Greenhouse: Schism

I regret not coming across this game before it went free. From the beginning alone, I can see that the effort was put in that would have convinced me to pick it up back then. The start already has enough hooks to insure I'll want to dig into this more, both for the plot, finding other out-of-the-way spells, or trying new strategies against bosses. If I ever see that the soundtrack makes its way onto Steam (or Bandcamp) as a purchase to support the Dev, I'll plan to pick it up.

I've followed this game since it was just Schism on itch.io, and it has come a far way! I love everything about it and it has a nice touch of challenge to it if you want to go for new game+ or hitless.

Greenhouse: Schism is a fast-paced fantasy action platformer that combines spell-driven combat, precise movement, and atmospheric exploration into a polished retro-inspired adventure. Developed primarily by Volpanic!, the game feels like a carefully crafted indie passion project that takes inspiration from classic side-scrolling action games while still building a distinct identity through its magical world and challenging gameplay systems. Rather than focusing on massive open-world exploration or endless progression mechanics, the experience stays tightly focused on skill-based combat, environmental traversal, and rewarding boss encounters. The game takes place inside the Acri forest, a once-thriving magical region connected to several covens that maintained peace through the power of shared magic. As players travel deeper into the world, the atmosphere gradually shifts from vibrant fantasy landscapes into something darker and more unstable. The setting itself becomes one of the game’s strongest qualities because every area feels carefully designed to reinforce the sense of mystery surrounding the collapsing magical world. Ancient ruins, glowing forests, abandoned structures, and dangerous wilderness all combine to create a fantasy environment that feels visually rich despite the game’s relatively small scale. Combat is where Greenhouse: Schism truly stands out. Instead of relying on repetitive melee attacks, the game centers heavily around spell-based abilities that players unlock and combine throughout progression. Each spell introduces different combat possibilities and traversal mechanics, encouraging experimentation and adaptation during encounters. Battles become increasingly fast and aggressive as enemy patterns grow more complex, forcing players to fully understand movement timing, attack ranges, and spell combinations. The controls feel responsive enough to support the demanding pace, making combat satisfying even during difficult encounters. Boss fights are easily among the most memorable parts of the experience. Every major encounter introduces unique attack patterns and combat mechanics that require observation and precision rather than simple brute force. Some bosses overwhelm players with projectiles and environmental hazards, while others focus on aggressive close-range attacks that demand constant movement and quick reactions. These encounters rarely feel repetitive because each boss carries a distinct identity and combat rhythm. Victories feel rewarding because success usually comes from mastering mechanics and improving execution rather than relying purely on upgrades. Platforming also plays a major role throughout the adventure. Movement begins fairly simple but gradually expands as players unlock additional traversal abilities that improve mobility and exploration. Jumping, dashing, and navigating environmental hazards become increasingly important during later stages where platforming sequences grow more challenging. The game clearly embraces classic action-platformer design philosophy where precision and timing matter just as much as combat skill. Once movement abilities fully open up, traversing the world becomes consistently enjoyable. Exploration is handled through interconnected level design filled with hidden paths, optional rooms, and collectible upgrades scattered throughout the six major areas of the game. The world rewards curiosity by hiding useful resources and secrets behind platforming challenges or less obvious environmental routes. This encourages players to revisit earlier areas with newly unlocked abilities in order to uncover previously inaccessible content. While the game is not a massive Metroidvania, it still creates a satisfying sense of progression through environmental discovery and hidden rewards. Visually, Greenhouse: Schism delivers strong pixel-art presentation that gives the world a colorful and energetic personality. The environments are detailed enough to feel lively without becoming visually cluttered, and the magical aesthetic helps the game maintain a distinct atmosphere from beginning to end. Forest areas glow with magical energy, ruins feel ancient and mysterious, and enemy designs carry enough variety to remain visually interesting throughout the adventure. Character animations are somewhat simpler than those found in larger indie platformers, but the overall art direction remains cohesive and appealing. The soundtrack also contributes heavily to the experience. Exploration themes carry a mysterious and adventurous tone, while boss music becomes more energetic and intense during difficult encounters. Combined with satisfying spell effects and combat audio, the sound design helps make battles feel impactful while reinforcing the fantasy atmosphere during quieter exploration segments. The game’s music consistently supports the pacing well without becoming repetitive or intrusive. One of the game’s biggest strengths is how focused it feels. Greenhouse: Schism never tries to overwhelm players with unnecessary mechanics or bloated progression systems. Every major feature directly supports the core gameplay loop of combat, movement, and exploration. That focus gives the adventure a satisfying rhythm and prevents the experience from becoming weighed down by filler content. However, the game does have some noticeable shortcomings. Difficulty spikes can occasionally feel harsh, especially during later boss encounters and more demanding platforming sections. Some sequences require extremely precise movement and repeated attempts, which may frustrate players who prefer more forgiving platformers. The challenge generally feels fair, but the game clearly expects players to learn through repetition and persistence. The overall scope is also relatively small compared to larger action platformers and Metroidvania titles. While the focused design helps pacing remain consistent, some players may finish the game wishing for additional areas, enemy variety, or expanded gameplay mechanics. The world is memorable, but the adventure itself is fairly compact once players become familiar with its systems. There are also a few minor rough edges typical of smaller indie projects. Certain enemy encounters feel unevenly balanced, and some platforming sections could benefit from slightly smoother visual readability. These issues are relatively minor overall, but they occasionally interrupt the otherwise polished flow of gameplay. Even with those flaws, Greenhouse: Schism succeeds because of the passion and personality visible throughout the entire experience. The game captures the appeal of classic action platformers while adding enough modern design elements and magical combat mechanics to feel distinct. It understands the importance of responsive gameplay, rewarding exploration, and memorable boss fights, and it delivers all three with confidence. For players who enjoy retro-inspired platformers, challenging combat-focused adventures, and fantasy worlds filled with exploration and magic systems, Greenhouse: Schism offers a rewarding and highly enjoyable indie experience. While its smaller scale and demanding difficulty may not appeal to everyone, the satisfying combat, atmospheric world design, and polished gameplay make it a standout title for fans of skill-based action platformers. Rating: 7/10

