GAME
OF THE
DAY
Photographs - Puzzle Stories
What would you do?
We were anticipating more lighthearted puzzley antics in the new game from the creator of titles that have previously revolved around dungeon escapes (10000000)and boat construction (You Must Build A Boat).
We were not expecting this – be warned, dear reader: the five different but interwoven stories in Photographs get pretty dark.
You can split developer Luca Redwood’s third game roughly in half. You’ve got the photographs of the title, which are constantly changing to reflect the story being told. And then you’ve got the puzzles themselves, which are triggered when you zoom in on the right bits of the photograph.
The puzzle mechanics are different in each of the five stories, but they’re all designed to both test your brainpower and help tell the story. For example, as you learn more about the old man and the little girl in the opening chapter, related elements are added into the sliding block-like puzzles you must complete to progress.
It’s clever stuff; right through to the end of the fifth chapter, there are surprises everywhere in Photographs, both in the way it toys with game mechanics and in its approach to storytelling.
To say any more would be straying into spoiler territory; you’ll just have to trust us when we say mature players looking for an unexpected mix of game genre and subject matter should have a peek at Photographs.