A Normal Lost Phone Review: What Privacy?

What would you do if you were walking around and randomly came across a cell phone on the ground. Let’s be honest here as it’s a split choice that someone will either attempt to call a contact, answer the phone as rings to return it or simply reformat it and pocket the cell. And this is also realistically considering if the phone is password protected.

Well this is a game that takes you on a “nosy” quest to find out who’s the owner of “A Normal Lost Phone.” It’s a story about a boy named Sam who’s just received 4 text messages from his father trying to find out where he is and what possibly could’ve happened to him. Is he missing? Was he kidnapped? Worse? This becomes your investigation rather than simply making that one call back to DAD.

So who is Sam? At first glance of text messages he seems to be an awesome, yet average kid that has quite a bit on his shoulders. However, when he doesn’t respond to his father it raises a lot of questions. The phone is equipped with a few apps, most importantly beginning with all of his text, calendar, gallery and music; mainly because those are the only accessible apps (at first). As you continue to delve deeper into Sam’s text you learn quite a bit about his life, family and close loved ones.

Though to some it may seem overwhelming, I enjoy how the developers made each conversation as detailed as possible, leading you in to researching who and how others relate to Sam and his background to understanding what exactly happened.

There are other apps that requires a bit of work from you to crack his passwords. And as for how you solve these are unique in every way. Just to access the internet I had to find the right text to gain wifi access which allowed me to access emails, lovebirds app and more. Solving everything involves you not only having to think like Sam but at times also pretending to be him, completing unfinished messages and awaiting replies.

I absolutely loved the soundtrack to A Normal Lost Phone as its well-balanced list genuinely complemented the story. Another neat feature was being able to adjust volume in the game the same way you would a real phone, never taking away that sense of realism.