SCHiM Review

SCHiM is a puzzle platformer with snappy controls and a stellar presentation that’s a must-play for fans of the genre.

The Setup of SCHiM

In SCHiM, you play as a living creature who can best be described as a shadowy frog. Living in someone’s shadow (literally), this creature represents the soul and spirit of the creature that it inhabits. At the start of the game, you’re unfortunately separated from your young owner. Through the game’s sixty-five levels, it’s your job to make your way back to them. It’s almost like Homeward Bound but in this case, you play a shadowy little frog. Without going into detail about the game’s story, the narrative happens without dialogue but tells a story that’s worth paying attention to while you’re playing.

In practice, you’ll start each level of your journey on one side of a level and be asked to jump between the shadows in the level thrown by various objects within it to make your way to your objective. The end of the level usually gets you a step closer to a reunion with your human. Shadows are cast by a multitude of everyday objects; everything from a park bench or a garbage can to living creatures like birds and other humans.

Most of the levels were perfectly sized and didn’t overstay their welcome. However, there were 1-2 levels in the game that were very large and I wish that they could have been split into smaller chunks.

SCHiM’s Core Gameplay

Genre-wise, SCHiM is a puzzle platformer that’s light on the puzzle and heavy on the platformer.

Each of the levels is a small community inspired by rural European towns. The game’s levels start relatively simply; small levels with a pretty straight-forward path. However, as you go, layers of complexity are added. You might be asked to affect traffic lights, for instance, to affect the flow of traffic in a busy intersection or jump into a car’s moving shadow to cross a wide street. You will also quickly be asked to interact with objects in the world. These interactions can sometimes be for laughs. You’ll shoot garbage out of a trash bin, you’ll make a cat meow or jiggle a lamp post. Some of these interactions can meaningfully affect your traversal. You may be required to catapult yourself across the level using a beach umbrella, jump onto a trampolining clothesline or even jump into a fountain to make your way across a shadowless part of a level.

An Engaging Core Gameplay Loop

One of my favourite parts of this game is how breezy the game is to play. The controls on this one are perfect. They’re incredibly tight and any mistake on your path is a player error. Your shadow creature can’t survive outside of the shadows for long. Your SCHiM can spend a few seconds outside a shadow and in that time, they can make a single additional jump. This additional jump adds a fun layer of strategy to the gameplay. Many times through the course of the game’s Dutch-inspired locales, I would ask myself: can I make that jump? And the answer was usually: “let’s try it,” because the consequence for jumping poorly is that you reset yourself a few seconds back with no load times. I will say that the game’s checkpointing system wasn’t perfect; I found myself being put backwards a little further than I should have on occasion, but this was nothing but a minor annoyance.

Apart from making your way from start to finish, most levels have one or more collectables within them that are usually tucked away in a corner or off the beaten path.

A Stellar Presentation

My other favourite thing about SCHiM is the game’s presentation. The art is charming and the keyboard-heavy soundtrack just made me happy as I bopped between the different shadowy sections of a level. Diving deeper into the visuals, you can tell that there was a lot of care put into this one. Each cel-shaded level had a deliberate choice of colour palette that matched the action. If you were by the beach, you could come to expect a light brown hue representing sun and fun. If you were looking for alley cats in the evening, the colours were much darker. And the style also bled into the interstitials between levels.

Most objects would cast shadows, but as objects and light sources moved around, their shadows dynamically changed shape. For a game with a scope like SCHiM, it was impressive to see it in action. Occasionally on Steam Deck, some of the shadows looked a little jagged. This didn’t detract from the visuals, however. It’s worth noting that at the time of publication, this game was not approved on Steam Deck. Did I mention the buttery-smooth movement?

Music and Audio

The music and audio design for this one helped me fall into a meditative state while playing. Hats off to the team at Moonsailor, whose previous works can be found in games like Dungeons of Aether, VALORANT and Mullet Mad Jack. They have created a soundtrack that always seems to match the on-screen action and provides some satisfying sound effects as you bop around the map with your little SCHiM. If you press the action button while sitting in a human’s shadow, they would usually sneeze. Little details like this set the game apart.

The Variety in SCHiM

My only real complaint with the game is that it can become a little one-note over time. I noticed as I entered the back third of the game, I had sort of already seen everything that the game had to offer. I wish that the game would have been about 10 levels shorter as I found over time some of the locales were repeats without much in terms of variety between repeated sections. You visit a grocery store twice, you’ll visit parks that feel similar and at the end of the narrative you’ll stick around one particular neighbourhood for a while. This last one makes sense in the narrative but doesn’t lead to the most engaging gameplay.

Final Verdict

SCHiM is a game best played a few levels at a time over a week or more. If you’re looking for a great puzzle platformer to zone out to for thirty minutes before you go to bed every night, SCHiM is 100% that game. Between its tight jumping gameplay and stellar presentation over the game’s 5-6 hour runtime – SCHiM is worth playing.

Final Score: 8/10

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A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for this feature. Reviewed on PC (Steam). Also available on Mac/Linux, Nintendo Switch, PS4/PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.

Price: $24.99 USD (& Varies per Platform in CAD)

If you’re looking for another very do-ey game, check out our review of Mars After Midnight!