Schim review

What is it? An isometric puzzle-platformer where well-lit floors are lava.
Expect to pay $22.50/£18.90
Developer Ewoud van der Werf, Nils Slijkerman
Publisher Extra Nice, PLAYISM
Reviewed on Windows 11, Ryzen 9 5900X, 32GB RAM, RTX 3080
Multiplayer? No
Out Now
Link Official site

Back in 2007 or so there was a real trend for indie puzzle-platformers, usually about a sad boy who had to go from the left of the screen to the right for some reason. Though it's not a 2D platformer, Schim reminds me of that era, when indie games would be about taking a single mechanic then expressing it through a different iteration in each level while squeezing as much emotional heft as possible out of storytelling on a budget.

In Schim you play a shadow creature that can't exist in the light, and have to hop from one puddle of darkness to the next like you're playing goth Frogger. With your eyeballs poking up out of the shadows as you swim around in them, there's a definite frogginess to the main character. Occasionally you see other shadow frogs hopping around in other shadows, with gigantic ones lurking in the darkness beneath trucks and the like. You're a more ordinary shadow frog though, one who lives in the shadow cast by a single person—until the moment you're separated, beginning a quest across the city to find your way back to the sad boy whose silhouette you call home.

Sometimes hopping is a matter of timing. You wait for a car or a cyclist or a box on a conveyor belt to pass so you can jump into its shadow and then onto the next. You can also interact with objects and beings whose shadow you're in, pressing buttons to open doors or change traffic lights or raise a forklift's arms to lengthen its shadow so you can rush to the edge and leap before it lowers. This is Schim at its best, when you're making a duck honk at a cat or turning on streetlamps to make new havens you can navigate. (The latter is necessary because there's no refuge in the actual darkness of night, which is as deadly