#A Normal Lost Phone

[artversestheworld]

Some of the Many games I have played over the last 2 years an loved. They are in no particular order but I would say probably Eastward, Signalis and Persona 5 are my favs. From top to bottom they are:

A Normal Lost Phone

Death and Taxes

Signalis

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Mutazione

Chants of Sennaar

Disco Elysium

Citizen Sleeper

Flintlock: Siege of New Dawn

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

Dredge

Still Wakes the Deep

Persona 3 Reload

A Short Hike

Strange Horticulture

Gris

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

AI: Somnium Files

Dicey Dungeons

Eastward

Persona 5

The Invincible

Ghost Trick

[horriblesin]

I didn’t see this a post doing this, so HERE’S GAMES YOU COULD BUY OR PLAY INSTEAD OF THE WIZARD GAME.

Celest

Tell me why

Bloodborn on PS1

The hayseed knight

If found

Ikenfell

A normal lost phone

and this is without counting game where there’s a trans character like Apex legend, Dragon age inquisition, The last of us 2,etc. or all of the games that exist on itch.io

I know that I am missing games, so feel free to add more !

[smalltownfae]

Games played in 2024: A Normal Lost Phone

Rating: 3/5

A very short queer game. The premise is that the player finds a lost phone and slowly finds out about Sam, the person who lost it and that is apparently missing.

There is a lot of text and it touches on queer subjects that would probably be spoilery if mentioned. I enjoyed it.

[miharuhebinata]

monthly game tag time!

may

1. Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4

i found my old ds cartridge of this game & decided to replay it for the first time since i was a kid. solid game, 10/10 👌

2. A Normal Lost Phone

the plot twist (? it's not quite right to call it a twist, but i don't have a better way to describe it) was very obvious, but the game was still fairly decent overall.

3. Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story

eh. a bit too hamfisted for my liking, also some of the phone's ui just did not feel very intuitive.

4. Layton Brothers: Mystery Room

if you're a fan of the professor layton series (& even if you're not but you like murder mysteries), definitely play this game! i had a blast with it: each case was fairly interesting & engaging, the character designs were top notch (most of them, at least), & best of all it's on mobile so i could play it wherever <3

just a note though, it does heavily feature a caricature of a person with a split personality (one side being nice/normal & the other being angry/violent). just as a warning. also one of the cases centers around a murder that happened in a south american village that i felt was kiiiind of :/

june

1. Slay the Princess Demo

very excited for the full game to come out on october 20. the demo was very good :)

2. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

SUCH a cute little game. do yourself a favor & play it

3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

started in may, finished in june. i have Many, Many Thoughts on this game that i will eventually talk about but for the purpose of keeping this post simple, i'll just say game very good :)

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

Alt-Frequencies

by Plug In Digital, Accidental Queens

Price (US): $4.99

Included In: Bundle for Ukraine

Genre: Interactive Fiction, Puzzle

Pitch: Pitch.

My expectations: From the developers of A Normal Lost Phone? You have my attention.

Review:

The first plot point you’re likely to encounter in Alt-Frequencies is that the nation will vote on the time loop at the end of the week. The second comes in the form of a blinding light and a radio repeating itself.

My big complaint about A Normal Lost Phone was that displaying a content warning on the first screen of the game, while necessary, spoiled everything for those without content sensitivities. Alt-Frequency also has a content warning on its first screen, which it hides by default. Small change; huge improvement.

I’ll not say another word about the narrative, except that they’ve nailed it. Alt-Frequencies is worth playing for the story alone.

Yet it’s the game part that appeals to me most: Record a snippet from the radio (that is, a single text box) and call in to another station to play the recording. Finding the needle in the red-herring stack can be a challenge, but once you get it, you’ll wonder how you ever missed it.

Each radio loop is just a few minutes long, with the option to skip forward one text box, so listening to / reading the full broadcast of every station isn’t asking much, besides which, getting to know the characters, their shows, and the music the play is entertaining enough that I was also happy to take a break from the mission and just listen. It’s the best part of Grand Theft Auto with a dash of Her Story. Short, unique, intriguing—check it out.

