Escape the Endless Corridor in Photogenic Minds, a deck building horror game

Written by. Nick Mosier based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2021-12-21 09:15 JST)

Japanese solo game developer 727NotHound has officially announced Photogenic Minds, with the title scheduled to release on PC (Steam) in June of 2022.

Photogenic Minds is a deck building 3D horror game about escaping a never-ending corridor. Players search a world made from memories of the dead taking pictures and using the abilities contained in those photos to progress.

In this world, time only passes after certain conditions are met. The game starts at 12:00 p.m. and the goal is push time forward to 12:00 a.m. where you will then need to capture a spirit that appears. The corridor will also change as time passes.

But when you run out of film, you are returned to the Gallery Room at the beginning of the corridor and time is reset. For that reason, it’s impossible to make it to 12:00 a.m. by just exploring. Your camera abilities are absolutely essential to make it through.

The Endless Corridor is decorated with strange objects and paintings, and by taking pictures of certain subjects, you’ll create pictures that hold special abilities. Some abilities include passing time, increasing how much film you have, and burning the next thing you take a picture of.

The Gallery Room will have the pictures you’ve taken on display randomly so you can select the pictures with abilities you want to use. During the exploration part, you take pictures of cards to add to your deck, and during the gallery part, you play those cards.

The rules of the card game are in the same vein as Dominion. In the corridor, bothersome apparitions appear that you’ll need to take pictures of. There are also witches looming in the creepy corridor, so players will have to face their fears in this unique deck building gameplay experience.

The game is being made by a solo Japanese indie developer that goes by 727NotHound who has developed a number of horror games at this point. Photogenic Minds also has a prototype called Playable Mockup (P.M.) with Ver0.5 and Ver0.77 being available for free on Freem!.

The game is currently seeking funding to cover development costs on the Japanese crowd funding website Campfire. If the campaign raises 500,000 yen (roughly $4,500) by February of 2022, a full version of the game will be released.