Tandem: A Tale of Shadows

More info »

Tandem: A Tale of Shadows review
Quinn Levandoski

Review

A Tale of Two Walking Surfaces

A Mysterious Disappearance and an Unexpected Team-Up


Thomas Kane, the only son of a famous illusionist, goes missing in London in the late 1800s. While Scotland Yard cannot solve his mysterious disappearance, a 10-year-old girl named Emma decides to take things into her own hands. A horse-drawn carriage flies by as she goes outside, and a teddy bear drops out onto the rain-covered road. Surprisingly, instead of staying down on the wet road, the stuffed animal pops up and runs after the carriage. Emma's curiosity has her follow the bear to an old estate, which she enters. It’s hokey in just the right way, and the strange setup primes the entire experience with a very story-book feel that I absolutely loved.

The game’s brief preamble leads to Emma and Fenton working together to make their way through the mysterious manor estate to find out more about what happened to Thomas Kane. The game is divided into a number of worlds, each one representing an area of the estate that Emma and Fenton have to progress through. Each section has about 10 puzzles, and they vary in length and difficulty. The first few only take a few minutes, but, later on, they lasted for much longer depending on how long it took me to figure out the rooms’ solutions.

Now There Are Two Of Them!


As the game’s name implies, Tandem: A Tale of Shadows is about both simultaneously controlling the two protagonists and using shadows to complete platforming puzzles. For reasons that were not made clear in the preview, Fenton is incapable of walking on the ground. Instead, gravity seems to be rotated 90 degrees for him, as he stands perpendicular to the ground and walks on walls. Emma walks like a normal person, and it’s in this locomotive dichotomy that the pair are able to make their way through the traps and obstacles in their way.

Beyond just having to think on two different planes at the same time, the light and shadow play important roles in how the characters interact with their environments. Emma holds a lantern that casts light in real-time and casts shadows when blocked by relevant objects in the environment. Conversely, when players shift to Fenton, the world goes grayscale. The bear can walk on normal surfaces, but shadows (and certain world-specific substances like ink in the Boiler Room levels) are also walkable surfaces for him. Players will use Emma’s light to cast shadows on the ground that turn into platforms, ramps, and barriers for Fenton. It’s a fun interaction, and it’s been implemented in a satisfyingly creative way across the available puzzles.



The Right Amount of Challenge


I’m notoriously bad with puzzle games. I’ve never been good at puzzle-based video games, word puzzles, or spatial puzzles. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s just that I tend to get locked into one way of thinking and sometimes miss the forest for the trees. That being said, I enjoyed playing through Tandem. There were certainly challenging moments (and even a few that I embarrassingly needed to ask for help with), but I never felt like the puzzles were dependent on bizarre non-sequiturs or elements that don’t logically go together. There was always something obvious that I didn’t think of or a clever interaction that I wasn’t properly exploring. While every set of levels does a nice job of slowly adding in new puzzle elements to increase complexity, but it’s never too much at once.

All of this is made better by stellar visuals that give Tandem: A Tale of Shadows a thick layer of atmosphere. Everything has a sort of toy-like proportion that plays into the creepy fairytale vibe, and the levels are generally visually interesting and filled with detail. Each environment is backed with detail, and the visually distinct themes of each section keep things from getting stale.

A Few Frustrations


While my overall impression of Tandem: A Tale of Shadows is positive, there were a few frustrations and issues that did occasionally put a damper on my playtime. One fairly prevalent one was that Fenton would sometimes partially sink into shadows like quicksand. It would often happen during jumping. His foot would go partially into the dark platform, he’d sink in a little if I tried to move, and he’d be dropped out the other side to his death. It was never game-breaking since there’s no limited stock of lives, but it was occasionally frustrating if I was dealing with an already challenging puzzle. I was hoping that this would get fixed as I had the same complaint during an earlier preview build, but it still happened.

The other frustration - and this is more of a design decision than a bug - is that shadows are sometimes inconsistent. While traversing the levels as Emma, what shadows would “count” for Fenton and which wouldn’t wasn’t always predictable. The ones that count are slightly darker, but it was sometimes a bummer to think of an idea to solve a puzzle, move into position with Emma’s light, then see that it wasn’t a walkable shadow when I transitioned to Fenton. Sometimes the object wouldn’t cast a shadow at all. Again, this wasn’t game-breaking, and I get that things aren’t going to be entirely consistent for the sake of making the puzzles workable.

Tandem: A Tale of Shadows isn’t the first game to utilize dual-protagonist puzzle-solving, and it isn’t the first to use light and shadow as a puzzle mechanic, but it does do a great job of carving out its own niche in the genre with its presentation and puzzle creativity. The spooky atmosphere and charming presentation make this a perfect game to play in the midst of the Halloween season.


Remember to follow us on Instagram for reviews, news, competitions and more.

8.5

fun score

Pros

Beautiful environments and puzzle mechanics that are challenging without being overwhelming.

Cons

A few glitches and puzzle inconsistencies