I feel total whiplash from this title. It has a few legitimately unsettling moments. This one part where you do a questionnaire was PERFECT. Had the exact intended effect. I like the moments where things get crazy and the phone freaks out. It was interesting going through the mystery

But on the flip side, this game is a giant pile of cringe. The acting is utterly abysmal. The story is nonsensical. The ending is terrible. It's really these performances that kill the game. It is painful sitting through the dialouge. The game is best when no one is talking and you're stuck on this creepy phone trying to figure things out.

Split totally down the middle with this one. But that said, the premise and the way they set up the phone in game is really creative. It's a novel game. So it gets some points for that. But it's so close to being something special. A shame.

VERY GOOD. I already like this type of games where you solve everything with the phone, like Mystic Messenger or A Normal Lost Phone etc. and Simulacra made it with horror, my favorite genre. Using real people is something I don't see much in games, it doesn't necessarily mean it makes anything better or worse, but I think it went well with Simulacra and added a lot to the creepiness. The story itself can be a little lacking but compared to the fun and thrill I felt while playing this, I don't think it's a big deal.

Playing this reminded me how fun lost phone games are. A great genre if you want to experience a depth of environmental storytelling with very little set up.

I picked this up a while ago after playing through Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins, and while that was scarier this was an interesting unique concept and got to do a bit more. Definitely want to check out the sequels.

Also plays nicely on Steam Deck

Simulacra is decent. It's a game where it's completely set within a phone (many games would go on to copy this formula), and it's well done. The voice acting and writing is a bit cheesy at times, real 80's B-Movie type of stuff, but it's very interesting. Multiple different endings, and a decent story. They made Sara is Missing which I have played a bit ago, but I don't really remember it, will probably replay and review that and see if it's better.

This is a decent game. Give it a shot.

Overall: 7/10

Simulacra is anticlimactic, cheesy, easily forgettable, low budget effects mess.

Story
Finding a woman's phone by the name of Anna you try to figure out what happened by finding videos of her being desperate and later on speaking with guys who dated her and some tinder crybabies, the story is the most forgettable thing ever.
Later on you find about this kind of virus named SIMULACRA and it took you this amount of time by finding names,sites,stalking people and solving some kind of messages and at last impersonate her to talk with the antagonist named James while her ex Greg gets in trouble with the police and Taylor is having a crysis, other than that you speak with your best friend Ashley and some creep at work called Murv, and yeah you talk with Yolanda and Cassie for informations and such by finding out informations and at the end you talk with ANNA what is not really her and you get your phone cracked and you get 1 of 4 endings depending on how you behaved and choose answers.

Gameplay
Scrolling, writing, and exploring the phone made the it realistic IMO, the devs really knocked this one great but in the end that's really it, would not play the remaining entries in the TRILOGY but might try SIM (Sara is Missing) because I heard good stuff about it.

You will piss your pants while playing this game, but not from fear.

What starts out as a very interesting concept of having to scrounge through a missing girl's phone to find out why she is missing, very quickly devolves into the funniest character drama you've probably ever participated in.

This game is like less than $1 on sale, you will not regret it.