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You probably don't keep a diary in the way that Samuel Pepys or Anne Frank kept a diary: a written journal of days, scratched out in the woozy moments before sleep. But for anyone who owns a smartphone and uses it to tap out text messages, emails and diary reminders, a daily memoir of sorts accumulates in your pocket nonetheless. Most of us reveal different parts of ourselves to different people in our lives according to how much we trust, love, fear or doubt them. Eavesdrop on a single thread of texts to a specific acquaintance and you'll get a false sense of the person. But take all of their texts together and through this chorus of communications, a truer melody emerges. That we leave so much of ourselves in those tiny deposits of text is the first of the revelations in A Normal Lost Phone, Accidental Queen's exemplary game.The premise is simple: someone else's smartphone, dropped or discarded, is now in your possession (the trailer indicates that you found it on the pavement by the side of a road). It's unlocked. You only need search the most recent communications to learn that the phone belongs (belonged?) to Samuel, who is celebrating his 18th birthday today. The but full answer to the question of who Sam is takes more time to unravel. Sam is loved by his anxious mother and overbearing father. He is close to his boisterous uncle, and friendly cousin. Sam is musical. Like most teenagers, Sam has many people in his life, but few with whom he is vulnerable.
This information comes slowly, as you pick through the ping-ponged conversations saved in Sam's message folder. It takes time to learn who is who in his circle, to cross reference the dates and times in different threads, and in doing so piece together why, for example, he fell out with so-and-so on such-and-such date. What is unexpected is quite how compelling all of this snooping proves to be, even when the story is told in such a disjointed, scattershot manner. Partly that's to do with the frisson of peeping. You are invading someone's privacy, gently at first, but then more forcefully as you begin to guess at passwords using clues in order to access the phone's deeper and more secure vaults. Playing the game feels morally dubious because, unlike say when you use a mobile phone in Grand Theft Auto or Final Fantasy XV, here there is no abstraction to your interactions. A Normal Lost Phone temporarily turns your mobile in Sam's mobile, and the swipes and taps are transgressive in their authenticity.
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