Photographs - Puzzle Stories Review

"Have you ever made a mistake, or hurt people you care about?" Asks the Photographs trailer. It's a puzzle game that aims much higher than to distract you while on the way to work.

By investigating polaroid photos from the lives of different characters in the game. In each you trigger a number of different puzzles to solve that advance the lives of these five different people: Olympic swimmer, botanist, reporter, settler and time-travelling wizard. Each life evolves as a miniature diorama where you zoom in, search for and photograph clues, and solve puzzles to move things forward.

But things don’t go to plan, in heartbreaking and sometimes shocking ways. By the end of the game, you are deeply connected to each person and have to make a near-impossible decision between which of the tragic endings to change for the better. The decision you have to make is hard because you’ve got to know each person’s family and life. How do you choose which of your friends to save, when you’ve been a part of their downfall?