Accidental Queen’s Game has More Meaning Than Just Returning a Phone
Imagine you lost your phone on the streets, you’d hate it if someone went through it and started snooping. Now imagine you found a phone, no matter how much you wanted you, you probably wouldn’t snoop. But it is tempting. In the games “A Normal Lost Phone” and “Another Lost Phone: Laura’s Story” you’re able to go through someone’s phone to figure out who to give it back to, without any problems with morals. It’s a big puzzle that opens up a whole character to the player through their texts, emails, photos, and more. Each new text or piece of evidence you find unfolds the tale of why this person no longer has their phone, and at the end you’re prompted to erase the phone for the character. The game may seem like a casual game you can play in an hour or two, but it old really deep meaning that the developers wanted to explore in a familiar way.
Accidental Queens is a French based development team of three women that want to create beautiful games with meaning behind them. Through the use of beautiful art, fun music, and compelling character development you can see why there is a need to create some games like this. The first game is about a trans youth that has to struggle with an unaccepting family and having to hide their identity until they’re old enough to leave. The second game has a young woman enter into an abusive relationship that isn’t as traditional as you’d think. The developers used the phone games to give you such an intimate look into these character’s lives you’d feel such deep sympathy for them by the end.
The games themselves are puzzles. You’ll find a password in an email for a website, but not know where to find the website for a while. It really does simulate how we keep our phones organized in our own lives, and if we did drop our phone people would probably be able to find out a lot of our life from it. Some pieces are harder to find, but it doesn’t take long to finish the game. By the end you feel like you really know the main character and you fully support them and wanting to lives.
These games focus on women and LGBTQ+ in such a great way, because most people don’t look beyond their lenses. With a first hand look at how people are treated through just their phone you can see why marginalized people may use the internet to get away from real life, as well as see how they’re treated by those who may claim to love them. It’s a kind of space that feels familiar to all, so it’s easy to relate to the characters, even if you’ve never been in their shoes before. It shows people who are in bad places physically, thriving as they find themselves and change their environment for the better for all. By being created by women developers, we can see that they put in a lot of thought to being able to relate to other women and LGBTQ+ people. It’s a different feel when it comes from people that may actually know these problems from a personal level, and it make it such an enjoyable experience to know that not everything is awful by the end of the game.
