Sometimes there are indie games that I encounter that can be frustrating since they have fresh and unique ideas, but they can’t quite get over the finish line in some fashion. I remember loading up the demo of SCHiM a month or two ago around the time of Steam Next Fest and while it was cool, I remember hoping that its elements that felt disjointed and a bit incomplete were tied to it piecing together elements from different phases of the game. 

Sadly, for the most part, playing the final game it just seems to roll that way. The elements seem to mostly be there is the shame. There is a sort of storyline going on, with you being part of the shadow of a boy who progresses into being a man, who then hits rock bottom. In general, your goal will be to try to reunite with him, and you’ll do this by hopping from shadow to shadow, sometimes manipulating or using elements in the environment to help you progress in a puzzle-like manner as well.

The issue is just that it feels like a set of bigger ideas that needed to be scaled back. While you start with the boy and interact with him and his world very briefly, you then spend a fair amount of time simply hopping through phases of his life. This does help you see your continued connection, and understand a little more about his story, but it also feels glossed over and like a missed opportunity where you could continue to feel more of a bond with him. Some of the game’s mechanics feel similarly under-utilized, like your ability to sometimes interact with objects to do a variety of things. You will need to interact with things like lights quite a lot in particular in order to keep yourself moving, but it feels like there could have been even more ways to explore this capability and help the experience feel more varied. The primary problem I had though was the tendency for it to be hard to keep track of where I was supposed to be going, with the game’s tendency to shift the camera on me further exacerbating the issue.

So in the end that left me with a game I liked, but was disappointed that it didn’t allow me to like it more. This isn’t likely the sort of thing developers like to hear, but I’d be fascinated to see what they’d be able to do with this core concept given some more time and opportunity to more fully and properly explore its possibilities. SCHiM is pretty memorable and interesting, without a doubt, but it’s also hard not to stumble on the fact that it doesn’t feel like a concept that’s really met its potential.