SCHiM – Game Review

SCHiM – One of the most interesting phenomena of today’s modern game market is the frequency of projects with extremely low budgets and human resources, but extremely high level of precision and excitement, with endless ideas. special and innovative in game making style, gameplay and artistic value.

These particularly interesting phenomena in the gaming industry seem to contrast with the reality of the giants who make games, when big, sophisticated games are too lacking in precision and new ideas, demanding from people. playing too much time, effort and money – and in the midst of an increasingly saturated and uncertain future in the gaming industry, “small” games that have enough “martial arts” to get people’s attention in about 10 years, The current 15 years have increasingly proven its potential the game’s exceptional artistic and storytelling capabilities.

So when SCHiMa simple, lovely game from two young artists from the Netherlands, Ewoud van der Werf and Nils Slijkerman, caught the eye of PLAYISM and become a small phenomenon on social networks, there must be something really special hidden in this project, right?

So what is that special thing, and will these two young artists create anything truly extraordinary? Let’s find out with Vietgame.asia in the article below.

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Jump Into… The Darkness!

At first glance, it is difficult to imagine how to play SCHiMbecause the environments are too detailed, the silhouettes are too complex and unpredictable, and the space-time translation seems to have no consistency with the “playing” activity of the game.

But in reality, SCHiM is an extremely simple game, players will control a frog, called SCHiMto “jump” into the shadow of a certain object or character, depending on the case, this frog can control the movement of that character, as well as trigger a certain action with another button .

Basically, SCHiM is a two-dimensional platforming game, but the player only moves on a single plane.

Not only simple in mechanism, SCHiM It’s also a game with almost no obvious challenges. If our frog jumps into the light for too long, it will immediately return to the previous shadow without any penalty, other than… wasting a few seconds. The game does not have any “failure” states, and the game’s puzzles are also very simple, mostly just how to “connect” the shadows together or help our frog jump further. .

The game’s mechanics look fun and are fun to play, but there’s absolutely no depth at all. The entire game experience instead relies entirely on a specific type of feeling that the game brings through the game’s story and storytelling techniques. The SCHiM frog is actually… the shadow of a young man, both an inseparable internal part and an objective view of his life. After an incident, a frog was separated from its owner, and now the frog must find a way to get back to the young man.

Plot and narrative of SCHiM is as simple as the game’s gameplay, but what makes the game attractive is the atmosphere and feeling of the game that captures a feeling similar to the way people follow the things they admire and love. I love you so much.

This is the feeling that makes people, even though they are not directly involved in each other’s lives, still feel sad and worried when they see those people having difficulties, and happy when they achieve good things in life. life, and thoughts whenever the uncertainties in life surround that person. SCHiM delves deeply into how people can love and sympathize with each other unconditionally just because we love our fellow human beings, or see ourselves in them.

A big part of what makes these emotions so effective is the game’s special graphic style. Objects and characters in SCHiM are simple, quiet silhouettes, but through their gestures, the way they are present in life and interact with each other in a game environment, although depicted in a monotonous way, with varying color tones. Skillfully adapting to the psychological and life developments of the characters, as well as extremely detailed animations, has made everything in the game appear extremely vivid and lovely.

What makes the game attractive is the atmosphere, the feeling of the game captures a feeling similar to the way people follow things they admire and love.

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It’s just a “feeling”.

Although it creates a very good game feel, the simplicity of the game will probably not appeal to everyone. The game relies heavily on evoking the player’s sympathy through the way the game narrates the story with images and sounds, so much so that sometimes the writer has to admit that if… remove the “jumping ball” mechanism, the story will be different. story SCHiM It still doesn’t lighten the weight at all.

Not only that, this potential ball jumping mechanism is only limited to a two-dimensional plane with very simple puzzles, if the game applies its “unique” mechanism in a diverse and skillful way. Perhaps more plot twists will be “opened” in more interesting ways, like the way the game does The Pedestrians did very well.

And this monotony and shallowness is not small or worth ignoring at all, easily making many players disappointed when finishing the game.

If the game uses its “unique” mechanics in a more diverse and skillful way, perhaps many plot twists will be “opened” in more interesting ways.