gesture is one of the games I was most looking forward to this year, and overall I had a great time. It's a cute platformer where every object and living thing has a soul called Schim. These frog-like creatures live in the shadow of their host, but can be lost when their object or creature is neglected, damaged, or goes through something life-changing.
You play as a Schim who is separated from his persona, who is going through a difficult time in his life. No prizes for guessing that the goal is to reconnect with her. You'll have to navigate through some treacherous environments to do so, but the trick is that you can only swim through shadows and jump from one inkblot to another. If you miss a jump, you can take a short extra jump to reach her.
Developers Ewoud van der Werf and Nils Slijkerman play with this idea in fun ways. You can jump between the shadows of trees and animals one minute, and use a bouncy castle to travel an additional distance the next. None of this was incredibly difficult, though it did take me a while to master the timing of the jumps between conveyor belts in a factory level. I found some other mechanics slightly frustrating, like learning to throw the Schim in the right direction from a rotating clothesline.
The game is at its most creative and engaging when it plays with inconsistent light sources and distended, disappearing shadows. There are some clever ideas here, many of which are executed beautifully. While there is a fundamental joy in gesture (which has the style gesture), there is a surprisingly moving narrative that touches on mental health issues and how ordinary people struggle to cope.
Unfortunately, I felt that gesture Overall, the game was too repetitive. It doesn't do enough with its core mechanics, and there were too many scenarios set in urban environments with overly similar objects to jump between. This ruined what could have been a more solid and rewarding experience. Halfway through, I was more than ready for the Schim to reconnect with its human, which isn't a great sign for a game that only takes about three hours to finish.
My main conclusion will be the following: Each stage uses a couple of main colors and various shades of black to denote shadows, objects, and characters. The music, animations, and backgrounds all come together in a wonderful way. I often felt like I was playing a living work of art. The visuals are true lockscreen material, and speak to the beauty that can emerge from minimalist, stylized renderings.
There are a lot of great ideas in scheme, which has a touching and rewarding ending. I just wish the journey to get there was more enjoyable.
gesture It's out now on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. (It also runs smoothly on Steam Deck.)
