01
What is the found-phone genre?
Found phone adapts the idea of found footage or a recovered document. Instead of an abandoned tape, diary or camera, the player discovers a fictional phone. Its owner is not there to explain what happened. Their data speaks for them.
Messages show the private side of relationships. Photos sometimes reveal what the characters failed to notice. Searches expose a concern. Calendars and transactions create a timeline. The story emerges when these fragments are assembled.
02
A story told through interfaces
An interrupted conversation, a blocked contact or a rarely opened app can all be narrative choices. In this genre, form and content cannot be separated: the way information appears changes how the player reads it.
That is why a believable interface matters as much as the writing. If the phone behaves like a traditional game menu, the illusion breaks. A good found-phone game lets players explore, revisit and occasionally miss a detail before understanding it later.
03
Investigation, intimacy and point of view
Searching a phone creates instant tension: these conversations were never meant for us. That closeness gives the story power, but it also creates a writing rule. Every piece of data should serve the characters or the mystery, rather than merely fill the screen.
Unlocked uses entirely fictional phones. Names, conversations, accounts and photographs belong to the game’s stories. Nothing is taken from the player’s real phone.
04
How Unlocked uses found phone storytelling
Every case begins with a clear situation, then gradually opens new apps. Players freely cross-check sources and record conclusions in the Casebook. A correct answer never depends on guessing a random word: it must match the available evidence.
Cases move between disappearance, relationship drama, murder and double lives while keeping the same central pleasure: understanding a person through the traces they thought were scattered.
