Lushfoil Photography Sim is a charming sightseeing trip around the world to locations in Japan, Australia, France, Iceland, Nepal, Italy, China, England, and a secret region that I won’t spoil that serves as a reward for completing the secret objectives found within the game. The player finds themselves engrossed in the photography and exploration of snowy mountainous forests, hillsides and fields practically painted with colorful foliage, fascinating ruined villages, rocky volcanic landscapes, gorgeous sunny beaches, a stormy city park, and so much more.
Lushfoil was created by a single dev named Matt Newell, an Australian computer engineer with a deep background in wilderness hiking and photography. Newell worked on the project solo for around 6 years as a passion project, but when he eventually connected with Annapurna Interactive, his passion manifested into a reality that he could share with the world.
The game was developed using the Unreal Engine as Newell found that it allowed him the freedom to fine-tune aspects relevant to photography such as framing, lighting, composition, as well as realistically rendering large open areas of both wilderness and urban environments.
Though the game features collectibles and objectives that allow the player to progress to new areas, it felt less like a game and more like an artistic concept piece and an educational tool.
The game provides the player with a rather complex set of adjustments and settings for their DSLR camera to allow for the perfect shots to be taken but manages to walk the player through the various stages of proper image composition in a much more easily consumable and understandable way than the majority of camera manuals and online tutorials that I’ve seen.
Lushfoil also scatters other tools around the various maps such as a multitude of other cameras from camcorders to old-school point-and-shoot vintage gear, and a handful of others in between, all with their own unique photo styles and adjustments.
The player is also greeted with some immersive interactables like kites to be flown, paper airplanes to throw off of mountain peaks, a GPS tracker to aid in finding collectibles, and umbrellas to protect from the rain but also soothe the player with the soft pitter-patter against the synthetic covering.
The most remarkable feature of the game in my opinion is the changing of the seasons in the various areas of exploration, as it allows the player to experience each well realized environment during different times of year, complete with changes in weather patterns, lighting, ambience, objectives, and the music that scores the setting.
There are also a couple of map traversal “vehicles” the player can utilize in certain areas that allow for getting photos off the beaten trail, as well as getting the player from point A to point B much more quickly. I found it very peaceful hearing the cold water lap at the edges of my wooden boat as I paddled across a lake in the frigid mountains of Italy, and I experienced an actual feeling of thrill and excitement while zooming down a flower covered hill in France on a bicycle, as so much of the game up to that point had been slow and serene. I even found some drones that I could use to zip around to unreachable locations for that perfectly angled photo.
As I hiked, photographed, and explored, immersing myself from season to season and region to region, I felt a tremendous deal of catharsis as I have been recovering from a spinal injury for a couple of years now, and the pain I live with has greatly limited my ability to do many of the physical activities found in the game.
I always loved going out in the wilderness, immersing myself in nature, becoming one with the Earth and enjoying transcendent experiences of exploration and peace. This game allowed me to experience an approximation of that in such a way that truly eased my anxieties, my fears, and my uncertainty if only for a few hours as I played.
The peace and serenity offered by the subtle yet beautiful musical score that blended perfectly with each relaxing hike around the world was unmatched in its blissful simplicity. I often found myself breathing slower, listening comfortably, focusing easier, with a certain level of clarity that is lost in fast-paced shooter games or action-adventures.
This was an experience meant to immerse the player in a feeling of solitude and isolation, but a pleasant isolation that opens the player up to introspection and self-realization through their interactions with the world around them. Though I was alone in these forests and mountains and towns apart from the occasional animal crossing my path, I felt as though I was home, surrounded by loved ones.
The rustling leaves on the trees as the soft winds blew through them, the water lapping at the rocks at the water’s edge, the flowers and blades of grass listlessly dancing in the breeze, they were all the company I needed. I found myself stopping and taking pictures of so many things that had nothing to do with making progress in the game, just because I found my subject to be so intriguing. This is where the problems began.
After I had around fifty or so photographs in my album, I began to notice a drop in framerate. The more pictures I took, the more significant the frame drops became. The more frame drops I experienced, the more the game started to crash me out to my Xbox dashboard. Each time I would attempt to open up my photo album and delete pictures to hopefully address the issue, the game would crash again. This happened DOZENS of times in the later portions of the game.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the game uses photographs the player takes as a means to fast travel from location to location, making getting collectibles and revisiting areas in different seasons and lighting situations a much simpler and more enjoyable experience. When I took a break from the game and returned, I found that all of my photos were gone, and my album was empty.
When I tried to take new photos they wouldn’t save to my album, constantly letting me know that no photos were found. Regardless of this, the game still allowed me to progress with the required photos and collectibles I needed, and even continued to track them, whether they saved or not.
This made the final few areas of the game far less enjoyable as I found myself constantly restarting my console, closing out the app, or resetting the game after multiple consecutive crashes. With all of that said, I pushed through and still enjoyed the final areas as they were just as expansive and breathtaking as the previous environments, but with far greater difficulty navigating them. I even solved the game’s secret mysteries and discovered the true ending, all with this handicap the bugs were causing me.
My biggest complaints about the game are clearly focused around its ability to run effectively on my console after many pictures are taken, as it is a photography simulator and that leads me to believe that the player is meant to be… you know… engaging in simulated photography. As I said previously, the game was mostly created by one developer though, so I am a lot more forgiving than if it had been made by a big budget studio.
Other than the crashing and frame-rate issues, I found that there was a tremendous lack of much wildlife outside of the occasional fox, cat, or bird that would be found in the same spots upon each visit to a region. It would have been nice to have more animals to photograph, while also making the areas feel more realistic and alive.
Another issue I had with Lushfoil was the somewhat linear paths it had me follow. I had hoped it would feature truly open areas as in similar wilderness games like Hunter: Call of the Wild except shooting with a camera rather than a rifle, but I often found myself trapped on a path by rocks or trees that refused to allow me entrance into the depths of the areas I could see but not access.
With those gripes in mind and my previous statements still withstanding, I found this game to be a mostly lovely experience that was hampered by the limitations of my hardware as well as the limitations of such a small developer. I enjoyed it as an experience, though it didn’t feel like one I’d need to enjoy again. It provided a calming stroll through life that awakened in me an emotional connection that I wasn’t expecting.
I find that whether you’re a fan of photography, a fan of wilderness exploration, or a gamer in need of some peace and a break from high intensity action titles, this is a game worth playing through at least once. For anyone looking for an action-packed adventure, it may be a touch boring and empty for them.
