Great googly moogly, SCHiM is a beautiful feat of a 3D-platformer with puzzle elements. Its most charming and emotional moments will sneak up on you, so enjoy every single second of this cozy tale of a little shadow that could.
I remember a time when I was young enough to believe that my shadow was chasing me around as I ran across the playground. Everyone went through that phase, ya know? We had those periods of lonely creativity where our young minds wandered and created an imaginary world where ethereal beings manifested all around us. It was a simpler time, less burdened with day-to-day concerns like what to eat for dinner, how to catch up on sleep.
“Me and My Shadow” was a song that my father would sing to me when I was that age. It was a silly thing he would do to lighten my mood. Every time he would sing the song to me I would imagine my shadow coming to life and dancing along to my dad’s words.
The first few moments I spent playing SCHiM, I felt…free. Perhaps it was childlike. No, childlike doesn’t express the sense of boundless freedom I had with simply jumping around without fear of becoming hurt or “losing.” To call it SCHiM a platformer would be like calling Super Mario Bros. an adventure game. There are moments in the Super Mario series that encourage adventurous exploration, but the core gameplay loop involves platforming over all else. SCHiM has some semblance of 3D-platforming, but it’s far too casual of an experience for me to consider it a platformer in the truest sense. When I think of platformers, I think of actual platformers where I am to jump on top of enemies, scale walls, and occasionally speedrun small levels. None of these things exist in SCHiM.
Instead, I consider SCHiM to be more of a cozy experiential concept of simple gameplay that sheds away win conditions in favor of creative puzzle solving. You are to jump from shadow to shadow, only resting outside the shadowy bounds for a moment before returning to the depths where you belong. If you stray too far, you’ll snap back to a safe position to retrace a few steps. If you don’t see a path forward, rotating the world may yield a new set of shadows that will act as a safe pathway.
What is a SCHiM, exactly? The game doesn’t say. Then again, it doesn’t say much. It places you into a moment in time where a young boy is playing with his friend while shadows dance around. As a small shadow frog with big googly eyes, you’re to jump from puddle to puddle while your human catches up to you. As your human grows older, you follow him around more than he follows you…until one day you lose your human. SCHiM then becomes a nonverbal tale about a little shadow who sought to reunite with its human who had fallen upon bad times.
SCHiM snuck up on me, making me feel all the feelings without it saying a single word. Through the use of environmental storytelling and an easygoing soundtrack, I began to connect with my little frog buddy. I wanted to reunite with my human – what would happen to him? What would happen to me?
SCHiM’s version of 3D platforming feels delightfully fluid and natural. It encouraged me to test the limits of how far I could jump between puddles of shadows. It teaches the player how to navigate its 3D world without feeling afraid of losing progress. There is no losing, no dying. Just respawning from the puddle you attempted to jump from.
As the game progresses, additional puzzles are smoothly incorporated into the gameplay loop. By jumping into a forklift’s shadow, I could “activate” the forklift and extend it upward, creating a new path. When I jumped into a sheep’s shadow and pressed the action button, it made a “baa.” Some animals reacted to noises, while others ignored me. A clothesline and bounce house acted as miniature trampolines that could send me flying out of the puddle across the level.
I love it when games do just enough to encourage the player to explore and test the limits of the gameplay loop. Just about everything in SCHiM has an interaction, but not all of them are required for advancement. I’m DigitalChumps’ resident goose expert – you bet that when I jumped into a duck’s shadow I pressed the QUACK button multiple times just for fun.
Ewoud van der Werf and Nils Slijkerman created some truly creative levels in SCHiM. During one rainy level, I had to jump from street lamp from streetlamp, occasionally being able to jump to a temporary platform that was created during a quick flash of lightning. I was constantly surprised with how levels were designed and encouraged me to utilize slightly different methods to traverse the level, be it simply moving through shadows or having a vehicle take me from one part of the level to the next.
SCHiM is so incredibly simple, yet powerful in telling a sweet story. I would give it to anyone to play, regardless of their gaming familiarity. I’m reminded of how Blanc incorporated co-operative puzzles without saying a single word – SCHiM does something similar. Instead of cooperating with another player, you’re to think about how to position the world to utilize the available shadows in the field.
That said, there are a small number of hidden secrets (or sidequests) in most of the levels. You’ll occasionally come across an object that is missing their shadow, or an odd-colored object in a place where it shouldn’t be. You don’t need to find these optional objectives, but it’s so great to explore the beautifully colored world that is SCHiM.
Before I wrap this review, SCHiM’s art design is truly gorgeous. Every level is given its own color palette that helps set the scene and tone. It does so by combining a few colors per level without degrees of light, dark, and everything in between. Don’t worry if you’re colorblind, you can change the colors in the settings if something isn’t showing up.
Great googly moogly, SCHiM is a beautiful feat of a 3D-platformer with puzzle elements. Its most charming and emotional moments will sneak up on you, so enjoy every single second of this cozy tale of a little shadow that could.
