Photomaly Achievements

Read the unlock rates as a difficulty curve

The percentages are unusually informative here because the game is short and linear. Everything above roughly 80% happens inside the first hour whether you plan for it or not — a first order delivered, a first figure noticed, a first roll developed. The middle band around 55–62% marks the three things a player has to actually choose to do: edit a photo in the paint app, hand over an order that does not match the slip, and whatever Totally Normal Behavior is quietly measuring.

Then the list falls off a cliff. Everything under a third of players lives on the hooded contact's assignment and the final days of the run, which is exactly where a first playthrough tends to improvise. Those four are the reason this page recommends a plan instead of a checklist.

Picture Perfect — finish one order end to end

The first envelope you hand across the counter unlocks it, and the game teaches you every step on the way there: greet the customer, read the ticket in the corner of the screen, shoot on the marked spot, transfer to the studio PC, print the right size and count, then hold an envelope and interact with the prints. The beginner guide walks the same sequence if the first shift is still confusing.

Chemical Romance — one roll through all three trays

Developing is the only unlock with a fixed process behind it. Cut the roll at the cutting station until it is used up, run the negatives through developer, then stop bath, then fixer in that order, hang them on the drying rack, and collect them once they are dry. Pull a print early and you have wasted the frame, not earned the unlock. Step-by-step timings are on film developing.

I'm Something of an Artist — the paint app counts as an edit

Open any transferred photo on the studio PC and press EDIT. The paint app lets you draw straight onto the shot with a brush, and the achievement is tied to making your first edit there. The one thing that trips people up is leaving the editor without saving, because an unsaved scribble prints as the plain original. Scribble something, save it, then delete the photo if you do not want to hand it over.

Customer Service — get one order deliberately wrong

This is the only official unlock that rewards a mistake: give a customer an incorrect order. Any mismatch counts, so pick the cheapest possible failure — one copy at the wrong print size, or black and white on a colour request — rather than burning nine sheets of paper on a large job. Do it in the opening shifts while money is tight but demand is low, and check the order rules on the orders guide so you know precisely which value you are breaking.

That covers the four the listing will tell you about. The hidden six are where a route actually helps.

The two you will get without trying

Did I See Someone? sits at around 91% — higher than developing a film roll — so it almost certainly triggers on an early scripted sighting rather than on anything you seek out. In practice the opening days hand you several: a power cut that sends you into the back alley, a figure that is gone when you turn around, a second person in a print of a customer who came in alone. Totally Normal Behavior shares its rate with Customer Service, which puts it in the same first-half band, and player reports associate it with carrying on with an ordinary shift after something plainly abnormal has happened. Neither is worth a detour.

No Face, No Case — photograph the contact, not the anomaly

On the second day a hooded visitor flips your open sign, tells you your father worked with them, hands over a key and a film roll, and says the printed results will be collected. He is a person standing in your shop, and the camera in your hands works on people. The community route is to equip the camera while he is still at the counter, frame him clearly, and take the shot before you advance through the rest of his dialogue — once he leaves, the opportunity leaves with him. It is the single most missable achievement in the game because the natural instinct is to click through the conversation.

Not So Fast — stop a customer on their way out

The rarest unlock at roughly 21% is reported to involve a specific late-run customer who tries to leave immediately after you hand over their envelope. Rather than turning back to the counter, follow them and interact again before they clear the room. Customers in this game normally walk off the moment they are paid — anyone who behaves as though they are in a hurry is the tell, and the customers page collects the quirks that make one visitor stand out from another.

Family Matters and Reset Protocol — one ending each

These two are the same decision resolved in opposite directions, and that is why the list cannot be cleared in a single save. Family Matters is the cooperative result: keep the contact's assignment satisfied, photograph and report what he asks for through the final day, and take the reward at the end. Reset Protocol is the failure result, where ignoring the assignment sends the run back to the beginning instead. The route order matters — clear the cooperative ending first, then throw the second run away deliberately. How each outcome resolves is covered on endings, and the reporting workflow that feeds both is on anomalies.

With the branches understood, the whole list fits into a two-run plan.

Do the cheap ones before the shop gets busy

Picture Perfect, Customer Service, Chemical Romance and the paint-app edit are all worth deliberately front-loading into the first two days, when one customer waits at a time and a wasted sheet of paper costs nothing. Later shifts stack a growing anomaly quota on top of paid orders, and that is not the moment to remember you still need to scribble on a photograph.

Protect the cooperative save

The failed run overwrites nothing you need once Family Matters has appeared in your Steam list, but doing it in the wrong order costs you an entire extra playthrough. Wait for the achievement notification, not just the ending screen, before you start throwing a run away.

Most incomplete lists come down to a handful of habits — the last section names them.

The camera is an achievement tool, not just a job

Three of the four rare unlocks come back to the same instinct: point the camera at the thing you were not asked to photograph. The contact at your counter, the customer behaving oddly on their way out, the figure on a security feed — all of them are evidence, and the shutter is free. Treat every strange moment as a photo opportunity and a first run will land far closer to ten than to six.

Once the list is done, the fastest thing left to read is how each ending actually resolves.