In SCHiM you play as a shadow who lost its connection to its human, your task is to jump between shadows to return to your human. Here is our SCHiM Review.
The game was developed by 2 Dutch developers Ewoud van der Werf and Nils Slijkermanand and published by Extra Nice, it will release on July 18, 2024, for all platforms. Thank you to Pirate PR for providing us with a key.
The idea behind SCHiM (Shadow in Dutch) is very easy, you are this shadow who is with its human throughout its whole live, but then, you get snapped loose from him and he runs off leaving you behind. You as the SCHiM will do everything you can to return to your human and become his shadow once more. Just like the story, the gameplay is very simple, all you do is hop from one shadow to another, and its simplicity is exactly what makes it so amazing.
In the game, you mainly just jump from shadow to shadow to reach the endpoint, but there are some shake-ups in the game. One of them is a collectible type thing where you need to interact with an item and then a random shadow will find its place back where it belongs, but those are not really needed to complete the level, the obstacles in the levels themselves are a lot more fun than I first thought.
So there are these boards to throw you away, but also moving parts like forklifts, cars, and moving boxes. They all add another level of difficulty to the game that really makes you think about how to solve the level and create a path forward. There was one level where you need to use the traffic lights to make certain cars move, this was the only frustrating few levels, but I also had some of my favorite levels right after with a new cool gimmick. In these levels, there was like a thunderstorm in the dark and I needed to time my jumps and also use the lights of scooters to make a path to the end, it’s these small things that can make a pretty simple level be amazing.
The mechanics are so easy to understand that even a kid can play, the only thing that I can see getting frustrating are the fixed camera angles. You basically have to turn the camera by using the triggers to see things from a different perspective, but at the same time, this adds another layer to the puzzles and makes you try and see what angle works best to continue or find secrets.
I absolutely loved the visual style and all the recognizable typical Dutch things like the poles, train station and just general things from the outside, as a Dutch person, everything felt homely, and it was nice to see Dutch culture represented in these small things. Its simplicity also shines through in its art style with it coloring, everything is pretty basic in that way but the models are just detailed enough to give you a good view of what it is at first glance.
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