A teenager named Sam vanishes on the eve of his 18th birthday. You have never met Sam in your life, of course. You only know about this because you've just happened upon a lost smartphone, one currently blowing up with text messages from Sam's concerned father.
Who is Sam? Where did he vanish to? Why did he leave so suddenly? Well, you do have a phone full of conversations, photos, and emails to sort through. Maybe you can puzzle out an answer.
A Normal Lost Phone takes the shape of a narrative investigation: the player must search through the phone’s text messages, pictures and applications in order to learn about its former owner. Bit by bit, you will put together a picture of Sam's life, friends, family and relationships, and try to solve the mystery behind his sudden disappearance.
A Normal Lost Phone was developed by Accidental Queens and programmed by Diane Landais. It can be bought on Itch.io
, Steam, and the Google App store. A version for the Nintendo Switch was released on March 1, 2018.
On September 21, 2017 the developers released a Spiritual Successor in the form of Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story. The game is similar in format to A Normal Lost Phone but with a new cast of characters.
Due to the Spoilered Rotten nature of this game, this page is Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned!
A Normal Lost Phone provides examples of the following:
- Abusive Parents:
- Teo's parents kicked out his older brother Erik, when he came out of the closet and lied to Teo and Sam about it, claiming he was the one who left for some sort of cult.
- Deconstructed with Sam's parents: They do love her, but being very anti-trans and anti-LGBT really hurts her and what prompts her to move on with her life. Judging from the text messages, they regret it afterwards.
- Birthday Beginning: The game takes place on Sam's 18th birthday after she decides to start her life over in Covonia.
- Bittersweet Ending: In a final email between Sam and Alice the player learns that Sam took her new motorbike to run away to Covonia and start living life as a girl. She has to leave her family and everyone she knows in Melren behind, but she clearly sounds like this has taken a great weight off her shoulders, and the tone is optimistic.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Melissa is very, very vocally jealous of how close Sam is to Alice.
- Content Warnings: At the start of the game, it warns you that it deals with heavy topics such as homophobia.
- Distinguishing Mark: Sam has a noticeable mole that helps the player identify her photo when she's presenting as female.
- Driven to Suicide: Melissa tries to kill herself after Sam breaks up with her on New Year's Eve. Her attempt fails, but Sam is left stunned and shaken by the news.
- Epistolary Novel: The game has the player investigating the contents of Sam's phone to find out why she left.
- Foreshadowing: Sam's Lovbirds app shows that she has two accounts: Sam_Thing and Sam_Thing_Else. The latter account hints that Sam's true identity might be more than what the player initially sees.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Sam has very noticeable blue eyes that she lists as one of her most noticeable traits on both her internet dating profiles. Her blue eyes is one of the things that helps the player identify her photo as transpride.
- Mentor in Queerness: The older members of the Be You forums become this for Sam, giving her tips on how to cope with the struggles of being trans.
- Room Escape Game: This game has some elements of this, where you have to find the passwords scattered across text messages to explore all the contents of Sam's phone.
- The Runaway: Sam at the very end of the story when she takes the motorbike her father gifts her for her 18th birthday to run away to Covonia to begin a new life.
- Secret Diary: Sam has one hidden behind her calculator app, where she personally vents her Trans Tribulations.
- Slut-Shaming: Poor Helen tells her dad about Sebastian taking things way too far and almost raping her at a party and his only response is to remind her that he warned her about the dress she chose.
- Sobriquet Sex Switch: In a slight variation on this trope Sam is always just "Sam" to everyone, but to her board game club (and later her "book club") it's short for Samira, not Samuel.
- Source Music: The game's music comes from Sam's playlist, which you can change in the music app.
- Supreme Chef: Sam's mom bakes a dessert for Sam's book club every week and judging by Sam's recounting of their reactions she's a great chef.
- Trans Relationship Troubles:
- Sam, who is bisexual, has two accounts on Lovbirds because it only matches you with people of the opposite gender from what is stated in your profile. Her first account when she presented as male only shows female matches and vice versa for her second one.
- Sam broke up with Melissa because she was afraid of outing herself to her when Melissa planned to have sex with her.
- Trans Tribulations:
- Most of Sam's problems stem from the fact that she's a trans girl who presents as a girl to some people but is still in the closet in regards to most people she knows. For example, the big reason she can't introduce her best friend Alice to her girlfriend Melissa is that Alice knows her as Samira, not Samuel. There's also the fact that her parents are openly homophobic and obsessed about Sam "being a man."
- Several members of the Be You forums vent to each other about the things the transphobia they regularly face.
- Phil, the guy Sam connects with on her dating app, tells Sam about how a trans friend of his often deals with complete strangers asking intrusive questions about their body.
