Virtual Photography
This originally appeared as part of my Prime Lenses Newsletter. You can sign up for a weekly update here.
Inspired by my guest this week and a love of videogames that has run through my entire life the topic for the newsletter this week is games that feature photography. These aren’t games that have a photo mode in them but rather are games where you use a camera or photo mechanic to progress. This isn’t an exhaustive list, Petapixel wrote a good article about this too but these ones appeal to me :)
First up, I spoke to Jannik about their game this week on the show. In Shutter Stroll you walk around a series of procedurally generated landscapes using the world’s most versatile zoom lens which defaults to everyone’s current favourite of 40mm. The many islands of the game are all different, experiencing different weather, different times of day and presenting a variety of colourful landscapes and artefacts to photograph.
The object of the game is to take your time.
Shutter stroll for PC
At the other end of the spectrum is Beyond Good and Evil which was one of the best action adventures games of the early 2000s enjoying an HD remake and very long running rumours of a sequel. In the game our protagonist Jade is given photo assignments where she must upload photos to a scientific institute she’s gathering information for. It’s super fun and makes the camera an integral part of the game, not just a gimmick. It’s still nifty to this day and I hope that if the sequel ever does see light of day a camera features.
Jade from Beyond Good and Evil
My next camera choice is Toem, a fantastic little game that is perfect for me as it combines two things I love. A sub 10 hour play time with a neat little story and photography. The thing I love about Toem is that the adventure moves forward based on photos that you manage to capture as you explore different locations. It’s like a Richard Scary book with all these little stories within the story playing out. The camera switches the perspective from a top down view to the eye level of the character and in a world made up of 3D versions of line drawings this perspective shift is really cool and must have been quite hard to make. Quite often 3D objects in games have to be made in a funny way to make them look right for the position of the camera. Moving in and out like this must have presented a lot of challenges.
Next we’re going on Safari! Pokémon Snap is a typically Nintendo take on an old format, the on rails shooter. These games were popular in arcades in the 90s. The level would always play out the same and you were rewarded for shoving quarters in the machine and learning where all the enemies and special bonuses were hidden with a high score and bragging rights. Games like Virtua Cop, Mad Dog McCree and House of the Dead dominated the genre, later making way for variations like Time Crisis and Point Blank. Then Nintendo went and did something wonderful and crazy, something they’re known for, and made Pokémon Snap for N64. In Pokémon Snap instead of shooting monsters you shoot, well, pocket-monsters, using a camera. It was a lovely idea for a game where your journey through a landscape was interrupted by the appearance of a variety of weird and wonderful Pokémon that you could photograph. The images you captured would then be reviewed and rated and the aim was to achieve a certain level of proficiency before moving on to the next level/ unlocking other stages.
N64 graphics aren’t aging well
A sequel came to Nintendo Switch a couple of years back and while it’s more polished and contains a ton more Pokémon it was essentially the same game with the added bonus that now you could easily share your images on social media direct from the system.
A fun little nugget is that Satoru Iwata is listed as a Producer on the first game which came out a few years before he took over as CEO of Nintendo in 2002.
The camera in New Pokémon Snap for Switch looks like a Leica TL2 from the future
Viewfinder was described by many as the best puzzle game of last year by PC Gamer. Similar to games like Monument Valley and Echochrome for PSP mixed with a bot of Portal it riffs on playing with perspective and using your environment. You take pictures of elements that will help you later to bridge gaps or solve puzzles. The less I say before you look at it the better TBH, it’s just so cool.
Viewfinder on PC
All of these games asked you to use a virtual camera, but what if you could build your own? Nintendo Labo was a series of games for Nintendo Switch that allowed you to construct models from cardboard that the Switch console could slot into to make new and exciting gameplay experiences. One such experience was a camera which came as part of the fourth set released for Labo. The idea that a modern corporation would greenlight something like this is truly miraculous. It’s a video game toy that requires you to assemble something out of cardboard and I love it. The game guides you through construction step-by-step and there’s even advice on when to stop for a rest.
The camera mode was pretty limited but it was fun to use a Switch as a VR device to see into another world, rotating the controller in the lens barrel to zoom. It’s hard to get hold of now but Labo was such a cool thing to show people who don’t play a lot of games to reassure them that there’s creative value in gaming.
VR makes you look cool!