Unusual Findings
A great introduction to modern point and clicks with a ton of fun (and sometimes frustrating) puzzles
Code provided by Stride PR & Epic Llama Games
I haven’t played many point-and-click games recently. In fact, would argue I haven’t played or even thought about point-and-click games much in the last 15 years or so. So imagine my surprise when I learn that point-and-click games are alive and well in the indie game space, and there’s actually a healthy audience of fans to receive them. Not one to be left out, I decided to try my first indie game in forever after playing the demo of Unusual Findings during Steam Next Fest. What I say next may shock you because it certainly shocked me. I actually really enjoyed this switch-up of the genre. Although not perfect, especially in regards to the puzzle-solving aspect, I think overall Unusual Findings presents a fun sci-fi adventure taking place in a relatively small town.
The thing that drew me into this game, and I would assume attracts most fans of the genre, was the story. The elevator pitch is that a group of teenage boys in the 80s stumble upon a killer alien that they then feel obligated to stop. So…total Stranger Things vibes. The big contrast between Unusual Findings and Stranger Things, though, is how serious each game takes itself. Unusual Findings is much more of a lighthearted story that is constantly trying to increase its JPM (Jokes Per Minute). The game is chock full of subtle (and some very not-so-subtle) adult innuendos, pixelated visual gags, and comical retro references. I would say thankfully, more often than not, the jokes got a smirk out of me, but to be honest, I’m not sure the humor will land with everyone.
The same can be said for the characters and voice acting. The main characters were pretty enjoyable. A very over-the-top representation of the tropes from the time period, whose dialogue and delivery stayed consistent throughout the game. The side characters were definitely hit or miss, though. In general, I would have liked to see more diversity. Not just in the cultural sense either. Many of the side characters, with a few key exceptions, were either clueless, horny, or completely ridiculous. It made for some stale encounters as the game went on. The one thing that left a particularly bad taste in my mouth was the two homeless characters that had the same “I’m super crazy” personality, along with the most exaggerated line delivery you could imagine. This not only felt one-note and off-putting but also seemed like a waste of a character in a game that entirely hinges on the player’s interactions with the characters and settings.
Speaking of settings, I actually enjoyed pretty much all of the locations this game took me to over the 6+ hours I played the game. I thought most of the locations were a nice callback to the time period and set the stage for some pretty interesting puzzle challenges.
That brings me to the core of the game, the puzzles. As a person who hasn’t played many puzzle games, even I know a game like this lives and dies by the puzzles. There should be a perfect balance of difficulty so that it seems like the game maker isn’t insulting the player’s intelligence, while also not jumping the shark with how they expect the player to progress. I think Unusual Findings overshoots the mark a handful of times, but on average has a pretty fun suite of puzzles.
The puzzles in this game were both the best and worst parts of the game. When they worked for me, they really worked. I often find myself smiling in triumph after picking up on all the hints and putting together a clever solution. Sometimes I would get 99% there but miss one crucial clue, and in those cases, I wouldn’t even be mad; I would feel like the game beat me, but that I’d get it next time. Then some puzzles just left me scratching my head.
The game does its best to give you all the context clues you need to make deductions and solve situations, but even then, some puzzles just felt impossible to solve in a reasonable amount of time. There were a few solutions I felt like I stumbled into, while a handful I just didn’t see the connected path to how I would have gotten there. For example, there’s one puzzle where you need to win at an arcade game late in the game, but there are dozens upon dozens of choices, and no discernible pattern to solve it. That leads to situations where I end up wandering around for hours looking for some hint that I never found until, ultimately, I had to look up the solution to press ahead. There are other times when you might have the solution, but the order of interacting with objects or speaking with characters is wrong. This is the worst, because you talk to a character or touch an object and rule it out as a solution, only to come back 30-60 minutes (or more) later just to find out you had to talk to someone twice or something like that. Those moments just feel like huge time-wasters, and signal to me that the game could benefit from a hinting system to guide the player in stuck moments like that.
I’m going to be honest, it’s hard for me to understand where longtime fans of this genre set the bar for these types of games. I’m judging how I feel any newbie to the point-and-click world would see it. That being said, I would recommend this game to folks like me. I feel like Unusual Findings is worth your time if you’re already intrigued. The immense level of love and care Epic Llama Games put into designing a product that their supporters would enjoy is clear. The game does its best to take you on a fun adventure that respects your intelligence and time as a player. I just think they missed the mark in a handful of key areas.
