1.4 hours played
Written 5 days ago
This is a short (1-2hr) investigative game where you poke at someone's phone to find out what happened to them. There's a lot of reading of text messages, emails, message board posts etc. so it's for the most part an interactive fiction experience, but it does have some puzzles too.
The story has queer topics, and it's structured a bit like that's a plot reveal, except the game tells you when you start it up that it will include discussions of anti-queer bigotry. So I think it's safe to say that this wasn't intended as a spoiler. (I won't get into exactly which queer topics, because that might be a spoiler, on the other hand.) The game has also been recently included in the 2025 Pride Humble Bundle, though that's not where I got it.
I both liked A Normal Lost Phone, but also felt like I wasn't necessarily the target audience as a queer person who has been out for a very long time. A lot of the discussion is very very intro-level, which makes sense for the young protagonist, but I also felt like I knew about all this and did not need a lengthy explainer. I wished the dialog was a bit punchier, some of it was somewhat bland. I think for someone who doesn't know a lot about queer topics, this would actually be an approachable and empathetic introduction; so I'm glad that something like this exists, because I do get asked for intro-type queer media recs for teens a lot. I also liked the community aspect of the plot and how different communities were shown.
I was a bit uneasy about the concept of snooping around someone's phone - this is kind of rooted in my own experience where the American authorities went through my phone at a border crossing (many years ago, this was not recent) so I would rather not reenact that with me doing the going through someone else's phone. But the fact that you are a stranger going through someone's phone is discussed a bit in-game, so it doesn't remain unreflected - that was good enough for me.
I thought the puzzles were all quite organically incorporated into the story - I had one small annoyance, some of the puzzles depend on dates and the game is a bit inconsistent about date formats.
The music was really intriguing and a *lot* more elaborate than I'd expected! You can also unlock some music, and to me this added a lot to my experience.
I played on the Steam Deck and it ran well - I did have the Deck docked to my TV, so I don't know how it would work on the smaller built-in screen.
Overall, this was a quite solid game, if not exactly what I'd been looking for. I already bought the sequel Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story, but I think I won't play it right away, because I like to vary the types of games I play; I'll probably get to it relatively soon though.
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Source of the game: Bought with my own money in a Steam sale (not the current summer sale)