Thanks for the comment! I planned quite a bit more for the story and world than what I shared in the game's page so I am hoping to continue this at some point in the future to share that story.
In hindsight, the problem I had during the jam was trying to rectify two competing mechanics:
- Wanting the specters to be invisible so the player had to uncover where exactly they were using traps (the footprints weren't meant to always be on)
- Having the specters chase and damage the player if they got too close
Having the specters chase the player made photographing them trivial since they could be baited into following the player down a predictable path. At the same time, making the specters faster/more damaging to discourage the player from baiting them made the game too hard since the player would accidentally trigger specters they didn't know were there yet. I tried to rectify that with a visible breath mechanic telling you a specter was close but that also made them too easy to find.
Looking back, I should have just dropped the chase/damage mechanic and moved on to making unique traps for the player to set with some other element adding challenge like having the setting of traps be a puzzle or an overall time limit.