While this message is undeniably one that more people need to be exposed to, the game does wander a little close to preachiness than some will be happy with, including those who already sympathise with Sam’s situation. This is a game that wants you to reach the end for obvious reasons: it has an important message about society and it wants to make sure you get it. You probably will too, and it’ll probably only take you an hour or two to beat it. This wasn’t a massive issue, mind you, because I did eventually manage to reach the end on my own.
A NORMAL LOST PHONE REVIEW HOW TO
This is where the game’s puzzles come into play, as you use the information in the texts to figure out how to access other areas of the phone.Ĭan’t get into Sam’s dating app because there’s no internet connection? You’ll need to read through the text conversations to figure out what the town’s free Wi-Fi security key is, then work out the password for his account.įor the most part the answers to these puzzles are strongly hinted at throughout the text, email and forum communications you eventually gain access to, though one or two of these solutions are a tad tenuous.Ī couple of times I found myself trawling back through all the messages again, in case I’d missed something obvious in my quest to unlock the next part of the story. The text messages only form part of Sam’s story, and by the time you’ve read through them all you have more questions than answers. Sorry, I couldn’t think of a word for ‘partners’ that started with an ‘F’.
Needless to say, though, Sam is struggling to deal with an awkward situation a number of people encounter in their real lives.Ī Normal Lost Phone, then, is an attempt to show you what life is like for people who share a similar ‘secret’ to Sam, and how it affects their relationships with friends, family and… um, fornication associates. Revealing what this secret is would sort of ruin the entire point of the game, so I won’t. His girlfriend’s pissed off at him for some reason, his dad’s wondering where he is and some of his board game chums keep referring to a big secret. It soon becomes clear as you work your way through Sam’s messages that all is not rosy in his life. This process starts with the Messages app, where you can read through the history of Sam’s discussions with the likes of his parents, his girlfriend and his friends at the local board game club. The idea is that by trawling through the personal data of the owner, a boy called Sam, you’ll eventually find out about his life and, ultimately, discover why the phone went missing in the first place. Or would you search through the user’s messages, emails, dating app and photo gallery in order to find out more about their life?Ī Normal Lost Phone works on the assumption that you’d go with the last of these options, and that’s really the only major problem I have with it. Would you hand it in to the police and hope it made its way back to its original owner? Would you search its address book for a number called ‘home’ or something similar and call it to let them know you found it? What would you do if you ever found a mobile phone? I have only done so in order to avoid spoilers and to ensure the player goes into the game knowing what they’re supposed to know at that stage. Those who have already played through the game will have noticed that I have deliberately not used certain words and descriptions in a way that may seem ignorant.
Note: This is a plot-heavy game that deals with a sensitive topic.
A NORMAL LOST PHONE REVIEW ANDROID
ANDROID / iOS / STEAM (ANDROID VERSION REVIEWED)