SIMULACRA Review

Publisher: Another IndieDeveloper: Kaigan Games OÜGenre: HorrorPlatform: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch

- Jamie Davies

When did you last leave the house without your phone? Can you even remember? I certainly can’t. The thought of heading out with so much as a low battery fills me with too much anxiety as it is; asking me to leave home without any phone at all may as well be a request to go out trouser-less. It’s their ubiquity in our lives that mean smartphones have become perfect little reflections of us. They’re with us everywhere, we use them for just about every aspect of daily life, and we even document the real world with them. In the right (or wrong) hands, unrestricted access to our phones would be unrestricted access to our entire lives. It’s this concept that Kaigan Games has used in crafting SIMULACRA, a narrative-driven game that takes place solely within a smartphone’s interface.

Through unknown circumstances, you (as the faceless, nameless player character) come into possession of a smartphone belonging to a complete stranger named Anna. Being a nosy little so-and-so, you can’t resist turning the phone on and having a snoop around. Before long, it becomes clear that this isn’t any regular lost phone: it’s functioning peculiarly and seems to hold evidence that suggests Anna has been a victim to some kind of horrific happening. What’s more, her friends have been trying to contact her for some time: she’s clearly gone missing, and the key to finding her might be somewhere in the phone. By using the information, contacts and apps stored on the phone, you must piece together themystery of her disappearance and bring whoever or whatever is responsible to justice.