SCHiM from Extra Nice and PLAYISM is a charming puzzle platformer in which you’ll jump from shadow to shadow. Learn more in our SCHiM review!

 

SCHiM from Extra Nice and PLAYISM is a charming puzzle platformer in which you’ll jump from shadow to shadow. How did you end up like this? A schim is the soul and spirit of an object, thing, or living being. That means everything and everyone has one! A schim should never be separated from their thing… which is why it’s important that you return to your thing! You’ll be playing as a schim who is separated from its human early in the game. You can move from shadow to shadow as you race against the clock.

But before you’re separated from your human, you’ll get to take on a short tutorial segment during which you’ll learn all of the basics, as well as experience a good chunk of your human’s life. When you begin, your human is a young boy who only has to worry about playing. But in the span of a few minutes, you’ll see him grow up, go to college, find love, be heartbroken, graduate, and get a job. He’ll also fired from said job. And after packing up his things, he realizes his bike has been stolen! What a ride, right?

 

Things start easy enough so that you can have a chance to learn the basics before new puzzle elements are introduced at a steady pace. All you’ll have to do is jump from shadow to shadow and back to your human as you move through each segment of the intro tutorial, finding other schims – small and large – along the way. Who knows, you might even need to help some of them return to their thing on each level!

After being separated from your human, you’ll move around by using the left analog stick and pressing the X button to jump from shadow to shadow as needed. You can also interact with schims and objects by pressing the Square button. This could include honking a car’s horn or flinging yourself through the air by pulling back on a sign’s shadow to propel you to your destination.

To get a better view of things, you can press the L1 and R1 buttons to rotate the camera at a 90-degree angle in each direction. This might be just what you need to spot a different shadow that is cast just right for you to jump ahead and carry on. If you don’t rotate the camera, you might miss a small shadow on the corner of the screen that could otherwise save you from going kaput and being sent back to the last checkpoint. It could also lead to a spot where you can work on reuniting a schim with its thing, which you’ll need to do if you want to 100% the game.

Trial and error will be a must for later levels since you might think you have found the right path to take, only for you to miss a jump or not interact with an item that could have produced the shadow – or shadows – needed to progress further. You could also miss a jump and end up outside of a shadow. While this is definitely bad for you, there’s still a small window of opportunity to fix things. You’ll be able to take a couple of very short but usually lifesaving jumps to get to a shadow, so always keep that in mind!

The game has a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy for you to try to add to your collection. The trophy list is split into 8 Bronze trophies, 10 Silver trophies, and 6 Gold trophies for you to work on. The objectives to complete include honking 250 car horns, visiting 1,000 and 5,000 shadows, jumping into the water 50 times, sliding for 100 meters, interacting with 100 animals, traveling a total of 500 meters on vehicles, interacting with every type of object, finishing each level without respawning, and being reunited with your human.

SCHiM is a charming puzzle platformer in which you’ll jump from shadow to shadow. Why are you doing this? Because you’re a schim that has been separated from its human! As you move as fast as possible, you’ll be trying to find the best route for achieving your goal, making sure not to fall outside a shadow, which would be very bad for your survival! SCHiM launches on Nintendo Switch on July 18 with a $24.99 price tag.

Disclaimer
This SCHiM review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Extra Nice.