The eye of the beholder: Measuring player success in photography games

Introduction

Photography as a mechanic is emerging in games, moving beyond simple photo modes, and instead using photo-taking as the key driver for the game’s progression. But how do we as developers measure player success with photography, something that is so freeform, subjective, and artistic? That was a question that my team and I thought a lot about as we developed Beasts of Maravilla Island, a game about magical wildlife photography and appreciating the beauty of nature.

In Beasts of Maravilla Island, the main gameplay centers on discovering and exploring different biomes, and documenting the diverse creatures and vegetation that live there. Players have a photobook with several species and specific behaviors to document, and must discover and photograph these different subjects through environmental puzzles to fill up the photobook.

It’s a game that places emphasis on meaningfully appreciating and engaging with the wildlife around you, and centers on photographing the magical, intriguing, and delightful moments you reveal.

Interestingly, one of the most common criticisms that I continue to see popping up on Beasts of Maravilla Island is that our game doesn’t include a scoring system - some reviewers seemed to think this was a design oversight, or that we simply didn’t have time to implement it. It fascinates me that a design pattern like photo scoring is so deeply assumed to be the default for photography games - especially since not scoring photos was a deliberate design choice for Beasts.

Related:How some indies are approaching photography mechanics in their games

In this article, I delve into various approaches to measuring player success in photography games - using Pokemon Snap as a primary example - and explore what we did differently in Beasts of Maravilla Island. Further, I want to challenge developers to dig deeper into the common design pattern of scoring a player’s photographs, and assess the mechanic of photography at its core.

Photo Scoring in Pokemon Snap

I love Pokemon Snap - it was, as you may expect, one of the biggest creative inspirations for Beasts of Maravilla Island! It has an intuitive game loop, juicy interactions, and a myriad of delightful creatures and moments to capture. One of my favorite things about the game is how it features several unique behaviors from different Pokemon - some that even require solving a puzzle in order to reveal - and how capturing those unique, fleeting moments always feels special and satisfying!

A key difference from Beasts, however, is that photo scoring is a major mechanic in Pokemon Snap. It has specific criteria for what the game deems a “good” photo. After each round of photographing, the player submits images to Professor Oak of the different Pokemon they found during their exploration. Each photo is then reviewed and given a numerical score. The score is influenced by things such as how centered the Pokemon is, how close the subject is to the camera, if the subject is facing you, etc. Photos that do not successfully meet these criteria are given lower scores.

Related:Inside the cute and creepy world of Penko Park

While playing, I found that many times when I submitted a photo, I would be surprised by the game’s response - A photo that I thought was cuter, more interesting, or even showcased one of those rare behaviors I mentioned above was given a low score! Even in the example shown above, from my perspective, the player has taken a photo with interesting symmetry and a more interesting pose. And yet, because the subjects were further from the camera, the photo was given a lower score, and flavorfully conveyed to be a “worse photo” to Professor Oak.

When this occurred, although the game technically allowed me to choose my new photo over my old one, it didn’t feel satisfying or valid to keep my new photo; the game had passed judgment on it already - it told me that my photo was bad!

Related:Alekon lets players make the picture perfect photo album

[This pikachu behavior is adorable! But, there are higher scoring pikachu photos you could get…]

Certain numerical scores are also needed to progress in the game, making it required, at times, for the player to choose the photos that the game deems ‘best’ to move forward. This sometimes means getting rid of a photo that a player visually liked more.

The Player Experience of Scoring  

While scoring photos as a mechanic does provide extra feedback on the player’s actions, and can create ways for content to be gated or progression to be measured, it creates a very specific mindset when one is taking photos in the game.

To me, this type of photography feels more like client work, rather than artistic expression. Not only is there a prompt of what to take a picture of, but there are strict guidelines on how that subject should be photographed.

While Pokemon Snap offers some variety by providing different opportunities to photograph the same subject in different environments, players aren’t able to have full freedom of composition.

