REVIEWS
REVIEWS

October 28, 2016

Andreas Betsche

Voyeuristic phone simulator ‘Sara Is Missing’ wants us to feel awkward

October 28, 2016 | Andreas Betsche

Where is Sara? Who is Sara and what happened to her? We don’t know. All we have is her phone and a futuristic AI guiding us. In this spooky adventure by Monsoon Lab from Malaysia players will discover a haunting story through interacting with a simulated smartphone interface. While reading text messages and scanning through photos or videos they must search for clues about Sara’s whereabouts and discover a story that seems inspired by games and films like Replica, Her Story or The Ring.

Sara is Missing Interface
To find Sara, players interact with her phone’s AI named IRIS.

Sara is Missing is currently in development but a demo can be downloaded on itch.io or Google Play. It already gives a very good impression of what the game aims for: an interactive novel with searching for clues and some very frightening moments. The game’s atmosphere isn’t only emerging through jump scares but especially through the weird and voyeuristic feeling of spying into someone’s (digital) life. In addition, Monsoon Lab promises multiple endings depending on the player’s choices. Until now Sara Is Missing was a surprisingly promising experience, so let us hope the developers can keep up the pace in the final product.

Sara is Missing gallery
That creepy feeling while scanning through a person’s private gallery …

In the meantime, check out the demo and this gameplay trailer:


Andreas Betsche

Andreas Betsche founded Virtual SEA in early 2016 after researching Cambodian mobile games for his Master’s thesis. He has a background in Southeast Asia studies and has worked and lived in Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Since he has been actively playing games since the early 90s, combing both worlds in Virtual SEA brought together both of his passions.

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