Photography games have been on trend lately. Just last year among major publishers there’s been Pokémon Snap and the re-release of a maligned Fatal Frame game. You don’t have to look far to see that every triple-A game these days has a photo mode, but if you extend your gaze beyond that you’ll see independent developers have been the ones pushing the genre forward. Games like Umurangi Generation, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, and the upcoming Pupperazi show the emerging genre has as much range as, say, the first-person shooter.
TOEM is one of the most charming and recent examples in this space, a game about exploring and taking pictures as you move through pocket-sized communities. But TOEM didn’t start as a photo game. It began simply as a non-violent game that would allow the player to stop and appreciate the game’s illustrative art style. The original idea spawned from a conversation two friends had about leaving game development forever. TOEM might not be their Final Fantasy, but the heart-to-heart sparked the sketch that would become the basis for the game’s striking art style. The road ahead would be long.
“We scrapped the game five times before coming up with the photographing version,” says Niklas Mikkelson, one half of the two man team at SomethingWeMade. “Lucas [Gullbo] remembered a telescope idea he tested out and told me, maybe we can do a camera.”
With just a camera, a tripod, and a photo album at the player’s disposal, TOEM does a lot with a limited toolset. On the other end of the spectrum of complexity, we have Umurangi Generation, a game that is both a masterclass in environmental storytelling and a low-key photo tutorial. Throughout the game, the player is unlocking new lenses and editing tools at a pace that won’t overwhelm newcomers.
Naphtali Faulkner (who works under the handle Veselekov) wanted to make a game where editing was just as important as the picture taking.
“The fun of the act of photography is picking the right lens and the right edits.” Veselekov says, detailing the game’s two core design pillars. “There is a lot of depth to picking a lens. When you start to get into photography, [you realise] lenses can see beyond the human eye. That’s a really important feeling to capture in photography games.”
Two of the main inspirations for Umurangi’s level design were the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series and Jet Set Radio.
“[In Tony Hawk] you stop paying attention to the scoring and you are just doing what you enjoy, so I was a little inspired by making this recreational activity into a game without losing the recreational aspect of it,” Veselkov says. “They had the right model there – you have the freedom to do the mechanics but you have objectives to take you around the map. With Umurangi the photo bounties are spread out but we put them in places we want people to see.”
One example comes in the Macro DLC level, Gamer’s Palace. The level is a dystopian bar and arcade, with tunes pumped in by DJ Tariq. The game doesn’t outright tell you who and what Tariq is, but one of the level’s objectives is to snap a photo of the DJ. The objectives can be tackled in any order and – if you aren’t going for the bonuses – in any amount of time. Ultimately, players are going to see what Ves wants them to see, but like he says, “It’s like when you hype up a movie to your friends and then they’re like ‘well it wasn’t that good.'” You have to let people discover the excitement, and the meaning, for themselves.