Random Scuffed Games #410 https://twitch.tv/DitoMido Aktuelle Spielequeue: https://rsg.ditomido.de Bisherige Reviews Archiv: https://rsg.ditomido.de/archive Vorgeschlagen von: Rittersternchen Greenhouse: Schism ist ein Platformer mit verschiedenen Gegnertypen, Bossen und Angriffsfähigkeiten, die das erstaunlich Umfangreich gestalten. Meine einzigen Kritikpunkte für eine Verbesserung wären: - Eine klar definierte Input Angabe für Controller - Mehr Variation im Hintergrund. Die Ecken der Flächen sehen teilweise gut gestaltet aus, blöd nur, dass sehr viel der Flächen komplett gefüllt sind und somit einfach "nur" ein dunkelgründer Hintergrund besteht, es könnte etwas mehr Liebe in der Gestaltung vertragen - Die Musik ist okay, aber nicht unbedingt zu jeder Szene Passend und oft gerade bei bossen fehlt etwas der Oomph- Effekt. - Das Teaserbild ist wirklich hübsch. schade, dass die Charaktere kein Closeup in den Textboxen erhalten haben, um klarer zu verstehen wer gerade spricht und wie man sich die Charaktere und ihre Reaktionen & Emotionen auf die Welt vorstellen kann. Rating: Dito: 4.1/5 Chat: 3.71/5 Gesamt: 3.9/5

Sorry, but this game is kind of tedious to play. The combat doesn't feel very good. Most enemies seem to just be really annoying to fight, and it's almost always better to just walk past them instead of trying to fight them. Platforming is alright, but it feels pretty basic, almost like the combat was meant to play a more important role (but again, it's usually less annoying to just ignore the combat). Save points take up far too much time to use, so it's just a big speed bump a lot of the time, and that hurts the game flow. There seems to be a story, but it just kind of drops you into a bunch of words that don't have enough context to mean anything. Another annoyance is something that's a little more specific to my setup, but the game is locked to 60 fps. This would normally be a good thing, but I have a 144hz display, so it has constant frame timing issues and makes the game feel really jerky. There's potential here, and for a free game, it feels kind of harsh to give it a thumbs down. It definitely needs polish, and it could be a more enjoyable game with more work. But as it is right now, I don't think it's really worth the time when there are so many other options out there (even free ones).

