A rewarding puzzle platformer that tasks you with jumping from shadow to shadow.
The eye-catching world of SCHiM is one that strikes immediate intrigue. This novel indie platformer, the work of development duo Ewoud and Nils, presents what at first appears as a fairly recognisable (and beautifully stylised) human space for you to explore, but what makes things special here is how you go about navigating it — all from a rather unique, shaded perspective.
SCHiM is a journey through the world around you solely via the shadows — it’s an experience that takes something as ordinary and everyday as the spaces around us and turns it on its head. The mundane shadow cast from a lamp post becomes a thin slither of opportunity. Every space is seen with a fresh outlook.
You’d be forgiven for thinking the narrative reason for such a novel way of traversal is almost trivial, but SCHiM outlines a brisk rationale that drives things forward in an unobtrusive and sharp way. The main character trips, falling over, and your shadow (or Schim if you will) becomes severed — loosing the connection between person and silhouette. You then take on the role of your shadowy schim, tasked with getting back to your human.
This journey of shade jumping takes place across a series of Dutch-inspired street scenes — hopping from the cover of a resting bike, into the shadow of a passing car, and across the street into the shelter of darkness cast by a waiting pedestrian. It’s a rewarding, and distinctive platformer which encourages exploration and a curiosity about the space you find yourself in — it struck a certain childlike wonder within me, scouting my surroundings for a way forward.
As a quick aside (whilst talking of childlike wonder), any parents who are familiar with the Shadowlands episode of hit cartoon Bluey will immediately be familiar with the core gameplay concept SCHiM is putting forward. It’s a playable realisation of the merrymaking and movement found within it.
There’s no one correct route for getting to your goal — you can jump from any shadow to another in order to make progress. However, for all of its exploration merit, at times SCHiM doesn’t do the best job at telegraphing what direction you need to head in order to reach the target. There is a dedicated button to tell you which way to go, but having environmental clues instead would have been more befitting for what is such a joyous space to otherwise navigate.
There’s plenty of moments in SCHiM which will delight — be that jumping into the shadow of a moving bird, finding one of the various hidden objects scattered across the world, diving into a traffic light and making cars move as a result, timing your movement to the lightning of a thunderstorm, or stopping a human in their tracks to line up your next jump.
There’s enough of these junctures sprinkled throughout SCHiM to maintain intrigue. One particular moment saw an almost Frogger-like recreation play out across a warehouse, jumping from moving box to moving box. It’s a game that, although fairly shallow in terms of its gameplay diversity, does a lot with its core concept and has plenty of charm to help bolster it further.
On the whole, SCHiM presents a fairly basic premise, but does so with a beautiful duotone aesthetic, a chill soundtrack, and an undemanding yet novel take on the puzzle platformer. There’s something about just interacting with the world around you and seeing what happens. Curiosity is rewarded here.
