If there’s anything I hate about today’s internet generation, it’s how people always feel the need to take pictures of everything, especially food, and share it on Facebook. What’s there to immortalize in a fancy dish of vittles equivalent to the cost of your smart phone’s monthly bill? What good does it do for the rest of us? In its own way perhaps, Snapshot plays on this modern phenomenon where getting trigger happy with the camera helps one get through the day.

As a nameless automaton, you awake from stasis within an abandoned lab. Typical with these scenarios, nothing was left behind to address the usual immediate questions. Exiting the lab puts you at the front steps of some harsh (but awfully pastel pretty) wilderness, and it’s only after you cross the jungles, the snowy terrains, the volcano, and beyond do you get the answers you seek.

Until then, you can enjoy the retro themed soundtrack while making due with a camera, but not just any camera, this device has the ability to absorb subjects and dispense them anywhere at will. The goal points for every stage are literally just a hop, skip, and jump away from the start, but it’s how you can make said actions possible that takes up your time. Aside from snapping and dropping crates, spring boards, and ridable wildlife, a number of stages add challenges such as tucking away your tools in no-photo zones, laying spikes wherever they’re unwanted, and being forced to test the game’s physics at every turn.

There are also tense moments where you’re required to be quick on the draw. Most of these situations involve taking a picture of an object in midair and quickly dispensing it while in motion to access otherwise impossible-to-reach areas. What adds on to these already intimidating chores is the game’s awkward controls – there are times when the spacebar suffers premature leaps while other times being jump shy, and the mouse is too slow to keep up with all the action. Additionally, the game allows you to rotate your photos before dropping a captured subject for various effects, however the mouse becomes awfully sensitive, resulting in more time spent than necessary trying to get a pic at a desired angle.

If wrestling with the navigation isn’t a problem, a sure letdown is the fact that there is no consistent flow to the game’s trials. Often times, levels don’t pose any challenge at all, but there are moments where a stage’s premise is intriguing and enjoyable to overcome. Then there are the tedious bunches where one small misjudgment rewards you in a fail state and forcing you to restart the entire level from scratch.

Although each level tries its hardest to be different from the others, the time consuming puzzles and lack of adversaries unfortunately can cause the experience to dull on itself more times than not. When it boils down to it, you’re still just using a camera to get from point A to point B. And with its obvious platformer influences exhibited, and no enemy skulls to crack, a tinge of repetitiveness can’t be shaken throughout. This is even more daunting as Snapshot, despite its short statured levels, is a long experience with close to 100 levels in total.

Snapshot is not a title where you can sit down and expect to strap yourself in for an instant gratifying haul. This is an experience that you have to be in the mood for in order to make the most of it. Even still, you shouldn’t be surprised if you find yourself taking breaks here and there to either mentally prepare yourself for the next set of stages, or waiting out the occasional wave of boredom.