Lost Frequencies
A Unity game controlled by physically tuning a phone like a radio dial, revealing a family's memories one frequency at a time.
Lost Frequencies is a Unity game where the controller is the player's own phone: its gyroscope and accelerometer, streamed live into the game via ZIG SIM, turn the phone into a radio dial. The premise draws on Black Mirror's "Eulogy" episode. An old radio holds fragments of a family's past, and finding the right frequency is the only way to reach them.
The mechanic
The scene is a cabin wall scattered with period objects, a candle, a fountain pen, an old photograph, a pocket watch, a small chest, centred on a picture frame and an antique FM radio. The on-screen instructions are direct: "Move the phone on the back and hold it like a radio dial. As you move it, the frequency shifts. Move and tilt your phone to adjust the radio frequency to find the right alignment." As the player tilts the phone, the radio's FM readout shifts in real time until it locks onto a signal, surfacing a clue and ticking up the "X/4 Clues Found" counter in the corner.
Unlocking memories
The picture frame at the centre of the scene is the game's emotional core: heavily blurred at zero clues, it sharpens with each frequency found. After all four clues are collected, the frame's memory unlocks fully, shown as an animated scene with deliberate camera framing rather than just a static image snapping into focus. Clarity is earned progressively, clue by clue, rather than revealed all at once.
Reflection
The strongest result was how quickly playtesters understood the radio-tuning gesture without being told twice: turning a phone like a dial is intuitive in a way that a menu or button never would be, which is exactly what the Eulogy-inspired premise needed.