The importance of photography in the game
In The star called EosPhotography is the core theme that drives the story and experience of the game. This idea was born before the development of our previous game, Behind the framewhere we initially planned a 360-degree panoramic narrative with a focus on photography. Due to our limited development experience at the time, we focused on Behind the frame first. After the success we started production of The star called Eos.
Photography isn’t just part of the backstory; it’s an integral part of the game mechanics and puzzle design, allowing you to experience the story and feel the emotions and memories behind each photo.
Create the photography puzzle experience
We always adhere to our game design principle: “Find the best way to tell a story to effectively convey it to players.” To deeply engage players, we first create a complete narrative experience and then decide on the supporting game mechanics. We use slightly challenging puzzles to draw you deeper into the story and unravel its mysteries. When designing each puzzle, we carefully consider its background and purpose, making sure that each element serves as a meaningful clue and ties into the story. This approach avoids unnecessarily extending game time and ensures that solving each puzzle deepens your understanding and connection with the story.
Core Game Loop Design: Exploring old photos to create new compositions
In The star called Eoswe designed a central game loop where you start with an old photo, go through exploration and puzzles, and finally take a new photo. This design is important to recapture memories and the theme of discovering new things. Here are the steps:
1. Get old photos:
Old photos are obtained by exploring certain scenes in the game. These photos serve as clues and lead you to new scenes.
2. Find similar locations:
They search the environment for places that resemble those in the old photos. Visual aids such as lighting and distinctive objects help the players to orient themselves.
3. Find similar new objects:
After finding similar scenes, look for objects that resemble those in the old photos. These objects can be of natural origin (trees, rocks) or man-made (furniture, statues).
4. Adjust object position/composition and take photos:
You can adjust the object positions according to the composition of the old photo so that they match. The game has a virtual camera that allows you to adjust angle and focus to ultimately take new photos with compositions that match the old photos.
This game loop design is not just about solving puzzles; it is an exploration of memory and history. You recreate past memories and discover new things, experiencing the emotions and values that remain unchanged over time. This design allows players to resonate with real-world experiences of reminiscing and discovering new things.
Aesthetic feedback from the camera: the satisfaction of taking photos
In The star called EosTaking photos is not just a simple action, but an experience. Our programmers have spent a lot of time making sure that taking photos fits naturally and smoothly into the story and the game. To make you feel the satisfaction of capturing a scene, we have optimized the photography mechanism in several ways:
1. Virtual camera system:
You can freely adjust angle, focus and composition to enable precise image capture.
2. Tactile experience:
To simulate a realistic photo experience, we’ve built in tactile feedback. For example, when you press the camera’s shutter button, a slight vibration and sound effect is triggered, increasing authenticity.
3. Instant feedback:
The system immediately compares newly taken and old photos and uses the character’s monologue to give clues as to whether the photo was taken correctly. If the object photographed is not part of the main puzzle, no monologue is displayed and the joy of freely exploring and taking photos is preserved.
These designs make photography an essential and fun part of the game because you can enjoy both the exploration and puzzle-solving process while also experiencing the pleasure and sense of achievement of taking photos.
Creating unforgettable scenes: dramatic light and shadow
To achieve our goal of “dramatic light and shadow” in The star called Eoswe have placed strong main light sources such as windows, lamps or fire in each scene. These create drama and give objects different light or shadow effects. This is in stark contrast to the full light source design of Behind the framethat provide a different visual experience. We invested a lot of time and effort to ensure that each scene has a unique and memorable light and shadow effect, enhancing the emotional expression and atmosphere of the game’s story.
Through the topic of photography, The star called Eos turns photos into a medium full of emotions and mystery. From the story conception and art style design to the technical implementation, we have put a lot of effort into giving you an unforgettable gaming experience. We look forward to every player finding their resonance in the game and feeling the story and emotions we want to convey.
Meta: How the photography mechanic works and how to use it to solve the puzzles in The star called Eos now available on Xbox.
The star called EOS
PLAYISM
14,99 $
13,49 $
The Star Named EOS is a thrilling puzzle adventure based around photography. Explore a beautiful hand-drawn world as you photograph some of life’s most precious, yet fleeting moments. By recreating photos from the past, you slowly uncover the truth of a family secret, and the love hidden in fragmented memories eventually becomes clear.
Table of Contents
