shadow creature does everything in its power to get back home. It’s like that movie The Adventures of Milo and Otis, only with shadows instead of animal abuse.

We play as that shadow creature, which resembles a small black frog with big white eyes. It swims in a sea of shadows, jumping from one to another in order to catch up to their human. The trick is that our hero can only be out of the shadows for so long before they get sucked back to the last checkpoint. The good news is that there is a little wiggle room. The shadow frog can exist for a second or two in the outside world, which is just enough time to jump into the nearest shadow. But be careful where you jump, because we only get one extra leap and it won’t be very far.

Thankfully, the levels are designed in such a way where there are always people walking, cars driving and signs, trees, buildings and even garbage cans casting shadows for our hero to swim in. The stages are open and full of different paths, though they may not be obvious at first glance. There are shadows our frog will jump into that it will interact with, such as a traffic light that will stop traffic or a sign that will fling our hero to the other side of the level. You may also need to jump into the shadow of a passerby in order to cover a lot of ground or perhaps buddy up with a bird, if you really want to move around. With so many moving parts to the city and shadows everywhere, you should be able to get around with relative ease.

One thing I really like about this game is how it turns the mundane things in a normal city into platforming stages. This isn’t the Mushroom Kingdom or some fantasy setting, it’s a grocery store or a farm or the beach. It’s the kind of places you would go in real life. Sure, the simple graphics and almost monochromatic color scheme give it a cartoony look, but this is, for better or worse, the real world. And that’s exciting, because it can turn something as boring as a grocery store into an exciting platforming puzzle.

And that brings me to the other thing I really like about SCHiM – our human is never that far ahead of the shadow. This allows us to see him grow and change from afar, always just out or reach of catching up to him. And while that may not seem like a big part of the game at first, the first-time developer does an excellent job of weaving some genuinely emotional moments into the game. We see the human’s struggles and understand his plight, which makes the shadow creature’s journey all the more urgent. Always being just out of reach works as both a gameplay conceit and a metaphor.

That said, the race to catch up with the human could use a little editing. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the adventure and had a good time with the unusual platforming action, but it goes on a bit too long. There are a bunch of filler stages that are less than a minute long and cover very similar ground. The middle half is full of filler, with a few too many stages that look and feel exactly the same as the ones that came before. We probably don’t need to see the shadow frog’s every single move, and SCHiM would have benefited from tightening up a bit and focusing on the different unique settings.

The other big problem is that it’s not always clear where you’re supposed to go. On one hand, I really like that the levels are open and have different paths you can take, but the game needed markers or signs pointing you to where you’re supposed to go. You’ll find that the “exit” to the stage might be a random guy or a bus or a cat or just an undercover spot safe from the rain. You can press a button to have the game show you the path you’re supposed to take, but that’s an imperfect solution that both feels like cheating and takes you out of the experience. They needed to find a more organic way to convey this crucial information. It’s far too common to head in one direction, only to discover that the actual path I was supposed to take was on the complete other side of town. That’s frustrating.

But even if it overstays its welcome and the levels are occasionally obtuse, I implore you to stick with SCHiM. This is a game that does, eventually, add up to something special. It absolutely sticks the landing and gives us a unique experience that we won’t soon forget. It’s the kind of platformer that brings something new to the table, and I fell in love with its charm and creativity. I guarantee that after you play SCHiM, you’ll never look at shadows the same way ever again.