Umurangi Generation (2020), a first-person photography video game developed by Australian studio Origame Digital and published by PLAYISM, is slated to get VR release on April 18th. To celebrate, the original game on Windows is 90% off on Steam. Additionally, Umurangi’s official merch website has everything marked 30% off.
Umurangi Generation was initially independently developed by Maori developer Naphtali Faulkner in Unity’s game engine. Inspired by DLSR cameras and the Australian government’s lack of response to bushfires and climate change as well as COVID-19, the game allows the players to take photos with different lenses and filters. The player can progress through stories by taking photos that fulfill certain conditions, such as a particular place with a particular lens. The story utilizes environmental storytelling: the players, for example, cannot take photos of alien invaders that appear in the form of jellyfish because the UN in that world is defending the island nation against them. The player can also look at posters around the world, which detail sub-events such as a rising parasite epidemic and local resistance against UN occupation.
In the same interview, Faulkner mentions Urumangi Generation’s main philosophy was inspired by the Respectful Design philosophy, which has a focus on the decolonization of art. Faulkner himself is a part of the Ngāiterangi tribe in Tauranga, New Zealand– the same city in which Umurangi is set in.
A DLC was added a few months after the game’s initial release. The DLC included items such as spray paint and roller blades, which gave the player faster movement around the world.
However, the VR release marks four years after the initial release of the game in which the developers have released new content. Different ports were released in between the gap: a Switch port was released in 2021, an Xbox One port was released in 2022, and a PS4/PS5 release is set to release alongside the VR port.