+ A miraculous fusion of text and audio, contemporary politics and science-fiction, tragedy and comedy, and puzzle solving and storytelling. + Character-driven writing that uses believable people with believable responses to impossible events to say something real. + Some natural, believable acting. + A simple logic puzzle made better through winning presentation and mechanics.

– The in-universe tutorial goes out of its way to explain that this is a special radio with special powers that must be calibrated. It's a dumb way to start. Everyone who's old enough to have used a radio has recorded something off a radio, and call-in radio stations have always been popular. These things do not need sci-fi explanations. Dumb! – Toys around with one additional mechanic, but never commits to it. There's a lot more to this game's ideas, and it's a shame they didn't take full advantage. – Having the right idea but getting the execution slightly wrong can lead to a lot of frustration. – Some not-so-natural, not-so-believable acting. Some embarrassing typos, too. Indie developers, I have experience as a director, frequently working with amateur actors, and I was a bug tester and copy editor at Nintendo for years. I'm available for hire. Lots of people with my skills are available for hire. We are always worth the cost.

🧡🧡🧡🧡🤍 Bottom Line: Alt-Frequencies is a short game built on a fresh concept and righteous political anger. Play it. (It's available on everything. Judging by the controls, iOS and Android were probably the target platforms, but I think you'll get just as much out of it no matter how you play. Itch has the lowest MSRP, but it's often on sale for stupidly cheap on PC and elsewhere.)

#JakeReviewsTwitch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[crazycreaturess]

Happy Pride Month from Sam & Sam!

Realized while watching gameplays the other day that the games “gone home” and “a normal lost phone” both feature an lgbt+ protagonist named Sam. Thought it was a fun coincidence.

[jeu-a-telecharger-sur-pc]

A Normal Lost Phone : immersion totale dans une enquête sur PC

Découvrez A Normal Lost Phone sur Jeu-à-télécharger, un jeu d'aventure immersif où vous explorerez le téléphone perdu de Sam afin de résoudre un mystère captivant. Plongez dans une enquête réaliste sur PC à travers des messages et des photos. Bon divertissement !

[cranberrychan]

I played through A Normal Lost Phone! I had been meaning to play it for a while. It had vibes similar to Secret Little Haven, in its subject matter and presentation. The light puzzle elements were fun too! It was a good little story :)

[chuthulhu-plays]

A Normal Lost Phone

[ID: The banner for A Normal Lost Phone by Accidental Queens. It shows the title of the game under an open padlock, and next to that, a person facing away from the viewer, looking at a phone. The person has dark curly hair and is wearing an orange jacket with the words "Who Is Sam" written on the back. End ID.]

I've had this wee game sitting in my steam library for years without ever getting around to playing it, and I'm glad I finally did. I have never felt so tense and anxious reading text message in my entire life, but thankfully the game has a happy ending <3

Is it good? It's a very well-designed puzzle game-slash-visual novel with a lovely art style. I found a couple of the puzzles a bit frustrating, but I'm also playing this while very ill :v It's not handholdy, but you generally have a pretty good idea of what you're looking for next.

Is it fun? Dopamine from solving puzzle go brrrrrrrr

Is it queer? Yes. The game warns you upfront that, while going through Sam's messages, you'll see a fair bit of queerphobia, and that's relevant to both why Sam has gone missing and why the phone's been abandoned...

[spiritelectric3]

It’s incredible that the A Normal Lost Phone soundtrack still haunts me all this time later

[lethal-spaceship]

please more dipcifica i am on my hands and knees 🙏

SIR YES SIR also feel free to give me any dipcifica requests (twirling my hair giggling)

when I got this ask I was like:

[mobijeuxatelecharger]

A Normal Lost Phone te réserve une enquête narrative passionnante

Dans la rubrique « Aventure » de Mobijeux, tu trouveras le soft « A Normal Lost Phone ». Grâce à ce ludiciel, prépare-toi à lever le voile sur une enquête narrative en résolvant des énigmes. Fouille alors le téléphone d’une inconnue et explore sa vie intime.

