I recently finished the point & click adventure Unusual Findings and thought I’d share some observations. I’m pretty sure I heard about this game here, but I didn’t see a dedicated thread so I started one.
According to its Steam page, this game was developed in Argentina by Llama Games after a Kickstarter campaign and was released earlier this month. As you might guess by the name, the game tries to evoke the spirit of Stranger Things by having a group of teenagers explore a supernatural mystery in a 1980s suburban US setting. I got more of a budget Thimbleweed Park vibe from the game than anything else though. You are responsible for three main characters, although you only control one (no choice) and the others follow and chime in with comments or help out where needed.
- I didn’t realize this at first, but one of the novel elements of the game is that you modify the dynamics of your team and the personalities of its members based on how you respond during a few key conversations. These changes then impact the possible solutions to various puzzles later in the game, and may be significant in other ways that I wasn’t aware of. These choices don’t just affect available alternative solutions – they seem to lock in the required solution for a given puzzle.
While I appreciate the attempt to add C&C and promote replayability, it did not work out perfectly. First, I don’t think the game is compelling enough to warrant playing through it more than once to appreciate these differences (I won’t). Second, because the different options are set by your responses during multiple conversations through the first half of the game and the game isn’t 100% clear on why certain actions/options are only possible based on your previous choices, you need to recall which options you picked the first time if you want a different experience next time. Finally, since all the items and characters are seemingly included in every playthrough regardless of whether you actually need them to make it through the game, there are a lot of red herrings. This isn’t an entirely bad thing, but there were a few times when I got confused because I was able to get partway down a given puzzle chain but not all the way, actually reached the apparent end of the chain with no impact on the game (an example of this in my playthrough is solving the in-game RPG near the beginning – did this accomplish anything?), or wasn’t able to complete a reasonable-looking action and the game did not give me a logical reason. It’s not really a fair comparison but I think Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis handled this better - IIRC your path through that game is set by a single clear decision near the beginning and each path has a lot of its own exclusive content. Instead of including multiple locked-in approaches, I would have been happier if the developers had focused on adding more required puzzles with the goal of enhancing a single playthrough
- Interface is point-and-click with typical contemporary hand/eye/mouth actions, a separate inventory, and the ability to highlight all hotspots on the screen. The “mouth” action is sometimes used for unexpected actions like reading, so as always you should try all three actions on everything
- You get one saved game per playthrough with no manual save option; the game seemingly saves every time you change scenes or quit. I’m not sure why they did it this way but I got used to it, and I don’t think you can die or enter a walking dead situation
- The 80s atmosphere is prevalent and a bit overdone at times – there are a few cases of dramatic irony where characters say things like “Wow, 64K of memory! No one would ever need more than that!” I’d rather they just stuck with treating the relics of this time naturally much like Stranger Things does and commenting on them only when the plot dictates, but with the current trend of “Hey I remember/heard of this thing!” being considered as humor by itself I’m not too surprised. I did chuckle a few times during the game, although generally not because of the 80s theme
- The synth-based background music was atmospheric enough. Apparently their budget allowed them to license exactly one actual 80s song and they got as much mileage as they could out of it (luckily it’s a banger)
- Puzzles start out on the simple side (maybe Unavowed-tier), so much so that I debated whether to continue after the first part of the game. I think this is party due to the fact that you’re never holding a lot of items at any given time and inventory-based puzzles are more common early on. They get more complex later in the game, and some puzzles that relied on conversations and environmental interactions were notably clever
- All dialogue is voiced, and the English voiceovers are interesting. I didn’t hear any non-native accents, but the stressing and pace of the lines is sometimes a bit off such that several characters sound like the “slow” Canadian kid from that Simpsons episode. Special mention goes to the few black characters, who all get hilarious sheeeit-level voiceovers that alone are worth like $3 of the game’s price
- SJW watch: Apparently this hasn’t seeped into Argentine water yet or they intentionally followed 80s tropes. The main characters and almost all useful supporting characters are hetero-seeming males that fit into convenient stereotypes – the Hispanic kid really likes girls, the Jewish kid is a nerd with an overbearing family member, the ex-Soviet guy wears an Adidas tracksuit, etc. The female characters tend to be vapid, and the most competent woman gets left behind at the end of the game while everyone else does all the work
- It has an actual ending unlike some other recent games
- I didn’t encounter any bugs, although there were frequent misspellings in the text and one confusing but non-plot-critical situation where one character needed to spell “EMERGENCY” backwards and came up with “YXNEGREME”, and there was no option to pick the actual correct spelling or make fun of the character in-game for being a dumbass
According to the game, I spent 5.5 hours on a single playthrough and my performance earned a final rating of B
. Overall I enjoyed this more than most other recent adventure games I’ve played despite the negatives, and it’s especially worth playing if you like retro adventure games or the 80s.
