A Normal Lost Phone

A Normal Lost Phone is an interactive, story game told through the lense of a found cell phone, created by Dear Villagers and originally released in 2016 with an update as recent as 2020. Now, this post is going to be a little different, cause as I'm sure is very apparent by this point, I'm a disaster and lost my laptop charger sometime within the last few weeks. So this entire process is happening on my phone, game playing, post writing, screenshots, everything. Which also means, having already picked out this game for this month, and realizing i could play it on my PHONE while I order a new charger was honestly a miracle. But also?

Listen.

I didn't go looking for a cell phone simulator when I decided to play this one. So while this was entirely a coincidence, I am so glad I did cause I don't think this experience could have happened in any other device.

Just, first of all, I hate Sam, the owner of the lost phone's, home screen. Aesthetically, its great, everythings right there, easy to navigate, not too ugly. A perfectly serviceable home screen. Actually using it though? I might just be a small handed android user but this was surprisingly a struggle. Not even to mention the fact that this is basically a puzzle game?

Okay, maybe calling it a mystery game is a bit more accurate, but having to read through someone's texts and emails and resetting their chat room password is a heck of a weird thing to do. Especially since, Sam's phone isn't locked? Like, her dating app profiles and chat room server are but her whole phone isn't? I mean, you go so far as to have a fake utility app but not a passcode? Not even a pin or design code?

Personal device security issues aside, a phone in this day and age can be a very intimate look into someone's life. Especially for young people and people hiding things from their wider, real life circles. Sam is no exception to this, we learn more and more the deeper we dig. Between abruptly ending what seemed to be a happy relationship, having two separate dating profiles, parsing through some vaguely unsettling messages, and ultimately being in a situation to lose her phone in what can be argued is a public space at all on her birthday, leads to more and more questions until things begin to make sense.

And dear Pan did that make sense when the answers hit.

By the time I'm writing this I haven't managed to open the fake utility app to see what's hiding there. But I have cried at least three times. Just,

I don't even care that this is a fictional story in a funky lost phone game. There's something just so beautiful in being able to fully embrace yourself in a place where others know you and being fully accepted in your entirety.

Spoilers, but Sam is a bisexual trans girl who plays the harp and comes from a very conservative area and family. She did what so many of us did and found a community and acceptance online and is building herself a new life.

At this point I don't know if she tossed her phone after a bad fall out from her family while coming out, or if it really was an accident. I don't know if she had any intention of going to her estranged cousin's wedding. I don't know if the company she was composing for liked her submissions. Or if the guy she was talking to on her dating app would become anything more.

All I do know is that Sam lost her phone sometime before 10pm on her 18th birthday, where she had planned on coming out to her family. I know she had been exploring her identity and gender expression covertly since something clicked when she wore a dress for the first time as a joke. I know she was trying to plan for a future that looked nothing like her childhood.

Seeing as I have this game downloaded on my phone, I'm most definitely going to keep playing it. Maybe I'll even manage to open the fake utility app and figure out what happened to Sam. If I manage it before the end of the month I'll post an update.

That's enough from me though, I need to go process all these emotions.

Happy dreams.