Strange Telephone
Fair · Narrative · 2019
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
NO RUSH.
Fair at $4.99. Buy it if you want it.
- Length
- 1.7h 3.2h to 100%
- Value
- $2.94/hr
- Reviews
- 84% of 366 positive
Watch this gameOne alert at a price you pick.
Buy now or wait
Discounted in 5 of its last 8 seasonal sales. Last cut ended 11 days ago.
- Next sale
- Winter Sale, Dec 17 to Jan 4
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
About the game
Strange Telephone is a 2D adventure game in which the player explores strange worlds created with merely 6 digits, and has multiple endings.
Minimum specs
Minimum on the Steam store: DX9 (shader model 3.0) or greater. Windows only.
The value story
It has been discounted 59 times in the 8 years tracked here. The median cut across all of them is 40 percent, about 6 weeks apart. Today it is at full price, and its last discount ended 11 days ago.
Value puts it in the top 15 percent of the games it competes with. It is cheaper than 62 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 75 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Yume Nikki (free, scores 87) beats it on value, while it beats Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP ($7.99, scores 44).
More about Strange Telephone
Inside the two-hour refund window, 70 percent of the 105 reviews written there were positive, against 84 percent overall, and those are 32 percent of everything written about it.
It carries Valve's Deck Verified rating and runs 1.7 hours, about as long as a handheld game wants to be.
The drop-off
96% start to 27% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
What players say
Very nice surreal game with some gameplay elements that actually reinforce the exploration as opposed to existing independently of it. Basically, there are literally thousands of numbers you can dial. Each number takes you to a level. You then use this level as a sort of "forward operating base" to explore adjacent levels. There is a time limit that throws you back to the hub if you exceed it, meaning you will have...
2 more reviews, 1 not recommended
Don't try that irl, you'll just get Crazy Frog ringtones and a 6 figure phone bill
It's okay. I liked the visuals and had a couple good ideas. My main problem with it is the solutions are really esoteric and basically demand a guide. If not you'll spend ages wandering around and randomly inputting phone numbers until you stumble across something new to do. After that you still have to try some very random things to actually progress. "Story" wasn't any payoff at all. Overall I wouldn't recommend...
Steam reviews, mixed to its ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
Strange Telephone scores 57/100 on the BANG Score (fair value) as of Oct 19, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/705290/strange-telephoneReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 29, price as of Oct 18. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.