The gaming public often looks to the indie scene for the new innovations; those experimental features that $_BIG_PUBLISHER would deem too risky for inclusion in a blockbuster title. There are many examples of ideas that found their footing with smaller devs, many of whom would make an entire game based out of a single unique mechanic. The challenge though is making an experience that is more than that one thing as you can’t neglect the other aspects of game craftsmanship just because you’ve got that one thing that makes you unique. This is where SCHiM unfortunately falls down as whilst the shadow based platforming is definitely unique it is simply not enough to carry the game through the 60+ levels it puts before you.
Every object in the world has a SCHiM, whether it being a living being or your friendly neighbourhood trash can. A SCHiM should never be separated from its host which, unfortunately, is what happens to you. You’re separated from your person who instantly decides to completely up end their life, leaving you struggling to catch up with them. What follows is the story of you trying to catch up to your person as they start living a new life, one without you in it.
Stylistically I’m very on board with the direction that devs went here. Whilst it’s primarily done this way to get the most out of all the assets that they’ve created it manages to quite a lot with not much. It also keeps the visuals clean and distinct, something that can easily get lost when there’s as much detail as there is on the screen. The use of different colour palettes is worth noting as well, both from the choices to the use in storytelling: the corporate parts feeling cold and lifeless whilst the early on moments feel warm and cozy. From a visual perspective SCHiM certainly hits it out of the park.
SCHiM is a platformer, one where you’re only allowed to jump between shadows. In the game’s default state there’s a little bit of leeway with this, giving you a second mini jump if you happen to miss the area that you were aiming for (or make jumps you might not otherwise be able to make). There are also checkpoints everywhere, indicated by a dotted outline around the shadow, which you’ll return to should you happen to fail at a particular platforming section. Amplifying the challenge is that a lot of the world elements will move about a lot, testing your reflexes more than you’d expect. There’s also a bunch of interactions with certain objects in the world that you’ll need to make use of in order to clear some of the more challenging platforming sections. All in all, bar the unique mechanic of needing to be in the shadows, SCHiM is a pretty standard indie platformer.
Which is honestly what brought me to it in the first place: good artwork, simple mechanics and the possibility of a light narrative to carry me through. Which it did for the first 30 minutes or so and, expecting that this was at maximum an hour and a half game, I figured I’d soldier through to the end. I got to about puzzle 20 before I went to look up how many levels there were to it and was astonished to find there’s well over 60 of them, meaning I had maybe another 3 hours to go to finish it.
SCHiM unfortunately just doesn’t have enough meat on the bone to justify that kind of playtime though. I can certainly see this as a one of those mobile apps back in the day, meant to be picked up for maybe 10 minutes at most for a session before it’s put back down again but it’s not released on any mobile platforms. You could argue the Switch counts for that but even that’s a platform meant for longer sessions than what a single level of SCHiM offers.
So what you’ve got then is a very repetitive experience that unfortunately doesn’t evolve very much. This is amplified by the fact that there’s a lot of asset reuse and the only differences are the colour palette. Exploration is also not rewarding at all, just giving you a little happy screen with a slowly rotating item. To be sure, there might be gained from this game by playing smaller chunks over a longer period of time but I honestly couldn’t see myself doing it.
SCHiM is then a lesson in how far you can take your signature mechanic. In this case, given that a lot of the other elements are done so well, it can go a fair ways. However given it was light on many other aspects, like mechanical variety and narrative, there was a limit and I reached it only shortly after clocking my first hour in it. This being said it is a solid basis for what the devs might do in the future as with a few key items of game’s craftsmanship ticked off they could hopefully focus their efforts on other areas to make something truly great.
Rating: 6.5/10
SCHiM is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch right now for $36.50. Game was played on the PC with a total of 73 minutes playtime and 29% of the achievements unlocked.