Bastante corto, pero muy entretenido. Se nota la inspiración a Cave Story, tanto en el Gameplay como la ambientación. La banda sonora es relajante y agradable. Diría que lo complicado puede ser lo tosco que a veces se siente mover al personaje, en especial el doble salto, pero cuando le coges el truco, te acostumbras. De la historia no puedo decir mucho, pues esta en ingles, pero por lo que pude entender, esta bastante buena; vale la pena. La verdad, si lo recomiendo. Me siento mal no pagar por este juego, pues me entere del mismo justo hoy de que se volvió gratis, pero me hubiera gustado pagar por el para apoyar al creador, considero que lo merece por traer una joyita muy buena e interesante.

Well, I've never been one to write Steam reviews, but considering the developer's humbleness of wanting the game to be played even without buying it, I feel like at least giving them the thoughts of the game that they wanted is fair game. The game seemed charming, adventurous and chill with a nice little plot that seemed like it could easily trap me... But I can't say that I was as immersed as I hoped or as relaxed as I thought, the latter probably being my own fault for expecting something chill when the game never really promoted itself on being "chill". The premise of a magical world with a past that builds and is revealed throughout the game is certainly one that has been done before but with different worlds, and I was expecting this one to be engaging or even fascinating, and yet, I can't say I was ever hooked, perhaps I missed some secrets or I just didn't read carefully enough, because I found myself not really engaging with the story that was being told, neither the past or the present were set in a way that made me understand it well enough, and I wouldn't like to be too comparative to other indie games that clearly had a lot more time spent on them, but Celeste had a simple premise with a slow build up that left just enough to leave you wanting more and more until the climax that was truly satisfying, and Hollow Knight, even if it might seem like an unfair comparison, set the past of the Hollownest very slowly, meeting charming characters with their own personalities while also letting the player figure out the world through the dialogue and also by it's own mind. There is a chance most of it was supposed to be left to interpretation, but with that said, I cannot say that any of what was shown was satisfying, but it could be a subjective thing. Now talking about the gameplay, it was simple but effective, leaving room for discovery and comfort to what the player wanted to use while also providing enemies that required certain attacks to be dealt with properly, though mentioning that, there were a good amount of enemies that didn't really seem challenging but more annoying than anything, they had notable patterns but those patterns only made me a bit more frustrated, like the enemies in the last area, especially that dragon that follows you around without you being able to damage it at all, or the flowers that you had to kill to also make the heart barrier disappear because of their projectiles, if it can be called difficulty spike then I'd like to say that it was not of my enjoyment. Lastly, of my complaints at least, the rhythm of the game didn't feel too natural, mainly in the last part, not only do we get exposition that we don't really have much context to, but also two boss fights that didn't really feel like they were built up to, of course most boss fights weren't build up to, but these came to a complete surprise, being the most difficult of the game and yet it didn't feel gratifying to defeat them, especially with the abrupt ending, of course I understand this is still about letting there be interpretation about the story, but it leaves a bitter taste, like the destination of the journey didn't build of most if any of the already exposed stuff within the story. Now with these things said, I enjoyed the game, it was a nice little time waster that reminded me a little of Celeste and made me want to try some Megaman games since I've never really played any of them. But if you'd like to hear my positives, some of the mechanics are nicely built, all spells felt useful on their own way considering some enemies that had an actual good behaviour design behind them, and a level structure that was fun even if sometimes mildly frustrating but overall very very fun, and with a soundtrack that was really soothing. Also, the game has a very nice art style, reminding me a little of Cave Story, and a few boss fights that even if they're nothing to write home about, leave a nice challenge that feels fun and makes you want to understand the patterns. There are other things I feel neutral about, like the companion that we have which really doesn't compare to other companions, and doesn't really feel like much of a character most of the time, or the statues within the salt caves which left me with not much of a thought. Now, i do recommend this game! I think it's more than good enough for someone to get truly hooked on the story! And if not, then I'd say that for a fan of 2D platformers, it's a nice little treat to spend your time in! Rating: 6.5/10

This positive review is just to encourage the developer (the game is F2P anw). THE FACTS: - The keyboard or console selection interface upon opening the game was very unfriendly. I didn't even know what to press, thought the game had frozen, so I Alt-F4 to exit and reopen it... Then I just pressed the Z key about 2-3 times to get into the game's tutorial. - The feature buttons seem completely fixed, as I couldn't access Options/Settings or any similar interface using the ESC key. - Pressing X to fire feel like the character is farting from her navel. - The sound and visual effects are truly lackluster.