Phenixx Gaming

I’ve always hated the derision that the walking simulator genre gets, even if I understand why some rightfully do get slated for their lack of gameplay or ideas. One thing I’ve never hated in any game, ever (since the dawn of time itself) is a photo mode. Be it taking pictures in F1 games and getting them just right with the shutter speed to show the speed of the cars, or more action-focused games, where I try (and often fail) to catch the moment of a clanging blade or the explosion of powder from a gun barrel.

Photography in games is one of my favorite things because we can, in an instant, take Wild West shots in one game and alien/sci-fi shots in another. Step up Matt Newell and Annapurna Interactive’s latest title, Lushfoil Photography Sim, a game that is nothing but photography in different places across the globe. It may not be action-focused or anything like that, but Lushfoil Photography Sim is more about using the tools of photography to explore and see things differently while exploring the world, from Italy to China. Maybe not the whole world, but certainly some of it.

With minor objectives to unlock levels and certain modes within each level, there is a lot to do if you’re of a certain mindset. Unlike other games with photo modes as extras, like Spider-Man or Red Dead Redemption 2, Lushfoil Photography Sim is entirely based around still life and natural beauty. There aren’t figures to capture or too much wildlife around. Then again, there are at least two maps in Australia, so we can be thankful for that. The first Japanese level at the 伏見稲荷大社 in Kyoto does have several sleeping cats, and in one particular case, a fox running through the forest.

A lot of the maps are complex mazes of real-life places “artistically” remade and blocked off with invisible walls, only sometimes marked with bushes and rocks. While the only “real” gameplay is taking a couple of photos, which is more complicated than that but for explanation purposes, that’s what it is. Now typically that’s “boring,” and several other things would be said about how you aren’t capturing pictures of fighter jets at air shows or musical performances at a concert, which I admit would be “more interesting” to a wider audience.

Lushfoil Photography Sim is more about teaching you how complex and difficult it is to get those interesting, cool shots. It’s a simulator in the same way Euro Truck Sim 2 and the likes are, not your Supermarket Simulator and Gas Station Simulator. It’s doing a really niche, boring thing that only 12 people (and me) want to do, that only video games can offer. I mean in this economy, walking around Seneca Village, Japan, and Italy in quick succession, all while trying to take cool, interesting, visually striking images this quickly has never been so cheap.

Though it isn’t just about taking random images. There are quite a few collectibles for each location, with Australia being sunscreen or Deep Heat, but also throughout the maps, you’ll find boards which sometimes have framed photos from around said map. I hate saying “that’s the real gameplay” because, to a degree, it is exploration and lining things up somewhat reasonably, but it’s also not that difficult. The parameters for getting the shot just right are quite relaxed, so it isn’t about getting the exposure just right or whatever.

After you end up completing a board’s worth of photos, you’ll unlock something more that I think is difficult to talk about without really spoiling some of Lushfoil’s, shall we say, less talked about portions on the Steam page. There is something more going on than just a lot of hiking around taking pictures, but that’s certainly what a good portion happens to be. Completing some of the objectives throughout levels in Lushfoil Photography Sim will however, unlock variations on levels.

The first Australia map is that of Castle Rock Beach during the day, which looks stunning. Then after a while, either exploring or through unlocks, you’ll get the same location but in that evening, the sunset hour, where everything gets a little darker and bathed in golden browns. It is stunning. Then you get the final image, and you’re reminded that as beautiful as it is, 60 million acres of land will just be destroyed by idiots, mishandling of land, and freaks of nature. Matt Newell, an Australian himself, highlighted what was termed Black Summer.

The bush fire itself might not look too impressive visually, and to a degree, I can’t fault that. In fact, despite running in Unreal Engine 5, there are still some of those Unreal problems I think we’ve all had or noticed at some point. It’s not every rock, tree, ground texture, or otherwise, but sometimes things look a little like plastic. The water in Castle Rock is a good example, maybe not when you’re trying to capture the whale and the sunset in the distance, but on one of the toys that you collect (a boogie board/surfboard), it means getting up close can make the water look like wobbly jelly.

