Umurangi Generation is all about taking photographs during a crisis Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Umurangi Generation is all about taking photographs during a crisis Snap! Feature by Christian Donlan Features Editor Published on 21 May 2020 7 comments I don't think I've ever fallen in love with a game quite as quickly as I fell in love with Umurangi Generation. Set in Tauranga during a "crisis event", the game sees you playing as a parcel courier who has a sideline taking photos. What this amounts to is a photography game that plays out in intricate and characterful chunks of levels - levels that are filled with colour, storytelling and plenty of stuff to take snaps of. The sense of being immersed in the youthful culture of Tauranga is wonderful. The first level sees you up on some rooftops, graffiti on the walls, a skate ramp set up in an alley. There's a long list of things you have to get pictures of to complete the levels, and another list of optional extras. I spent a long time hunting for certain items - a disposable camera at first seemed impossible to locate and then I found two - and a couple of challenges are more a question of framing than anything else. Birds are everywhere, but where do I stand to get seven in a single picture? While I was doing all of this, I was enjoying the atmosphere that the game creates - people taking it easy, listening to music, making little spaces of the world their own. Later levels pile on the storytelling - it turns out that hunting around for details in a scene is a pretty excellent way of letting the player make sense of a narrative - but for now in this first level I got to enjoy a lazy day with new friends. Watch on YouTube Umurangi Generation is brilliant about photography. The camera is a lovely chunky, mechanical thing, even before you start to get new lenses and bits of kit. It's fun to focus and see how the frame changes your view of the world, carving a scene into little vignettes. The game is also pretty great about how it grades photos. It doesn't really want to tell you what a good or bad picture is. It wants you to get the pictures you have to get, but it also wants you to express yourself. This game is the work of just two people - Naphtali Faulkner, a Ngai Te Rangi designer living in Australia, and ThorHighHeels, the composer, who is from Holland. Faulkner's mum's house was burned down in the Australian fires at the end of last year so he channeled a lot of his emotions into making the game. He was also inspired by teaching his younger cousin to use a DSLR. Umurangi Generation is out on Steam now and it's a total treat. I will continue to snap awful pictures and to marvel at the pictures that the wider community is taking. It's the perfect game for the current moment. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More Features Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. 12 Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Feature What games get wrong about horses And what they could do about it. 34 Feature Shout out to all the Overwatch supports - where would we be without you? Merci. 55 Latest Articles Preview Football Manager's new Console edition is the best you'll get without a PC Getting Touch-right. Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 59 Modder dives into Demon's Souls files following PS5 jailbreak, discovers fabled Ring of the Chieftain Who knows what's nexus? 4 Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store