Emma and Teddy Bear: Shadow Adventures: Playing with Light and Shadow to Create Flowers

Emma and Teddy Bear: Shadow Adventure (hereinafter referred to as Shadow) is a puzzle game with light and shadow as its core.

Although it received positive reviews (88%) on Steam, as of the deadline for this article, only 18 players gave their own reviews. For such a niche game, I would like to put a summary at the beginning, which may more directly convey the characteristics of the game to more players:

The light and shadow puzzles in Shadow are intricate and imaginative, with each of the five "big worlds" having its own new mechanisms and scenes, continuously bringing a sense of freshness. Thanks to the reasonable difficulty gradient of the levels, the overall gameplay will not feel too difficult, but there are also moments that require careful consideration and testing of brain power.

As a puzzle game, the jumping part of the platform occupies a large space in the middle of the game, inevitably dominating. In addition, this work is relatively unsuccessful in narrative, with a thin sense of existence and a sudden end at the end, which is shocking.

Play the light and shadow puzzle of flowers

As the game name suggests, players need to alternate between the characters Emma and Teddy Bear in Shadow, using light and shadow to find their way forward and conquer one level after another.

When operating Emma, players will observe the character from a top-down angle and create shadows by moving and moving light sources. When it comes to the teddy bear stage, the teddy bear moves up and down on a platform in a horizontal scrolling pattern. The shadow created earlier is the path that Teddy Bear is on.

Taking the content of the game teaching level as an example, in the following picture, let Emma stand at the edge of the wall. At this time, the light emitted by the handheld lamp is partially blocked by the wall, naturally forming a shadow. Then switch to the teddy bear, move up along the edge of this shadow, step on the mechanism, and open the iron door for Emma.

Emma uses the platform to create shadows and create roads for teddy bears

After introducing the core mechanism to players, the game begins to revolve around light sources, or how to form shadows.

In addition to using the fixed walls inside the level to pave the road at an appropriate angle as shown in Gif above, there are also mobile platforms, more light sources, and environmental enemies that restrict movement space. When the light source is not just the player themselves, just like the principle of a shadowless lamp, when multiple light sources overlap, they will interfere with each other and cannot form shadows smoothly. At this time, players also need to think about appropriate placement.

The above derivative mechanisms are only introduced in the first world of the game. There are five major worlds in Shadow, each with its own new elements centered around light and shadow, such as platforms that can be split or synthesized, phototactic/photophobic animals and plants, and basic teaching levels will be arranged for players to quickly learn new mechanisms.

After experiencing an average of eight levels in the world, almost every level in the world will arrange a large boss level, integrating the previously thrown mechanisms to more complex and comprehensive test players.

But there is no need to worry about the difficulty. Shadow is a relatively mild puzzle game, and the production team did not set too difficult puzzles. As a player who is not good at solving puzzles, I take an average of 5-7 minutes to complete each level, and the entire process takes about 5 hours. During this time, there are not many times I get stuck, and basically I can easily solve the puzzle by turning my mind.

Some "noisy and dominant" platform jumps

The previous section has been emphasizing that Emma is creating a path for Teddy Bear. Is Teddy just going along the Shadow Road?

Not entirely so.

Simply put, the part of a teddy bear is "platform jumping music.".

In the early stages, teddy bears mostly jumped on stationary platforms. As the process progresses, players will have to deal with jumps that require longer distances or greater emphasis on timing.

I personally agree with the design of Jump Music, which can add more tension and excitement to the game in addition to challenging puzzles. Some levels require Emma and Teddy Bear to cooperate and quickly switch roles to pass through the room within a limited time, making the relationship between the two characters closer and not appearing disconnected.

And the jumping part of Shadow is not difficult. Even if there is a momentary mistake, the character will immediately resurrect at the previous checkpoint, and the frustration of failure is quite low& nbsp;

But after all, this is a puzzle game, can't it be all about jumping music?

In the middle and later stages of the game (especially in the fourth world), the main way of advancing levels has shifted from thinking and solving puzzles to emphasizing timing and immediate response. The proportion of content that requires players to think has significantly decreased, and the main character to operate has become a teddy bear, while Emma has instead become a tool person.

Fortunately, this trend has reversed in the fifth world - returning to the design of using exquisite puzzles to advance levels, which can be called a "prodigal turn".

Just use the story as an addition

Every time the game is opened, Shadow will play a CG introducing the background of the story: a child named Thomas Kane goes missing, and Emma, who is attracted by the case, and a teddy bear who falls off the carriage head to a mysterious castle to search for and rescue him.

The story before the ending is limited to this.

During the game, Emma and Teddy Bear need to move up from the bottom of the castle level by level. The five different scenes do have their own unique artistic styles and are magnificent, making people feel like they are in a fairy tale world. However, these scenes mainly serve level puzzles, with little explanation of the plot. At the end of the game, regardless of the quality of the ending, due to the lack of foreshadowing, I was very surprised to see this ending, feeling confused and ended it.

  Of course there is an ignition switch in the kitchen& nbsp;

Although players can find fragments related to the story in some hidden corners, these difficult to find and obscure fragments mostly enrich the story background. To be honest, even missing out on everything would not cause much loss in understanding the main storyline.

Discovering Secrets

So I personally suggest that everyone consider the story of this game with a thin presence as an addition, and enjoy the mental test that the game brings to players more.

Although I have listed a few shortcomings, I personally quite like Shadow. The game always follows the design concept of interactive puzzle solving with two main characters, and many puzzles related to light and shadow also contain the clever ideas of the producers.

I often feel extremely anxious and irritable when playing puzzle games due to getting stuck, but Shadow Chronicles, with its reasonable difficulty setting and guidance, is both challenging and provides me with a comfortable and enjoyable gaming experience. If you want to find a skit level game to pass the time in your free time, this game may be a good choice.

The game is currently available for sale in Steam and Epic stores, priced at 79 yuan. It is currently on sale at a 70% discount, with a discounted price of 55.3 yuan.