Shady Part of Me

Game'scover

About the Game

Shady Part of me was developed by a french indie studio called Douze Dixemes studio as their debut game in the gaming industry. The game was published by Focus Home Interactive. The game was announced and released during the Game awards of 2020, so it is safe to say that it came out of nowhere without much hype behind it. According to websites that critisize games, shady part of me has a fevorable 80% as it's average and 7/10.

What is a Shady part of me!?


The game was heavily inspired by other indie titles such as Limbo and ofcourse Little Nightmares. Although a shady part of me has dialogue and interactions between the characters the story is not clear. It focusses on a girl (which is assumed to be an orphan) who has noone to talk to and goes through a genuine dark side. Her only company who is there to be with her is her Shadow. As the game progress the girls gets to feel more powerfull and stops beeing afraid of whatever it is thats frightens her and builds her own confidence. The girl, is depiction as this frightened person filled with doubt and loneliness who wishes to stay away from the light and drunk in the darkness. On the other hand the Shadow, represents her confidense and empower. She is there to see that her weakside will understand what she can accomplish and will do whatever it takes to stand by her real self.

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Gameplay

The gameplay of shady part of me is really simple. It's a simple platformer that doubles down on it's own two heroes.

The goal is for the player to move around a level and escort both the girl and her shadow from the starting point of the level to the other. The little girl, moves in 3D environments and can interact with items found around in her levels.
However, the little girl is afraid of the light and will not move anywhere near the light. The moment light touches the girl she ll fall on her knees and will reset the player on the last checkpoint or in some cases right before the sunny/lighted
area.
On the other hand the girls shadow is only able to move in 2D environment. The shadow, has no problem moving to lighted areas, as the light is what casts the shadow, however this also acts as her weaknsess. If the shadows area gets completely bright
or extremely dark it will most likely kill the shadow. At the same time, shadow moves in complicated areas where shadows can cast spikes and thorns that can one shot the shadow. very similar to before in the case of death the hero will spawn soon to the
last checkpoint.
The games puzzles require for the player to keep swapping among the heroes in order to solve them. For example an easy example is that a giant Box prevents the shadow from moving forward and the girl has to move to that box and move it away from the light in
order for it's shadow to shrink. very similarly, the shadow might have to be placed on top of the box in order for the girl to push it towards the light causing the boxe's shadow to grow bigger allong for the girls shadow to proceed. As the girl and her shadow
proceed with the story the puzzles themselves become even harder where the player will have to time events, switch between the heroes to use buttons, or even swapping between the heroes in order to take a few steps and then force a new swap. It's fair to say that
more abilities become available such as the shadow possessing a puppet in order to briefly move into the 3D world.

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Collectables


The game has only one type of collectable and can be found in every chapter. These are pape origami birds scattered around the world. They are easy to spot however they require some thought in order to form the path for either the girl (in 3D Envnironment) or her shadow
(in 2D environment) to reach them. Each of the four chapters have their own set to collect and each chapter has it's own trophy to reward the player. Finishing a chapter when collecting all of them will reward the player with two tropies, one for clearing and one for collecting.
There are a few origami birds that are hidden in certain areas that might require the player to use the light to show or reveal a hidden one.

Final Thoughts

Over all this game is very interesting. The rooms created are very beutiful with a very complex look and design.The art style of the game is really unique resembeling alot of Tim Burtons art style and even Bendy and the ink machine. The story and the characters are
very interesting with some good dialogue between them. Some may feel relatable in the essence of having alot of doubts while there's a deep voice calling themselves out. The gameplay is really good as it doesnt do much to keep things different but does enough to establish the beuty of
simplicity. The puzzles themselves are very interesting and unique. None of them feel repeatetive and none feel boring. There are a few that are vastly more difficult than others but that is to be expected as the game progresses.

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