Tandem: A Tale of Shadows is a puzzle-platformer developed by Monochrome Paris and published by Hatinh Interactive. The shadowy world of Tandem: A Tale of Shadows is filled with fantastic puzzle designs, with new ideas being thrown in at a steady pace that keep the player engaged until the ending.
Tandem: A Tale of Shadows is set in Victorian London and stars a young girl named Emma, who learns that a boy named Thomas Kane has vanished without a trace. Kane is the young son of a famous and eccentric family of magicians, and their strange home has stumped the police. She decides to investigate the Kane Mansion herself. On the way, a teddy bear falls from a speeding carriage, and to her surprise, it springs to its feet and starts running to the mansion. Emma names the teddy bear Fenton, and the two enter the mysterious Kane Mansion, in order to find the missing child.
Fenton has the ability to walk on walls, which is key to the main gameplay loop of Tandem: A Tale of Shadows, as he and Emma exist on parallel planes. The player controls Emma from a top-down perspective, while Fenton is on a 2D stage above her. The goal of each stage is to use Emma to guide Fenton to the next piece of the key that is used to explore more of the mansion, with the player able to switch between them at any time. The player must use Emma to influence the environment to create shadow bridges, which can be done in a number of different ways, such as using a lamp near barriers. As the game progresses, it introduces new gimmicks, such as living jelly platforms that will devour each other to make bigger platforms, moths that move from lamp to lamp that can devour Fenton if he gets too close, and sword-wielding toy soldiers that will attack Emma if she is spotted by the giant eyeballs that line the halls.
The level and puzzle design in Tandem: A Tale of Shadows is fantastic, thanks to the game shaking up the formula with new additions every few stages, and keeping the various elements for solving the puzzles within arms reach at all times. The dual-world aspect of the gameplay also leads to some great timing puzzles, with the player needing to keep the shadow bridges and platforms displayed with Emma while Fenton races against the clock. Tandem: A Tale of Shadows packs a lot of content into its 4-5 hour runtime, and the puzzles never become formulaic or stale.
The aesthetics of Tandem: A Tale of Shadows are also fantastic. The game is inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton films, and Sherlock Holmes, all joined together by the Victorian steampunk inventions that exist throughout the Kane Mansion. The world map of Tandem: A Tale of Shadows is broken up into five different levels, each of which has its own unique look and feel, such as the kitchen and its massive living desserts, or the boiler room and its mechanical monstrosities. Each stage is bursting with little flourishes, as well as a few hidden secrets to discover. The soundtrack for Tandem: A Tale of Shadows complements these aesthetics well, with a number of creepy tunes that haunt Emma's footsteps.
It bears mentioning that Tandem: A Tale of Shadows does suffer from some minor glitches at launch, most of which are connected to the shadow bridges and Fenton. The malleable nature of the environment means that the game sometimes struggles to register whether something is a platform or not, but these are rare, and the checkpoint system prevents from setting the player back too far.
Tandem: A Tale of Shadows is a short game, but each stage is well-crafted, with the puzzles being just difficult enough to make the player feel smart for solving them, while never being so obtuse that they become frustrating. The creepy world of toys and monsters in the Kane Manor is a lot of fun to explore, and learning how to change the shape of shadows to the player's need stays intriguing until the end.
Tandem: A Tale of Shadows will be released for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on October 21, 2021. Screen Rant was provided with a digital code for the PC version of the game for the purposes of this review.
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