In fact, there are often ways to achieve the “best” shot - a particular photo of a particular behavior that will always be worth more points than any other photo a player takes with the same subject. While these moments are often adorable and lovely, it creates an opportunity where one very specific composition is incentivized, and disincentivizes taking other interesting photos of the same subject.

[Example of one such photo in Pokemon Snap - the group of Charmanders in the Volcano level]

This is a totally valid way of approaching this type of gameplay - to give a prompt, and ensure the player captures the prompt to the specifications of what the game wants to see. In essence, this “gamifies” the art of photography.

But, I think it’s important to ask ourselves as designers of photography games - do I want this to feel like client work? Or do I want this to feel like artistic expression? Either is appropriate, so long as we are deeply intentional about it.

What is a “Good Photo” Anyway?

Sure, there could be ‘objective’ artistic and compositional principles that could be checked against. No doubt things like the rule of thirds, if the subject is centered, how large the subject is in frame, etc. can create metrics for scoring a “good” photograph. But, what purpose does this really serve in the design?

Are we trying to make a game that teaches players to follow specific artistic principles when taking photographs? Are we only using it to track progression? Are we okay with the possibility of having a system that effectively punishes players for taking the photo that they want to take by giving them a low score for photos that do not adhere to these standards?

Or… do we want to allow for full freedom of expression of taking the photo you feel celebrates the subject matter best - whether that be something of “good” composition, or not?

What Beasts Does Differently

In Beasts, it was key to our design to not have a scoring mechanic. While our game does have authored moments and a limited scope, we wanted to allow for a meaningful intersection of constraints and freedom to allow for players to take a variety of different photographs. We wanted our photography of the different subjects to allow for capturing something personally beautiful and interesting to the player. We wanted to allow them to capture our creatures in a way that satisfied them.

For example - sometimes a player may feel that photographing the animal looking away from the camera at something else is more interesting, or creatively evocative. Maybe they want to take a picture of a flock of birds in the distance, rather than a close up shot. Maybe they want a way-too-close up of a baby animal’s face because they think it’s cute and funny! These types of creative choices may not be celebrated in a game’s scoring system, and could be marked down for having a subject too far away, too close, facing away, etc - but what a shame to create patterns that disincentivize these kinds of interesting and funny compositions, and personal creative expression.

[For example, this close-up shot of the Maravillan Mango Kakapo]

To allow for this kind of freedom, Beasts’ metrics for success were rather loose - We decided to not include points or grades, and that the main priority was simply to capture the creature at all. Even then, we were sure to include a miscellaneous section for photographs lacking a subject, just in case the player was trying to photograph the scenery intentionally. While it was true that this created the possibility for players to take a bunch of quick, “bad” photos of the animals and still be able to progress the game, if that is how the player wanted to play, we were fine with that - We would rather allow our target players the freedom to express, rather than trying to wrangle uninterested players into taking good pictures. (And frankly, if they are still having fun but taking so-so pictures, that was fine by us)! 

Players who want to take the time to capture meaningful photos will. Our goal was not to teach players how to take a good photo. We aimed to get people curious about their surroundings and excited about what they see, and then give them a tool to capture those moments that intrigued or enchanted them. For those who sought it, we aspired to create a rewarding and enchanting experience that they could meaningfully remember and capture as they please.

[Not to be corny and quote my own game, but - "there is magic all around us, you just have to look for it."]

 
Intrinsic Motivators

By not having many external criteria to get players to take photographs, we relied more on trying to create meaningful intrinsic motivation within our players - that is, the drive to do something because of its inherent enjoyment, rather than for any external rewards.

If players were intrinsically motivated to take lovely photos, we wanted to create systems that celebrated and acknowledged this intrinsic motivation.  One such system was “Favorite Photos”

In the photobook, each subject, whether flora or fauna, had an associated photo to represent it, as well as 10-20 extra photo slots that could be stored at a time.  While the players’ shots were limited, they were offered the freedom to try things out, explore different angles, and try new locations, etc.