Without actively running into spoilers of where things go, because I’d hardly call the sequence of events a story, there isn’t much to say. Through the exploration, you’ll pick up older cameras alongside your DSLR, one of them is a camcorder, while another is a disposable thing that is old and looks horrible. I love it. Lushfoil Photography Sim is a series of sandboxes where you can take pictures, which is so niche that there is just me and five other people who are excited by that concept. All of us are having the best time.

The tools, such as depth of field, shutter speed, and things like that, are easy enough to get to grips with the basics, but hard to really “master.” Much like the exploration and discovery of more toys to play with or tools to use, it is about playing around and finding what works for you. As a game to showcase “Hey, this is how complex this is, you can’t just pull out an iPhone and get perfect shots every time,” Lushfoil Photography Sim succeeds in that regard for me. Even if, and this may entirely be me blowing smoke here, it is a touch pretentious if you take it that way.

One thing that isn’t exactly a success is the performance, not entirely anyway. Be it the day of the week, the direction of the wind, the color of your socks, or whatever, there were a couple of times when I’ve seen Lushfoil Photography Sim drop a few frames here or there. As usual, I’m playing on a PC that’s got an i7, 32GB of RAM, and a 40 series RTX card, which meets or exceeds the recommended specs. Running at 1080P, I’d managed to get a decent target of 60 for a good while with practically every graphical setting set as high as they’ll go.

However, in some sections of some maps, there will be a drop down to the late 40s in terms of frame rates. From what I could figure out with the menu system, which isn’t exactly the easiest to play around with, draw distance and details weren’t the issues. Set as high or as low as those settings will go, there would still be some dropped frames. Maybe I just don’t have the patience to muck about too long in graphical settings, but I more often than not plowed ahead through the dropped frame rate.

The latest update at the time of writing did, however, seemingly cause some visual issues. At some point in the week of the 21st to 25th of April, there was an update that has resulted in textures unloading for some reason or another. I noticed this early on with distant reflections in water, and I understand it with the likes of that, but when you’re two feet from a rock and it unloads, there is a bit more frustration. Any other game that’s fine, it’s immersion-breaking, but not integral to the gameplay.

I think for the first time in my life, I’m going to say that a game absolutely depends on its graphical fidelity. Lushfoil Photography Sim is, without a shadow of a doubt, a game that depends on what you see and how sharp it is, unlike most games. Yes, you want to be able to see, and you want the textures to be consistent throughout other games, but Lushfoil Photography Sim requires those things for its gameplay to work. The gameplay is the pretty tree covered in snow, it is the reflection or the object in the distance that seems to pull your interest.

When the performance is stable and the textures load in properly, Lushfoil Photography Sim is practically everything it wants to be. Everything I’d want out of a game like this. It is stunning, it has simple but deep camera settings at the same time, and has enough toys to find and collectibles to discover to keep it interesting. Maybe I could do with a better filter/settings to take black and white shots, and while we’re at it, there are plenty of other places than Asia, Australia, Italy, and France for interesting locations. Though that’s me being nitpicky.

Ultimately, Lushfoil Photography Sim is, barring a photography game based around live events, everything such a game should be. When an odd graphical bug isn’t hampering the experience, it is stunning, and in one or two instances, I think even vague knowledge of a featured location makes it easier to navigate. My biggest gripes are wanting a couple more maps (Scotland, Death Valley, somewhere in Africa?), slightly more control of the camera, and a smoother graphical experience. In two out of three of those, they are every developer’s dream gripes for anyone to have. What else can I say? I still want more.

A PC review copy of Lushfoil Photography Sim was provided by Annapurna Interactive for this review.

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Lushfoil Photography Sim

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Simple controls and camera settings to play with.
• Varied locations, mostly.
• Tons of exploration and things to take pictures of, even without loads of action.

Cons

• Some performance issues.
• I could do with a few more maps.