According to its Steam page, this game was developed in Argentina by Llama Games after a Kickstarter campaign and was released earlier this month. As you might guess by the name, the game tries to evoke the spirit of Stranger Things by having a group of teenagers explore a supernatural mystery in a 1980s suburban US setting. I got more of a budget Thimbleweed Park vibe from the game than anything else though. You are responsible for three main characters, although you only control one (no choice) and the others follow and chime in with comments or help out where needed.
- I didn’t realize this at first, but one of the novel elements of the game is that you modify the dynamics of your team and the personalities of its members based on how you respond during a few key conversations. These changes then impact the possible solutions to various puzzles later in the game, and may be significant in other ways that I wasn’t aware of. These choices don’t just affect available alternative solutions – they seem to lock in the required solution for a given puzzle.
While I appreciate the attempt to add C&C and promote replayability, it did not work out perfectly. First, I don’t think the game is compelling enough to warrant playing through it more than once to appreciate these differences (I won’t). Second, because the different options are set by your responses during multiple conversations through the first half of the game and the game isn’t 100% clear on why certain actions/options are only possible based on your previous choices, you need to recall which options you picked the first time if you want a different experience next time. Finally, since all the items and characters are seemingly included in every playthrough regardless of whether you actually need them to make it through the game, there are a lot of red herrings. This isn’t an entirely bad thing, but there were a few times when I got confused because I was able to get partway down a given puzzle chain but not all the way, actually reached the apparent end of the chain with no impact on the game (an example of this in my playthrough is solving the in-game RPG near the beginning – did this accomplish anything?), or wasn’t able to complete a reasonable-looking action and the game did not give me a logical reason. It’s not really a fair comparison but I think Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis handled this better - IIRC your path through that game is set by a single clear decision near the beginning and each path has a lot of its own exclusive content. Instead of including multiple locked-in approaches, I would have been happier if the developers had focused on adding more required puzzles with the goal of enhancing a single playthrough
- Interface is point-and-click with typical contemporary hand/eye/mouth actions, a separate inventory, and the ability to highlight all hotspots on the screen. The “mouth” action is sometimes used for unexpected actions like reading, so as always you should try all three actions on everything
- You get one saved game per playthrough with no manual save option; the game seemingly saves every time you change scenes or quit. I’m not sure why they did it this way but I got used to it, and I don’t think you can die or enter a walking dead situation
- The 80s atmosphere is prevalent and a bit overdone at times – there are a few cases of dramatic irony where characters say things like “Wow, 64K of memory! No one would ever need more than that!” I’d rather they just stuck with treating the relics of this time naturally much like Stranger Things does and commenting on them only when the plot dictates, but with the current trend of “Hey I remember/heard of this thing!” being considered as humor by itself I’m not too surprised. I did chuckle a few times during the game, although generally not because of the 80s theme
- The synth-based background music was atmospheric enough. Apparently their budget allowed them to license exactly one actual 80s song and they got as much mileage as they could out of it (luckily it’s a banger)
- Puzzles start out on the simple side (maybe Unavowed-tier), so much so that I debated whether to continue after the first part of the game. I think this is party due to the fact that you’re never holding a lot of items at any given time and inventory-based puzzles are more common early on. They get more complex later in the game, and some puzzles that relied on conversations and environmental interactions were notably clever
- All dialogue is voiced, and the English voiceovers are interesting. I didn’t hear any non-native accents, but the stressing and pace of the lines is sometimes a bit off such that several characters sound like the “slow” Canadian kid from that Simpsons episode. Special mention goes to the few black characters, who all get hilarious sheeeit-level voiceovers that alone are worth like $3 of the game’s price
- SJW watch: Apparently this hasn’t seeped into Argentine water yet or they intentionally followed 80s tropes. The main characters and almost all useful supporting characters are hetero-seeming males that fit into convenient stereotypes – the Hispanic kid really likes girls, the Jewish kid is a nerd with an overbearing family member, the ex-Soviet guy wears an Adidas tracksuit, etc. The female characters tend to be vapid, and the most competent woman gets left behind at the end of the game while everyone else does all the work
- It has an actual ending unlike some other recent games
- I didn’t encounter any bugs, although there were frequent misspellings in the text and one confusing but non-plot-critical situation where one character needed to spell “EMERGENCY” backwards and came up with “YXNEGREME”, and there was no option to pick the actual correct spelling or make fun of the character in-game for being a dumbass
According to the game, I spent 5.5 hours on a single playthrough and my performance earned a final rating of B
. Overall I enjoyed this more than most other recent adventure games I’ve played despite the negatives, and it’s especially worth playing if you like retro adventure games or the 80s.
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), but comics and toys didn't really co-exist.