Then, when players are ready, they may look through the photos they took, and select the one they like the best to be displayed in the photobook spread. Juicy particles and SFX play, the friction to get to the menu is low, and we included an option to fullscreen photos so players can take their own personal screenshot!

This system was meant to create a loop of players intentionally looking at their photos, and getting to feel a satisfaction and joy at seeing their favorite photo on display, rather than the game’s favorite photo. We wanted players to find the joy, beauty, and magic of the game through the photos themselves, rather than through a grade they were given.

We were not solely unique in this approach, though; another example of this design philosophy is in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with its Hyrule Compendium. While there is no extra storage for additional shots of a particular subject matter, the desire to take a good photo for the compendium is completely up to the player. A poor photo will be just as valid as a pretty one - but it sure does feel great to have a beautiful compendium to look at!

[Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Breath_of_the_Wild/comments/x4s6ld/capturing_hyrules_beauty_full_hyrule_compendium/]

Metrics for Success in Photography Games

Yet, some games may need something quantifiable from the photos  - such as, what if metrics are needed to check against for player progress and unlock content? There are several ways you can “objectively” assess player progress, while maintaining a space for creative expression and artistic freedom!

What if players need to take a picture of something from a specific angle? What if they need to take clear pictures of individual parts of a subject? (Ex. Just the face, just the leaves, etc.) What if they need to figure out how to get an aerial shot / a shot from below? What about taking a picture of a specific frame in a creature’s animation?

These all have binary metrics for success that a player can easily understand the success or failure of - the specific subject was either photographed, or it was not. It creates puzzle-like opportunities and something that the player must do in order to progress,  which can create meaningful challenges, but removes the possibility for technical (and frankly, designer) biases to declare something a "bad" or "good" photo.

In Beasts, we were able to include one of these alternative metrics - in our case, it was requiring the capture of different creature behaviors. For the majority of creatures, a shot of just the subject was enough. For our “key animals”, however, each had four unique behaviors that would need to be discovered and captured. Players then had to figure out - “How do I get this animal to behave this way? How can I time my shot just right to capture it in action? What part of its animation represents the behavior I am looking for?”

[Example - capturing a photo of the Maravillan Scaled Otter doing a flip]

Perhaps if we had had a larger scope, we would have included more varied prompts to fulfill - such as photographing a specific body part or facial feature of an animal - or perhaps had more granularity in the ways the animal behaviors are expressed and photographed - (such as, needing to capture an animal mid-pounce, or specifically capture how a juvenile creature pounces). With these additions though, - the emphasis remains about capturing the action or subject, not on how it is captured. 

Still, though, the “quality” of the photo is unimportant - once again, it is up to the players to decide to capture a photo of that behavior that they find beautiful and satisfying; not because the game told them to, but because they wanted to.

Conclusion

It certainly may be appropriate in some photography games for there to be numerical scoring based on specific factors in the photo - if you want to encourage specific player behaviors in how they take photos, if you deliberately want to teach players compositional techniques, etc. - then that’s great! But, I would encourage anyone who is making a photography game to really interrogate what they feel the photo scoring is adding to the experience - is it helping players experience photography in the way you want them to?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And photography is a wonderful, beautiful way to get the chance to see something through someone else’s eyes - whether that be in real life, or in photography in a video game.

One of my favorite things when people play Beasts is when I get to see what photos they take. I get to see what parts of the game spoke to them - what animal behaviors they felt were most charming, what pieces of the environment they felt were beautiful, what moments they felt were worth remembering. As a developer, I get to see more directly through my players' eyes, and get a better understanding of their literal perspective on the piece of art we have made for them to experience. It’s extraordinarily special, especially to see which lovingly crafted moments are most enjoyed and captured.

If I had not allowed players to have the freedom to decide on what they felt was a good photo, independent of judgment from the game, I would be preventing that beautiful opportunity to see how others see that world - and what magic they found all around them.

[These are all photos taken by my teammates from various playtests throughout development ♥️]

Special thanks to Tana Tanoi, Rosa Dachtler, and Eva Wierzbicki for helping me edit this article - ya’ll are the greatest!