Product Info

Platform

Switch, PlayStation 5, PC

Publisher

Something We Made

Developer

Something We Made

Genre

Adventure, Puzzle

Players

1

File Size (Minimum)

306 MB

Release Date (NA)

Sep 17, 2021

Purchase From

eShop

PSN Store

Steam

Epic Games

TOEM: A Photo Adventure is a hand-drawn, indie, adventure game set in a black and white, isometric environment. Your goal is to travel to TOEM and to uncover its mysteries with the camera given to you by your nana. This indie game is fun and entertaining with a good mix of jams, but the journey feels too short when it’s time to put down the camera.

Photo Inspiration

TOEM is inspired by Scandinavia, with its buses to travel to cities of various sizes, its people, and its natural environment. What better way to visit a new area than as a tourist to take photos. Therefore, you’re playing as a sightseer travelling to designated landmarks while making memories along the way.

Instead of using an open world or platform-like level designs, TOEM’s world is isometric. Players can rotate the stage to see it from many angles and even reveal hidden areas. Think of games like Final Fantasy Tactics, SimCity, Civilization, and Age of Empires. This feature is quite useful as TOEM reveals many clues and key items for solving puzzles. For how simplistic and artistic the game is designed, the isometric world is the right choice.

Ready. Set. Action.

Compared to many adventure games, TOEM is simple and straightforward. To get to each new landmark, you’ll need to earn a certain amount of stamps on your community card for a free bus ride. Once you reach the amount, you can take the bus back and forth as many times as needed.

Along the way, you’ll meet quirky characters and help them by using your camera. These tasks range from finding kids in a game of hide and seek to spotting lost boats in a stormy sea. You’ll earn stamps doing these requests, even if it’s just helping someone find their lost pirate hat. Some requests cannot be done till later in the game, but they can be revisited after your quest is over.

Photogenic

Your camera’s interface is simple to understand and control. Each action item is designed as a large button with a helpful icon. For example, the snapshot button has a camera icon, and the “flip” button has an arrow circling around the camera. As for viewing through your camera lens, the window is large and centered on the screen, making it easy to see your subject. Furthermore, the game’s options let you adjust your controller settings if you are not comfortable with the defaults.

As you play, you’ll gain new features to aid in your photography. A tripod will help capture shots of unique creatures that are too scared to show their face in front of you. Similarly, a honk attachment will make noises to either grab someone’s attention or force a pack of seagulls to go away.

Your camera view is large enough to use to move around and take beautiful pictures, even if they are in black and white. You can zoom in and out, turn auto object detection on and off, and flip the camera to take a selfie, just like a smartphone.

You can take up to 128 photos and store them in your album. You can add descriptions to each photo, like or dislike your photos, or delete them. If you like a photo, you can still delete the photo by mistake. It’s odd that the delete button isn’t greyed out for liked photos.

Change of Clothes

Your character’s wardrobe is just as important on your adventure as your camera. For example, the diving helmet lets you explore underwater. The reporter hat lets you get into the fashion show for the first time. Additionally, the winter gear keeps your character from shivering. And it’s not just clothing either; accessories can also make a difference. Carrying an umbrella helps prevent water from dripping down your camera lens, keeping your photoshoot nice and dry. It’s a neat feature, seeing how these items can change your character’s movement and affect the photography.

Short but Sweet

There are five areas to visit and each has its own unique, isometric environment: seashore, forest, city, snowy mountains, and your hometown. You’ll encounter different ways to interact with the environment, such as going underwater to shoot photos, being a photographer for a fashion show, and helping a local group of scouts find items in a forest.

Once you’ve gone through your list of requests on your community card, you have a trophy list that’s listed for those going for 100%. Some are a little tricky to figure out, though, such as taking your camera inside a hotel and zooming in above you. When all is said and done, however, there’s not much else to do.

Ideally, the world of TOEM could be expanded more, with new areas to visit and more characters. However, whether TOEM gets a DLC will all depend on the development team.

Quirky Characters

TOEM may not be a big game, but it has a huge cast of interesting characters. Interacting with many of them sets off humorous dialogue, such as a skittish sailor who’s afraid of a giant fish in the ocean. Once you show the sailor a photo of the fish, his tune changes, and he accepts it as a blessing to meet the creature in the first place. The same goes for non-humans. You’ll encounter a moose being a disc jockey for a crowd of bears with glow sticks. The characters definitely help make the photography fun and humorous.

Favorite Mixtape

The game’s soundtrack is based on your cassette tape. As you travel and complete requests, you can earn more tracks to add to your mixtape. Players can play any track, shuffle, repeat, and lower and increase volume like any music device.

The songs evoke various moods, from soft, whimsical tracks to upbeat city tunes that will get you grooving. It’s too bad you can’t make your own playlist out of these, but having the capability to use any track anytime, anywhere is a benefit.

Picture Perfect

TOEM: A Photo Adventure is an entertaining and fun indie game with neat camera-based mechanics and quirky characters. Dozens of photos will be taken throughout the journey, but by the end, it still feels too early to put the camera away. Still, no matter how short the experience, your album of good memories awaits.

A PlayStation 5 review code provided for this review and gameplay footage.