Listen, I’m just going to say it: there is no better game about photography out there right now than Umurangi Generation, an upcoming indie title by Veselekov. I’m deathly serious about this. There is no photo mode in any game, no game where you hold a camera, that comes close to this level of photographic verisimilitude right out of the box. It’s a game that I didn’t even know I wanted to play, and yet here I am, five days after my first run through the demo, still thinking about this photo:
Like this isn’t a special photograph in terms of its composition. It’s not special as a game screenshot. It’s special because I had to, in-game: switch to a telephoto lens, dial in the focus and zoom juuuuuuust right, and fuckin sit there for a moment I thought was special. I just sat there for like 30 seconds observing this bird’s animation. And I think I got something pretty neat out of it.
I have a sinking feeling that a lot of folks who play this game are going to call it a walking simulator with a robust photography system. I have to stress to you that this is absolutely not the case. It’s a trial-and-error puzzle box in the same way actual photography often is: fiddling with focus and zoom, aperture and ISO. Observing the direction of light and shadow and struggling to find the best place to position your body to capture the best possible artistic representation of the reality in front of you. Minding your resources: how many exposures do I have left on this roll of film? How many rolls do I still have? Are my batteries going to last through the shoot? Do I have extras? Choosing the right lens: An 80-200mm f/1.4 is great for distance, but you are absolutely limited in how close you can be to your subject. A 10.5mm f/2.8 allows you to get super close to a subject but it also heavily distorts the image in a fisheye effect.
No lens is perfect for everything, and part of the challenge of Umurangi Generation is that you have to take your shots from certain specific perspectives, otherwise you don’t meet the criteria for completing your checklist of requested images in the given timeframe.
Photographers, even bad ones, spend their time developing a particular style of shooting that suits them. What was so wild to me is that, listen, I haven’t picked up a camera seriously in probably seven or eight years, but I basically fell right back into my particular style:
I am fascinated by every angle of Umurangi Generation. There’s so much I want to explore here that it honestly makes me want to jump back into the demo to see if there’s something I missed the first time (which, there almost certainly is). I want to see where the story goes and how our photography comes into play with it, like: what’s the deal with the UN lockdown signs everywhere? But mostly, I want to reconnect to photography in a way I can’t really do right now. I can’t wait to play the full version later this month, when it comes out on Steam.
