Shadwen

Shadwen is a game that I so badly wanted to love but even with all its quirks and interesting mechanics, I couldn’t get past its bland levels, disappointing story and odd gameplay hiccups. A shame, really, as it could’ve been something special. Instead it’s nothing more than average, at best. The interesting gameplay mechanics found in Shadwen do little to hide the fact that the game is pretty boring and has a story that hardly amounts to anything.

A mediocre third-person stealth effort revolving around a singular gimmick that is both intriguing and also damning to its ambitions, Shadwen is nowhere near the lofty standard that we would expect from the house that Trine built.

Frozenbyte tries to deliver a stealth game with some unique gameplay dynamics, but it falls tremendously short: the AI is awful, the controls are inaccurate and awkward. The main gameplay feature, i.e. the idea of the time moving only when the player moves, simply doesn't work. A real missed opportunity.

Even though Shadwen introduce a clever basic idea it does nothing to expand on it. Every aspect of both the gameplay and the level design is so poor and repeated that it will make you feel like you play the same clumsy level for four hours.

A disappointing stealth title that could have been so much more, giving you little more than a few hours of enjoyment before everything begins to grate on you.

Repetitive, buggy, and hamstrung by underbaked design, Shadwen feels like an unfinished product. [July 2016, p.79]

Overall, I think Shadwen could be a good game, but for whatever reason I was unable to play it as the developer intended.

There's no reason to recommend Shadwen to anybody other than prospective game developers looking for a lesson in what not to do.

Lots of interestingly odd ideas but although the basic stealth action more or less works the escort element and poor AI ruins a potentially promising premise.