When I think of photography in video games my mind always jumps to Pokémon Snap, but those of you less stuck in the past probably think of all manner of photo modes in gorgeous AAA titles. Getting great action shots or ambient snaps for your socials has never been easier, with some people posting gallery rivaling in-game photos that never cease to blow me away. Whether you love photo mode or real life photography you’ll likely adore Lushfoil Photography Sim, for obvious reasons.
With numerous unique locations to explore, Lushfoil Photography Sim is all about taking in the beauty of the world we live in and capturing it on film. There’s a real variety of locations to check out, and they’re impressively large as well as visually interesting. Just by walking around the beaches of Australia or peaks of France you’ll find all sorts of views, plants or buildings to frame perfectly, and with a bit of practice your DSLR camera will enable you to snap a masterpiece.
Now I’m no photography expert, and I have a severe lack of knowledge about things like exposure and aperture, which are essentially gobbledygook as far as I’m concerned. Using your camera in Lushfoil Photography Sim, though, is thankfully pretty simple at first. It just requires you to point, partially squeeze the shoulder button to focus on the central point, and fully squeeze to take the picture. This is all you’ll ever really need to capture the beauty of the game, but if you’re feeling fancy then there’s so much more to mess with.
Thankfully for me these extra camera settings are explained at special tutorial points, which are totally optional but really good at educating photography newcomers. Before I could say cheese I was using manual focus to get more interesting shots, changing filters, and using all sorts of other settings available at the touch of a D-Pad. I was really not expecting to get stuck into the nitty gritty of photography, but it was worth it for the good of the photos.
Not content with featuring in-depth photography simulation, Lushfoil Photography Sim also has a more playful side. Each stage has hidden items you can mess around with, that make for great photos. Throwing a paper aeroplane for the purposes of photography is simply entertaining, as is flying a kite or two with gorgeous snowy hills in the background. There are also bonus cameras to find around the stages, of varying quality. Using an old school digital camera to take horrendous pics is nostalgic and slightly ridiculous, although I’m sure those more into the hobby will find clever uses for these bits of kit.
The blend of hiking in nature and photography that Lushfoil Photography Sim provides is lovely, but there’s more to the game than that. To unlock new maps you need to find collectible items littered throughout the landscape, and take photos of specific places. You can find the specific photos you need to match on notice boards, and then it’s up to you to figure out where to recreate this image. It’s a nice idea, but ultimately caused my biggest issue with the game.
With it taking so much effort to unlock new maps, you really have to focus on these tasks to progress. This focus for me just meant I stopped paying attention to my surroundings for photo taking and enjoying the nature vibes, and instead ignored all this so I could try to desperately unlock everything so I could go back to having fun. It’s just not what I was looking for in a chill photography game, but if you ignore these tasks you’ll only be able to hang out in a couple of environments.
Outside of this, there are some other minor issues to manage in Lushfoil Photography Sim too. There are really strict invisible barriers which indicate where you’re allowed to go, and if you go through them you’ll be teleported back to the path without warning. You can make these visible in the options, but wireframe walls aren’t quite as pretty as lush forests. I found there was sometimes a bit of a lack of interesting features to photograph too, which is a real shame in specific stages.
Lushfoil Photography Sim is a photo mode lover’s dream, with gorgeous biomes to take pics of to your heart’s content. Despite this though I couldn’t help but feel it was a good game that could’ve been great, and a lot of that is due to the progression and how it distracts from the relaxation. Still, if you can get past that and find DSLRs particularly thrilling, then this game will satisfy all your snapshot needs.
