Infinity Nikki's photo mode is its beautiful secret weapon

If you've played Infinity Nikki, you probably picked it up because of its outfits. The dress-up game has over 1,000 pieces of clothing and accessories to mix and match, from T-shirts all the way to extravagant Lolita-inspired gowns, and it's adding more all the time. And when you finally put on the perfect outfit, you'll probably want to get a picture—just like in real life.

Infinity Nikki lets you do that, of course. It's expected. What better way to show off your outfit than with photos you can share online? And it would've been easy for the developers at Infold Games to add a simple camera and move on to more visible parts of the game—but Infinity Nikki is so much more than a dress-up game, and its photo mode is so much more than just a camera.

When I was first introduced to Infinity Nikki's photo mode, I thought I'd snap a shot when I looked clownish in a smorgasbord of clashing pieces or when I wanted to show off that I unlocked a rare outfit. Maybe if I was feeling fancy I'd apply a filter and call it a day. That was on par with how I posted pictures online anyway.

The photo mode's tutorial didn't do much to change my mind. At first glance, Infinity Nikki's photo mode looks typical of what you'd find in other video games. The tutorial involves Nikki acquiring a camera from her friend Bebe. Nikki's cat-friend Momo promptly seizes control of this camera, claiming he's a "photographer extraordinaire." Nikki and Bebe then hop into cute poses while you skim through the different camera settings.

The first and second tabs in the adjustment box have settings like focal length, aperture, and the ability to adjust exposure, like you'd find on a real-world DSLR. The third tab has a few poses to choose from and the final tab has some filters. There's not a ton there, but you have enough settings to take a photo and add it to your scrapbook.

But like many of Infinity Nikki's many, many parts, there's way more depth here just waiting to be discovered as the game unfolds.

For instance, I found out about the Expedition Handbook a few hours later, and only by idly going through the camera menu (though there's apparently a message in your Friends tab as well). Momo wants to save pictures of your journey, so you'll be alerted every time you're near a landmark. Take a picture with a landmark in frame and you can save it to the Expedition Handbook.

You can easily wander through Miraland without taking these photos, but you'll be missing out. It turns out, photo mode has its own progression tree, just like Nikki herself. Take photos for your Expedition Handbook and you'll be rewarded with Upgrade Packs, a currency specifically for your camera.

This allows you to unlock more lighting options, filters, and poses, all of which make your photos look way more unique. For example, you start with a few poses—Nikki giving a peace sign, holding her hand up to her mouth, praying with her eyes closed. Later poses allow Nikki to move and (in some cases) even dance. Some of the unlockable filters meanwhile can make a scene immediately moody or intense.

Lighting is the secret weapon here, letting you change a lighting source in real-time as if you're working on a movie set. Unlocking more options gives you more colors and angles to try. They can be subtle, but applied well they can turn a photo into something special.

All of these features together are extremely flexible, and combined with Infinity Nikki's day/night cycle, you can fine-tune the world for any kind of photo. You can make your shots moody and dreamy, posing Nikki in front of shining flowers with a shallow depth of field, a gorgeous gown, and a full moon. Or you can capture something bright and stupid, posing Nikki on top of a balloon in a matching sweater.

And you'll be taking a lot of photos, whether you want to or not. Infinity Nikki features a bunch of photo-based quests with big rewards. There are forced perspectives, where you have to line up elements in the frame to produce specific (sometimes ridiculous) images. NPCs will also ask you to take photos for them, which sounds simple enough until you realize they want you to take photos of enemies running away or towards you. And each time-limited Event so far has introduced numerous quests, many of which involve taking out your camera.

There are even stations scattered around the world that are only there for posing, whether it's a bottle for blowing bubbles, a bench for sitting down, or a picnic blanket out by the water. You can spend 30 minutes setting up the perfect photo, or hit a couple buttons to automatically line up a somewhat-decent photo and move on.

Either way, the photos are added to your scrapbook once you're done. To get the rewards from quests, you just have to hand your shot in to the quest giver. It can be a garbage photo, and you'll still bask in some diamonds.

It's easy to download your favorite photos and share them with friends, but you can also share them in the game itself. Infinity Nikki's Snapshot system embeds your photo in the world, which other players can then come across and activate. They can give you a thumbs up or they can pose with you and take their own photos. This is the game's only multiplayer feature at the moment, and it unlocks even more creative opportunities. It also keeps things lowkey and friendly—just as Infinity Nikki was meant to be.

In the end though, you can use the camera whenever you want. I skip the forced perspective quests since they tend to be time consuming, but I'll always stop and try and get a photo of a moving target that perfectly pairs with my outfit. I never save Snapshots, but if I see one in the perfect location, I'll try and match the pose in some way for my own photo. Then I'll share it in the Discord server I have with my friends or on the Infinity Nikki subreddit, where I'll stare in jealousy at the images other people (more talented than me) have captured.

Infinity Nikki is great at funneling you into using all its features. You complete quests because you want the rewards to unlock more outfits, so you'll likely be forced into using the camera despite any objections. The excellent thing about Infinity Nikki though is that you don't have to do anything. There are plenty of opportunities to earn currency, and as long as you don't mind missing out on an outfit, you can play however you want.

The photo mode in Infinity Nikki is the same as the game itself in that way—expressive, full of detail, optional, and deceptively complex. And it's quintessential to the Infinity Nikki experience. After all, where's the fun of putting on an outfit if nobody's around to see it?

Infinity Nikki is free to play on the Epic Games Store.