[velvetwyrme]

Requests!!!!! Would love love love to see a doodle of swapfell papyrus!

The feeling ripples out from your point of contact and floods into your chest, crashing against your heart and filling it with sunshine.

hiiiiiiiiii i got carried away with this because i was like. hey. this ask is from july. yknow which sf!pap i should do? the one from Wishbone.

ur fic took me out at the knees. the DYNAMIC between them... but listen. though they're kinda going through it, for this one moment, all was okay in the world.

requests closed!

[kindahoping4forever]

Normal caption!

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

A Normal Lost Phone

by Dear Villagers

Genre: Adventure, Interactive Fiction, Puzzle

Pitch: Look through text messages, photos, and more on a lost phone to learn about its owner.

My expectations: I've heard of this! I don't expect to have my mind blown, but this series is fairly well regarded, right? Is "normal" meant to be ironic, like I'm about to stumble upon some horrific mystery, or is this going to be a contemplative look at the hints at the life of an ordinary individual captured on a piece of consumer electronics? I hope it's the latter.

Review:

Content warnings are important. They are an encouraging sign of social progress, and I hope we never move backwards. It is awesome that we live in an era where it is common to respect each other’s sensitivities. I hate content warnings.

I hate when a well-crafted, slowly unfolding story—a story where all the mysteries would fall into place if you just knew that one crucial piece of missing information—gives away the whole game before it’s even begun. A Normal Lost Phone presents an absorbing slice of life, written with a masterful grasp of nonlinear storytelling and keenly observed characters, but I was on the lookout for the thing before I’d clicked past the title screen.

A content warning was the right call. No one who might be hurt by said content deserves to be caught off guard. I wish I had a better solution, but I don’t. I mean, I’m being as vague as I can, but I’ve already told you there’s a thing.

A single, admirable, necessary sentence tainted my experience, but it did not ruin it. The call to empathy and understanding still resonates. This story’s strength is not in its ending but its telling. Highly recommended.

+ Invites you into the life of a stranger. Spins an absorbing, painful, small-scale yarn within the confines of a phone, where all the disconnected, seemingly disconnected puzzle pieces click into place as the context is revealed. + Dreary indie pop from a surprising number of artists. It's not enough music to cover the game's total playtime, and I never found an option to make the playlist automatically repeat, but I found my fingers tapping along to the tunes often enough that I didn't mind having to manually reset it.

– Content warning gives away major themes too soon. The seemingly incongruous details that should be intriguing fall flat if you've already predicted where the story's going. (A content warning was still the right call.) – While I like the idea of the handful of password-cracking puzzles, and even felt satisfied with some of them in execution, it's a drag when you know you've seen the answer somewhere and have to dig through dozens of messages to get what you need. – SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! Are you playing a character? Are you playing as yourself? This question is left to your imagination, but whoever you are, there's no reason to believe you have any connection whatsoever to the phone's owner or any of the characters in the story. In order to progress, you must read personal message, send sensitive messages and even photographs—not as yourself, a stranger who picked up a stranger's phone, but as Sam, the phone's owner. It's incredibly invasive, and it serves no purpose except to satisfy your own curiosity. Now, if I could do the thing that I would realistically do in this situation (look for contact information and return the phone to its owner without invading anyone's privacy), we wouldn't have a game. I don't feel bad about playing a game in the way it was intended, but I do feel weird about it. It's a game about feeling empathy for a person who keeps secrets; a person who is right to keep those secrets; a person whose secrets should be respected. And the goal is simply to satisfy my own curiosity, no matter what violations that entails? Weird, weird choice.

🧡🧡🧡🧡🤍

#JakeReviewsTwitch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...

• By name • By rating • By genre

[undertheknightwing]

Do y'all ever think Gar likes retro stuff the most because it's all he had at first in Doom Manor? Before he learned to sneak out and steal, he just had the Doom Patrol for entertainment and company. And they all died way before the 2000s. So he heard their stories, their likes and dislikes, and other things from what time period they were from and got somewhat attached to it. Plus all the decorations and stuff in the manor are old as well

Cause I do