Review: SCHiM is a visually interesting puzzler that plays in the shadows

When I first saw SCHiM, I was taken in by the limited color palette. The style is simple line art, but the colors stick to one shade. And, while the colors do change from panel to panel, it’s visually stunning to see various shades of solid color splashed across the game. 

So, what’s SCHiM all about?

Not only did the color palettes chosen in the game resonate with me, but I adore the mechanics of how this puzzle game operates. You play as a schim attached to a human, but due to an unforeseen accident, you are separated from them. 

But, what is a schim? It’s the soul and spirit of the thing it inhabits. Throughout the game, you see shadows being cast by innumerable objects and sometimes those objects will have eyes to highlight that a schim lives there. So, while we’re attached to a human, a schim can exist in the shadow of a car or box and so on.

We’re told that schim should never be detached from their objects for too long. So, the game is centered around us trying to reunite with our human.

SCHiM plays a lot with the theory of light and dark. Light is bad and dark is good. While we’re technically a spirit of sorts, it’s easier to just think of yourself as the living embodiment of a shadow. Since you’re a shadow, you can’t exist in the light.

That isn’t to say that you can’t hop into a lighter area, but your time is limited to about 3 seconds. Generally, you get about one hop outside of a shadow before you’re zoomed back to your original spot. It should have been mentioned earlier that we move by hopping around the map and sinking into the shadows around the board.

By using trigger buttons – I played on the controller, the keys will be different on a keyboard – you can flip the viewpoint around 360. So, if you can’t find a shadow to advance with, odds are that you need to flip the perspective which will also flip the shadows.

Weirdly, I flipped myself upside down, but my troubles still persist…

As a little shadow, we can interact with the things that we’re in the shadow with. For instance, if we need to cross a street, we can engage the crossing signs that will change the lights for traffic and hitch a ride in a car.

This is a very strategic and puzzle-based game, but it’s pretty fun. When I initially got the game, I played the demo and I found that I rarely had issues. But, when I tried the full game, things started to really ramp up and it’s, unfortunately, where my feelings started to turn just a little.

While the game is fun to figure out, the levels get longer as you go. You may think that’s an obvious gameplay mechanic, but it comes with the caveat that there is no save function in the middle of a level.

I spent about 20 minutes on a level but had to step away from my computer due to real-life obligations and didn’t want to leave the game running while I was doing it. So, unfortunately, I had to just turn the game off and lose all of the progress that I had.

A save feature would have made all the difference, or maybe even a checkpoint. I was more than halfway through the map level when I exited. So, that’s kind of my biggest curmudgeon.

The second thing that I started to have issues with was understanding the advancement in later puzzles. The game works by jumping around shadows and while you can see that some shadows aren’t static like cars or boxes going down a factory line, some things aren’t obvious.

For instance, there are clothesline-like objects that bounce you out of the shadow and fling you further than you can jump, but until you slide into that shadow, you don’t know if it can be engaged that way. This means that if you’re stuck, you have to basically run in circles trying to figure out what you’re missing.

Please send help, I am too unsmart for some of these…

Some people may enjoy that aspect, but I just kind of felt dumb. And while it’s not a deal breaker, those moments started coming more and more often as I progressed.

And, I’ll be honest, that’s most of the game. The colors and landscapes change, but you’re just moving through the shadows in the world toward a goal and when you get there, it takes you to another map of the same.

I haven’t finished the game, but I’m assuming you get reunited with your person. But, unfortunately, I haven’t had the heart to restart the level I had to abandon.

I will say, that I do like that you can hit a button and it will tell you the general direction that you need to go. So, you can’t get lost directionally, at least. However, when the new maps spawn, the camera view will pan to show you the exit and then slide back. I found these moments to be pretty jarring because they engaged a feeling of motion sickness.

So, while it was helpful, I couldn’t really pay too much attention without feeling a bit of vertigo.

My notes say that the music had good vibes and the instrumentals changed often, so you get a lot of variance in that, which I appreciate. Especially in puzzle games, the music being good is incredibly important. There’s nothing worse than being stuck in a moment and having the same song you’ve been listening to for the last hour just looping in your ear.

Overall, I greatly appreciate the playstyle of SCHiM and love the shifting color palettes. I vastly enjoyed the earlier levels, but my enjoyment tapered the longer and more difficult the levels got.

I know – a game getting harder as you go? Gasp, shock. I realize games are meant to progress so as to not stagnate. I just wish there had been a checkpoint feature in the longer levels.

Still, I had a lot to love about SCHiM, and think it’s a fantastic game for those who love strategic puzzle games. If you want to grab it, you can get it on Steam, Nintendo Switch, or PlayStation for $24.99 or you can check out our review on Été – a more relaxing, exploration-style game with a gorgeous watercolor art style.