PHOTOGRAPHS by EightyEight Games

PHOTOGRAPHS (EightyEight Games, 2019)

Set off in the distance, you’re given a camera, looking to take photos of their lives: whether it be a grand-father and grand-daughter playing their favorite game, a diver perfecting her craft, or strangers working together to survive. Each photo is set with a small puzzle, each style different for each arc, that progresses the time line before taking the next photo. Each photo taken dives deeper into the lives of these five individuals, all the way to the climax of each arc, showing what went wrong, and our character’s wishes.

comment by thatdiesel

[…] As a photographer all the little details were a nice touch- seeing the camera settings change with the scene and even with cursor movement put a smile on my face.

The photographs are just a framing device for the story as it moves along. The experience is all about the stories.

comment by whythecynic

source: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1008920/Photographs/

source: https://lucaredwood.itch.io/photographs

Snapshot Adventures – The Secret of Bird Island

Snapshot Adventures – The Secret of Bird Island (iWin, Large Animal Games, 2007).

 

Take your best shot at bird photography in this cross-country adventure! Solve the mysterious disappearance of your grandfather as you travel through dozens of locations armed with nothing but a standard 35mm camera and a field guide.  You’ll need to photograph a variety of birds in their natural habitat using special items you can collect along the way. Create and share your birds while building the portfolio of a lifetime with Snapshot Adventures!

source: https://www.alawar.com/game/snapshot-adventures-secret-of-bird-island/

Freeze me

Freeze me (Rainy Night Creations, 2015) employs a camera with magical abilities as a core game mechanics. Taking pictures freezes the objects photographed, transforming the metaphor of the freezing of time through photographic capture into a feature usually seen in game weapons.

FreezeME is a A 3D platformer in the style of the 90s-era but wait there is a twist! The main character “R” has one special tool – a camera around her neck. This camera allows her to literally freeze the objects she photographs.

source: https://store.steampowered.com/app/390210/FreezeME/

Lost: Via Domus

Lost: Via Domus (Ubisoft, 2008) is a game spin off of the Lost TV series, where you play a photo journalist named Elliott Maslow who loses his memory in a plane crash.

The game employs the use of flashbacks as a storytelling device, much like the television show, and gamifies the act of photographic capture as a way to retrieve memories. Framing, focusing and zooming are realistically simulated in-game, while the function of the photographic act is given the supernatural power to “cure” the protagonist’s amnesia.

The Amazon Trail (1993)

The Amazon Trail (MECC, 1993) is an educational game where you play a naturalist taking and identifying photos of all plants and animals you encounter in the journey.

HunieCam Studio (2016)

A game about explicit voyeurism and sex in Manga-style which deals with photography to some extent, too. While the player can satisfy a male gaze on all sorts of female parts (the Steam-version of the game is edited in terms of explicitness compared to the non-Steam version), the lack of male subjects to voyeurism makes this game suspicious of promoting a tiny bit of sexism.

From the game’s greenmangaming.com description:

Courtesy Warning: The sexual themes in this game are mostly for fun/humor and don’t make for particularly great fapping material.

In HunieCam Studio players take control of a sleazy cam girl operation. Rake in stacks of filthy internet money and attract as many disgusting fans as you can in this fast paced, click happy and thoroughly perverted take on the business tycoon / management sim genre!

Recruit cam models from an eclectic cast of cuties who have probably made some poor life choices. Manage your girls’ daily errands/activities to keep them stress-free and productive. Invest in various aspects of your business to improve functions and expand operations. Optimize your cam shows by promoting girls who match popular trends/fetishes. Abandon your morals and disappoint everybody who cares about you!

Shutter

Shutter is a 2015 horror game by Cosmic Logic where players have to control a camera equipped RC vehicle. The aim of the game is to take pictures, which get assigned to the player as he/she progresses. The photos taken need to uploaded and the camera gets upgraded throughout the game (with specific modifications like night vision, spectral vision, etc.).

Re-live a dark and haunting tale in this fixed camera puzzle-horror game RE-miniscent of the first generation of survival horror games. Using both CCTV cameras and your upgradable RC surveillance unit, you have to keep your eyes and ears sharp in order to take photos and unearth a chilling event that unfolded years ago.

source: http://store.steampowered.com/app/359560/

1000 Heads Among The Trees

1000 Heads Among The Trees is 2015 horror game developed by Aaron Oldenburg. Photography plays a central role in the game as players need to take pictures of people and things, but also share these pictures with characters met throughout the game. Here photographs can be shown to characters who will give more information about the subjects and locations in the photographs.

Visit a quiet town in the Peruvian desert at night searching for spirits and taking photos, then sharing these pictures with locals who tell improvised stories about them. […]

• Use your photography as a means of conversing with non-player characters, revealing what they see as well as what they imagine.

[…]

• Discover that your camera is not just a passive recorder, but that its act of observation can change the environment.

[…]

• Export and share your photos.

source: http://store.steampowered.com/app/406730/

Trauma

Trauma is a 2011 by Krystian Majewski game that uses photographic concepts of framing, zooming and taking a snapshot as ways to navigate through dreams of the main character.

TRAUMA tells a story of a young woman who survives a car accident. Recovering at the hospital, she has dreams that shed light on different aspects of her identity – such as the way she deals with the loss of her parents. TRAUMA lets you experience those dreams in an interactive way, reminiscent of Point-and-Click Adventure Games. It builds upon this established formula by introducing a gesture-based interface, real-time 3D technology for dynamic level layouts, unique photographic visuals and a level design philosophy that focuses on creating a rich experience rather than an elaborate puzzle challenge. Combined with the unconventional story, it is aimed to be a compact and deep game for a literate and mature audience.

source: http://www.traumagame.com/

1979 Revolution

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what about a videogame? The first episode of 1979 Revolution, a game that places you in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis, speaks to just how important visibility can be when corruption and misinformation run rampant. You play as Reza, a photographer tasked with capturing the chaos of the regime change and subsequent protests. In this context, a picture becomes as dangerous as a stray bullet, rendering you a big target. A well-researched passion project from creator Navid Khonsari, 1979 takes you back to this important moment in history with a Telltale-style branching narrative. The consequences of your actions are palpable, your choices affecting the families and the splintered factions forming around you. Pushing both the medium and player to new heights, 1979‘s first episode can not only educate an unaware American audience, but also help us see our own role in the turmoil (source: Killscreen)

 

see also: https://killscreen.com/articles/1979-revolutions-to-explore-the-black-friday-massacre-this-april/

find the game here: http://inkstories.com/1979RevolutionGame/