We're all so used to seeing photo modes in big, beautiful open world games that it's easy to forget about the many other genres that could be just as interesting for in-game photography. And no, I'm not just talking about racing games either.
There certainly aren't many 2.5D puzzle platformers chasing photography credentials for example but, as of the v0.6 update, that is just what you'll find in the latest demo of Ayasa: Shadows of Silence from Aya Games.
With an art style that is somewhat inspired by the cinematic works of Tim Burton and René Laloux, this is a chilling and atmospheric horror game that should be familiar enough to fans of Little Nightmares and Limbo. The game's 6 lands are being engulfed by darkness, and light is key to saving them, so it seems only fitting that you should get a chance to take advantage and capture a few shots along the way.
"Opportunities to capture interesting shots soon become surprisingly easy to find..."
So, what about the photo mode then? Well, it is immediately recognisable as the Advanced Photo Mode blueprint that is available on the Unreal Marketplace. This means that it shares the same basis as the photo modes found in The Talos Principle 2, Deliver Us Mars, and even Lords of the Fallen.
Certainly a capable starting point then, although it does also come with some of the finicky bugs that seem to be common with each implementation. Auto focus is typically unreliable and unfortunately disables its own toggle switch when activated, while the Saturation, Contrast, and Gamma have a habit of resetting each other. Irritating yes, but this is still a pre-release version remember, so there's no need to judge too harshly just yet.
Perhaps the main limitation here then, is one that seemingly comes as a consequence of the platforming genre. Rather than being completely free to move around the scene, the camera remains tied to the side-scrolling view of the game.
There is at least some adjustment on the pan and tilt axes, but only by ±30° on each, and it is possible to move the camera in the X, Y, and Z directions. The inputs here are fairly unorthodox though, with almost all movements done via the photo mode UI, that is apart from vertical craning and horizontal truck that share a toggle on the L2 / R2 triggers.
Analogue stick implementation would undoubtedly make things more intuitive, but once you get to grips with things, it is fun to see what sort of views you can manage to squeeze out of the camera. The decent range of movement towards the scene and a powerful 10 – 120 mm zoom means that it is still possible to isolate completely different views to that of the game. Opportunities to capture interesting shots soon become surprisingly easy to find.
This is only helped by a healthy set of image adjustment options that can easily change or finesse the look of a shot. As well as a bunch of preset filters and some pretty distinct rendering modes, you'll find Brightness, Temperature, and Tint to correct the exposure and colour tone without any trouble at all.
The previously mentioned colour grading tools are also very useful – as long as you can get them to stay on that is – and each have an overall intensity along with three separate RGB channels. Naturally, this gives a lot of scope to subtly tweak or completely change the colours, tones and contrast of any image in creative ways that go beyond any number of presets.
Chromatic Aberration is here too – and can thankfully be turned off – as are Film Grain and Vignette to add a touch of optical imperfection. It's even nice to have fully adjustable aspect ratios; I simply set mine to something close to 2.39:1 for a few shots, but you can take it to extremes and change the colour of the black bars should you choose.
All in all, it's a strong feature set and I had no trouble in achieving the sort of appearance I wanted each time. Some of the Advanced Photo Mode blueprint's more unnecessary features have been neatly removed to avoid confusion, though I suppose it's a shame that there isn't much in the way of tailored features either.
An integrated capture gallery is nice to see, but the accompanying Take Photo button that is used to populate it currently does its own thing and pretty much ignores your camera settings, so that can't be recommended for now. Here's the in-game gallery version of the above shot for example...
Stick to an external screen capture route to actually save the shot as you see it then, otherwise you might get a bit of a surprise when the gallery shows a series of shots that really aren't much like you were expecting.
Foibles aside, it is great to see photo mode being implemented into different types of games and Ayasa's dark and mysterious vibes certainly lend themselves to a bit of in-game photography. The demo is available now and I'll be watching with interest for any updates or improvements to the camera by the time the game releases later this year.
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