This game is currently in the Humble Choice for February 2023, this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before March 7th, 2023, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.

A shadow-based platformer.

Shady Part of Me has players taking on the role of a shadowy girl and a potentially nameless child. The entire game is progressing through several platforming levels, with each showing a few short words or voice lines to a large overarching story. The Platforming mostly deals with using shadows as platforming or avoiding the light depending on the character, and players will have to switch back and forth between them. There’s also a Time rewind mechanic similar to Braid.

This seems like an easy game to like but I found myself getting tired while playing it. Nothing really interesting happens and while there’s a mystery about the story after a full hour and nothing has been explained yet. A few of the levels have clever concepts to them, but you’re mostly just walking or jumping through rather common type levels, and while the interactions between the two characters can be good, they also are often mundane.

Pick this up if you like platformers, especially if you ever played a game called Contrast. There are a few interesting art designs and levels, but also a lot of levels that didn’t stand out as much. A shame because conceptually this is cool, it just wasn’t that exciting to play.

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Shady Part of Me is a clever puzzle platformer that does justice to it's shadow world concept. There's a good balance here where the puzzles were often tricky but I rarely ever felt frustrated.

I did end up feeling that both the narrative and the puzzles get progressively less interesting as the game goes on. Which is a shame. The same story beats start to repeat early on (we get it, the girl is pessimistic and the shadow is optimistic). I did play with French VA which I found to be a huge improvement over the English VA that the game defaults to. Worth mentioning to anyone curious to try it out.

So yeah, I started this game kind of over the moon about how novel the concept was, but I just wasn't able to maintain that level of enthusiasm. Despite that gripe, the game is still very good and worth a play!

2D walking simulators seem to be a whole new genre of their own, are more interesting, and tend to be better than fully 3D ones. Games like Limbo, Little Nightmares, and Inside are perfect examples of this. There is some light platforming, some puzzle solving thrown in, and maybe a little bit of stealth. While none of those had stories that blew me away, they did make up for it in atmosphere and character. Shady Part of Me sadly doesn't accomplish any of those things. The only thing going for it is the dual-character puzzles, and that's about it. There really isn't even a story to speak of. Yourself, your shadow, and some disembodied voice narrate the entire game with cryptic dialogue that really is either open for translation to the player or is entirely meaningless.

This game reminds me a lot of Limbo and Lost in Shadow. You play as a little girl in a white dress who is afraid of light, and her shadow (always on the wall) is afraid of darkness. You switch between both to help each other advance. Puzzles involve pushing boxes and pulling switches, and in later levels, your shadow can defy gravity and even take over puppet bodies. Most of the puzzles have that "Aha!" moment, which can be satisfying, but there were a few that really stumped me and took a lot of time just fiddling around until something changed. Most puzzles have you manipulating objects in front of lights to make new shadows, move them, or make them grow or shrink. The real girl can't jump, but your shadow can. This means there is light platforming in the shadow, but nothing complicated.

I did find the aspect of two characters to be a bit tedious. Some areas just have you running to the right to stop in the circle to advance to the next area. You then have to switch to the other character and run that full length again. It's not a major problem, but it happens too frequently. I also found the rewind feature to be really handy. This prevents constant deaths and restarts. You can rewind as long as you want, so I have to applaud the developers for making this a frustrating mess. A lot of times your shadow will die or you will get caught in light, and it stops the game, but rewinding allows you to see the error you made and correct it. If you fully died every time and went back to a checkpoint, this game would be unbearably frustrating.

Overall, the visuals are great. The sketchbook look and early 20th-century aesthetics are fun, but they're also nothing memorable. We've seen this kind of art style before in other games. That's the biggest takeaway from Shady Part of Me. It does what it does fine. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't leave a lasting impression like the above mentioned games. Limbo was gruesome and had a memorable atmosphere. Little Nightmares' ghoulish monsters stood out, and Inside's dystopian world put you on edge. You will spend around five hours in this game and mostly forget about it the next day.

Fazia um bom tempo que não jogava nada pra valer, tô feliz que já no início de 2022 consegui tirar um jogo da lista. O jogo tem um estilo super original e uma mecânica muito diferente, é interessante a primeira vista, mas o jogo não se garante o tempo todo: Além de ser um tanto repetitivo, os gráficos e as músicas deixam o jogo enjoativo.
Também é valido falar, que a interação da menina com a sombra poderia ser muito mais divertida de se acompanhar, mas o resultado é uma relação rasa e difícil de se conectar. É um bom jogo, que as vezes escorrega.