With a few tweaks it will be great!
First point, the 3 out of 5 is purely because of technical issues that should not exist in a commercially released game, not because of the gameplay. I will address the technical issues first, here:
1) Sound. The sound coming through on my headphones was unbalanced. Music and ambient sounds came from opposite speakers.
2) Controls. I played with a gamepad, and this worked well enough, though it seemed that it very easily bumped to the menu.
3) Mouse in the menus. That is, there is no mouse control in the menu system!
4) Screen timing out. While playing in full screen the monitor shut off repeatedly, as though I wasn't playing anything.
Onto the gameplay. I would give a 5 out of 5 for the gameplay. It is very easy to die in Schein, like in Limbo, though Schein doesn't quite have the same pathos to the main character's death.
You manipulate your environment with a wisp, a magical light, to solve puzzles by making hidden objects appear or disappear.
The name, Schein, is a bilingual pun. It sounds like "shine" in English. However, schein translates from German as "seem". "Es scheint" means it seems. This is a hint to how the wisp makes the world around seem different.
The wisp and the man talk throughout the journey. It reminds me, if anything, of the conversations between Zoya, Amadeus and Pontius from Trine, although sadder (the man has lost his son after all).
I will say that I am enjoying this game very much, despite the technical glitches.
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