How developers are reinventing their worlds through the eye of a camera

By Christian Donlan

The camera is just sitting there. Placed on a pile of rocks, its black plastic and dark glass are a perfect contrast to the white pebbles scattered all around, the pearly shore and the distant mountain dithering to grey. It would make a good picture, actually – and that’s the first sign that you’re going to enjoy this. If you noticed that contrast, you’re already thinking like a photographer. Now, pick up the camera. Advance along the shoreline. Wait for a shot to call out to you. The moment will be different for every player.

It was important for Matt Newell, the man who put that camera there on those rocks, that his game should not lead you towards each new picture. Rather than a work of concealed guidance, leaning on the tricks that decades of game development have honed, Lushfoil Photography Sim should unfold naturally – in just the formless way in which it was made. Before it was even a game, Lushfoil was a collection of places, modelled in Unreal Engine. “That was the base,” Newell says, speaking from his home in Japan. “I had a handful of environments, and it wasn’t necessarily a game at first.” Once it was, though, the central mechanic was obvious.

After all, it was a love of photography that got Newell into games in the first place. That led him to a passion for screenshotting games such as Star Wars: Battlefront. And, when getting the right shot called for an angle available only in a mod, to tinkering with Unreal Engine, which in turn led to working in development. Lushfoil marks the point where all those roads reconnect.

WITH CAMERAS FRONT AND CENTRE IN OUR LIVES, IT’S NO WONDER THAT MORE AND MORE GAMES ARE PUTTING ONE IN OUR HANDS

Matt Newell, designer of Lushfoil Photography Sim

However, when looking back at the path that led him here, Newell can’t remember a pivotal moment when photography itself first clicked. And while he still takes his camera everywhere, he can’t recall a shot that he’s particularly pleased with. He’s not that kind of photographer. Instead, photography is a continuum for Newell: an endless sweep of images, a way of being in the world.

“It’s a central part of the way I remember my life,” he says. “I always enjoy just looking back through photos, going back to a random date and seeing what I took that day. It really helps me recollect everything. That’s how I keep it close to me.” Photos as discovery and rediscovery. And inevitably that philosophy is reflected in Lushfoil, a game about patience and observation, about waiting and selecting moments. There’s no grade or score waiting at the end of it all. Instead, you work without knowing if your choices are right or wrong. Or, rather, you learn that there is no right or wrong here.

“I wanted to make it a priority to not force the player to do anything too specific,” Newell says, recalling playtests where people used to more traditional videogames sprinted through these environments without taking a single photo. “You’re welcome to play the game that way. The lack of guidance is what makes it work. It’s up to people themselves to find the perspectives. For the most part I wanted to capture the feeling you get from going to the real place.” That non-prescriptive approach is a reminder that even the most apparently freewheeling of sandboxes can quietly push you towards an intended destination. With a camera in hand, you don’t need any destination in mind.

Lushfoil may well be the purest photography game ever made. But it’s far from alone. In 2024, with cameras front and centre in our lives, it’s no wonder that more and more games are putting one in our hands, and inviting us to press our eye to their virtual viewfinders. As you do, this simple process can transform a videogame’s world, whether you’re looking through a lens that’s embodied within the game world, or in the paused abstraction of a Photo Mode.