The Case of Scary Shadows is a game by Ticklebot and it’s a real nice time waster made in flash.

You play as a cute bear running around a looping forest, stocking up on acorns and honey. The game’s based apparently based on a folk belief that a bear awakening from hibernation shouldn’t look at their own shadow. Never heard of it, but I’ll take the creator’s word for it. So, this folk belief leads into the game’s gimmick of being chased by shadows. As you collect acorns, shadows start to form behind you, copying your every move. Dare to turn your back or run into one and it’s game over.

On the surface, it seems easy to avoid the bear’s shadows, especially with the looping screen mechanic. However, every so often, a jar of honey appears at the top of the screen, initially worth 4 points. It seems tantalizing, given that acorns only give 1 point, but doing so unleashes the wrath of the bees. God not the bees. The bees join the chase, homing in on you through flight and passing through platforms. Unlike your shadows, the bees do not follow you through looping screens, simply turning around as you emerge on the other side. The bees really throw a wrench into the scheme of things, buzz-buzzing and shit as they limit your options, allowing the shadows to either catch up or forcing you toward the parade of shadows you’ve built up. Eventually the bees will disappear, but the jar of honey will appear again, this time worth 4 more points than its previous incarnation and it’s just too tempting not to get. As for the shadows, you can get one to disappear if you catch a firefly, which will take off some of the heat.

There is a leaderboard, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be online enabled. But here’s my scores, under Darian and NoName. The leaderboard also offers some optional goals, if you feel like aiming for higher, giving more incentive to keep playing. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to meet any of them, but heck maybe you’ll do better than me.

The game looks cute and controls nice. I like the small screenshakes every time the bear lands and the music’s energetic. It’s simple, addicting and a good way to kill some time.