Games worth discovering

When Stranger Things isn’t enough ‘80s nostalgia – Should you play Unusual Findings?

14K View2022-10-19

Unusual Findings by Epic Llama is a game that’s been on my radar for some time. In fact, I played the demo version a few months back and came away most impressed. The full game is an amusing adventure full of quirky characters, interesting locations, and unexpected moments. The story might tread familiar ground, but it’s so goddamn charming that it doesn’t really matter. The puzzles are engaging, and the characters are spot on. In addition to all that, there are multiple endings and ways to overcome obstacles, so there’s a good bit of replayability to boot.

THE STORY

Three early-teen boys witness an alien crash-land in their small town one night and (maybe) kill a park ranger. In true ’80s flick fashion, the trio of gutsy lads takes it upon themselves to capture this alien and thus save the town...by performing a bunch of fetch quests and solving point-and-click puzzles.

PLATFORMS

Unusual Findings is available on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Xbox Series X and Series S, PlayStation 5...and your smart refrigerator (just kidding). I played the PC version via Steam and only encountered a couple minor issues.

TIME PLAYED

I put a little over six hours into Unusual Findings, and that netted me what seemed to be one of the good (or at least not terrible) endings. As I mentioned, though, there are several different endings, so if you are one of those completionist types, expect to be at the game for longer.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Humor. In the opening sequence of Unusual Findings, the boys go to their friend’s house in the hopes of watching “un-scrambled” adult movies with a device this friend invented. Any game that makes me laugh out loud then point at the screen in acknowledgement as if I were Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in its first five minutes—well, that’s a damn humorous game.

• Logical puzzles. The puzzles in Unusual Findings aren’t easy in most cases, but they are coherent, akin to knocking over dominos (i.e., visible cause and effect). For example, you have to turn a valve by the stream at one point, but the valve is jammed. The dialogue tells you that you’ll need a lubricant to loosen it up. A bit later, you’ll come across some WD-40, which you then take back to the valve to loosen up and turn. This causes the water level in the stream to rise which allows the farmer to resume fishing...and then you can steal the hammock he was lying in to use as a net in the hopes of catching the alien. Got it? Good.

• Pixel art. Yeah, I know there’s a ton of nouveau-retro games out there that utilize old-school pixel art these days, but the graphics in Unusual Findings have a cartoon-y vibe that really seems to both pop off the screen and recreate the best of what Sierra and LucasArts put out.

WHAT SUCKS

• Lack of polish. There were a couple instances where the dialogue felt off, and simple words and names were mispronounced. I feel this could have easily been corrected via editing or rerecording those lines. The game also crashed on me in two separate playthroughs...which was annoying, sure, but not the end of the world as I didn’t lose any real progress.

SHOULD YOU PLAY IT?

Is ’80s nostalgia a license to print money these days? Yes. Yes, it is...so of course you should play Unusual Findings if that era appeals to you. That recommendation goes double if you dig point-and-click adventure games that give you a wink and nod while serving you up sly references and puzzles that defy the “moon logic” imperfections of the popular adventure games of that era.

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