Children have a special ability to immerse themselves in their imaginary worlds and entertain themselves with simple games. An ability that becomes harder and harder to utilize as we get older and get burdened with the realities of adult life. We often escape to video games to experience those fantastical worlds, and there’s a bitter-sweetness to games that accurately recreate our childhood games.
SCHiM, developed by Ewoud van der Werf and Nils Slijkerman, and published by Extra Nice and PLAYISM, is a recreation of one of those childhood games, where we would jump from shadow to shadow and avoid sunlit parts of the street. We have to navigate busy streets and complicated paths while sticking to the shadows.
I’ve been looking forward to playing SCHiM since I saw a short video from the game on social media years ago, and my expectations were high going into the game. The footage I’d seen from SCHiM promised a smooth, satisfying, and challenging gameplay in a stylistic and captivating world, and I was delighted that the game delivered on these promises.
The part of SCHiM that exceeded my expectations, was the story. The gameplay was exactly what I was looking for, but the game’s narrative went beyond that by telling a sad, hopeful, and relatable story, highlighting the contrasts between childhood and adulthood, and how we can find some healing by connecting to our inner child.
In the beginning, we play as the shadow of a young boy, playing together on sunny days, hopping around between shadows, and interacting with the world around us. In a short section, we go through different stages of adolescence, teenage years, and adulthood. We eventually grow distant from our human, and after he goes through a rough day, we are separated from each other.
This is where SCHiM really begins. We watch from a distance as our human struggles in various aspects of life, and we are trying to catch up and reunite with him again. The shadow that we play as, can be interpreted as a projection of the protagonist’s inner child, trying to reach out to him and help him in dealing with the hardships that he faces.
The story of SCHiM is not a major part of the game, but it resonated with me deeply. The levels depict a sense of longing and abandonment in a subtle but meaningful way, culminating in an emotional reunion at the end of the game. Finishing the story took me about two and a half hours, after which new difficulty modes were unlocked for me to test my skills in a more challenging environment.
The gameplay of SCHiM seems simple at first glance. You only need to jump from shadow to shadow, so it’s basically a platformer. But very soon we are introduced to interactable objects that can alter the shadows available to us, adding a puzzle-solving element to some of the more complicated layouts.
A very useful ability in the basic difficulty is double jumping. If we can’t clear a distance, can’t find a solution to a certain path, or miscalculate a jump, we can try and force our way by double jumping. We can land in the sunlight as long as our second, shorter jump can get us to another shadow. This is a very nice accessibility feature that makes finishing the game easier, but you can disable it for a more challenging experience.
When you get used to the controls, study the paths, and solve the puzzles, traversing the shadows can be very smooth and satisfying. I can see the game being popular among speedrunners who want to find faster solutions to each level. But some mechanics sometimes disturb this flow. You can use pedestrians and passing cars to get over long distances, but if you miss your window, the waiting time for another pedestrian or a car can occasionally be frustrating.
While completing the game for the first time only takes a couple of hours, the increased difficulty and the multiple ways you can approach each section add a lot of replayability to SCHiM and make it a worthwhile purchase. In addition, the minimalistic and monotone art style, the chill soundtrack, and the smooth animations and gameplay provide a very cozy and relaxing experience that makes it even easier to come back to the game over and over again.
I started playing SCHiM expecting a fun and unique platformer with a memorable art style. I got exactly what I wanted and even more in the form of a simple yet deeply touching narrative, resulting in one of the most engaging and wholesome games I’ve played this year.
Nima played SCHiM on PC with a review code.
