Phototaxon’s development has been suspended, to allow a complete rethinking of the game purpose in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. From a personal, perhaps ego-centric, quest towards creativity, to a collective struggle against global challenges.

—Korn Seang Edouard Song

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Phototaxon is a photography exercise in creativity. It is a stubborn camera which only captures photos that satisfy certain requirements.

Phototaxon

Free

A photography exercise in creativity.

    Download for iOS

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A game for the real world.

Phototaxon is a non-fiction game, and does not rely on virtual objects or stories. It is not played your head facing the screen. It is played with your head up, moving through the world, on the lookout for props, angles, or opportunities that might solve the level.

For the sake of originality.

Even though each level has an infinite number of solutions, each photo receives a score measuring its originality compared to other players’ photos. Reject the common and the obvious, and challenge yourself and your friends to be different.

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Until you’re short of ideas.

Phototaxon will unsettle even the most seasoned photographers with more and more demanding levels. This is not just a game against our devices, this is a game against ourselves, to see how far one can go before losing our inspiration.

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Lunch time
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facing the ground
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11:00 AM–2:00 PM
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Including special levels for special places.

We’ve partnered with institutions to design levels that can only solved in specific locations. This is your chance to challenge yourself in an uncommon environment, and to (re-)visit these places with a different mindset.

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Red parallelogram
location
Centre Pompidou

Paris, France

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Frequently asked questions

Is it free?

Phototaxon is a free-to-play game, and includes many free sample levels. Other levels can be unlocked with a single in-app purchase. There are no ads, no lootboxes, or any pay-to-win options.

You might also find, somewhere in the real world, physical codes that give you access to secret levels, this is at least what we’ve been told.

Does it require an internet connection?

Phototaxon is an offline and offscreen game that doesn’t require an internet connection. Everything happens on the device. You may need a connection to the internet to retrieve new levels, and for statistics collection, but this only happens periodically and unobtrusively.

Who is behind Phototaxon?

Hi, I’m Korn Seang Edouard Song.

I’ve built Phototaxon as an attempt to put forward a different approach in building technologies, by considering them as cultural products, that have the outspoken ambition of changing people’s perspectives, and embody, through their interactions, a certain attitude towards life.