Unusual findings is a love letter to the 80´s in the form of an awesome point and click adventure game. Inspired by classics as Explorers or The Goonies, it delivers a great story with lovable characters full of satisfying puzzles. A modern cult classic of the genre, an unforgettable adventure that can be considered the best point and click game of the year, even above Return To Monkey Island.
Unusual Findings is a clever tribute to ‘80s pop culture; a fun, creative story brought to life by well-executed graphics, interface, and voice acting.
A great game, a breath of fresh air among adventure games. Puzzles may seem difficult if you are lazy to explore and skip dialogues. For me, the balance between being easy and being too hard is perfect.
This is really a good game.
Great pixel art, some really cool animations (maybe a little exaggerated at times), fantastic music, good writing and simple, but effective and very in line with 80's storytelling, plot. Pretty sure it will have a sequel and can't wait for it.
Puzzles are good, mostly logical and occasionally I got stuck but once solved the main problem all was kind on autoplay; I had to use a walkthrough for two puzzles: one is... very random to me (the floating crystal) and I suppose one of the devs has a degree in chemistry, and the other I would NEVER have solved it (the cola).
it falls a little short on the prologue, it doesn't take enough time to set the tone and you have to fill in the blanks, a little too many references (and I bloody hate the name changes i.e. "Galaxy Wars" instead of "Star Wars" - it's not even consistent since some are the real ones) and some voice actors who are downright terrible, even sounding like a parody (the hobo, the electrician). All the main characters (the kids, the Bull and girl, whatever her name was) have excellent voice actors, though. The girl needed more space to develop the character and interact with the cast, anyway - as it is, she's sadly just background. Also more Bull action would have been cool, but I guess money was short for that.
Negative points:
- The save system is AWFUL. Absolutely awful. What an embarassment. We need unlimited save slots in P&C adventures.
- Options are very limited overall
- The game should have taken more time for the prologue to develop the setting and the characters, and add more of 80s tropes (school, bullies, you know the usual 80s narrative things)
- Walking: ok, bear with me. This is often very annoying because you always have to be mindful of where you click. Meaning that due to hotspots in the path you'll often open the menu instead of walking. And if you double click to run you'll have to listen to a description or something, so you'll have to find an empty spot to avoid the triggers. This seems like a minor thing, but I assure you, it's VERY annoying - you move a between screens quite often and it happens a lot. Also, the action coin is pretty big and ugly, and sometimes part of it might appear out of screen, forcing you to close it, walk more and reopen it. And by the way, this would have been a perfect game for verbs, why the **** did they go with a barebone coin interface is beyond me.
- Writing can be a little amateurish and ingenuous here and there, but nothing major. Sometims it feels... "compressed".
In any case, excellent game, easily one of my favourite P&C adventures of the last years.
Unusual Findings is a good point and click adventure that will appeal to fans of the genre and nostalgia addicts alike. It doesn’t do anything to reinvent the wheel, though, and does suffer from the occasional moment of obscurity or needing to talk to every character again to discover a new line of dialogue. If the style and setting appeal, though, then there is a lot to love here, not least the pixel art and liberal use of pop classic ‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’.
Unusual Things has a lot of cool ideas — from the awesome 80s setting to the fact that your dialogue choices influence the ending. The problem was the stagnation: outside of sex jokes and dark themes, the game never found its personality.
Oh, those 80s! How I loved to play on my Famicom in those days! This game took me right back to my childhood. The atmosphere of those years is conveyed perfectly. And the story is like in B-movies: teenagers, aliens, mystery, and good people who defeat evil. I've spent several incredible hours playing the game. Strongly recommend it to everyone who loves that time.
Я не фанат жанра point-and-click и помню только квесты про "Петьку и Василия Ивановича", но в целом игра мне понравилась и нравится.
Интересный сетиинг - конец 80-х в США, множество отсылок на гик-культуру, чего стоят "Галактические войны"! По крайней мере это забавно.
С точки зрения игровых механик, то для меня игра оказалось очень сложной в плане найти и пройти тот или иной уровень. Я понимаю, что нужно достать, например, номер телефона и дать пареньку, чтобы он позвонил кое-куда, но.. блин... я облазил весь город, пообщался со всеми жителями и прочее.. в общем потратил на это два часа, в итоге нашел решение и был крайне доволен.
В общем, приходится заниматься пиксель хантингом и лазить всюду и везде. :)
Что касается сюжета.. он есть и очень сильно замудренный, но некоторые ходы сценаристов просто удивляют и заставляют задуматься, какие были умные подростки в 80-х их не удивляет наличие пришельца рядом. Думаю, что это не спойлер.
В итоге 9 из 10 баллов.
Моё личное оценочное суждение. ;)
Although the game worth the price tag and has a decent amount of fun, it might be too old school for someone younger than 30.... 35... or even 40. Personally, I enjoyed it a lot, almost as much as I did enjoy Lucas Arts masterpieces back then in the 90s.
Pros:
Vibe of the early VHS era
Sound design and voice-over (English)
The puzzles are logical (most of them) and fun to solve
Cons:
Pixel Art visuals. Look, I’m all for retro, but even the most iconic adventure games of the Golden Age were not THAT pixelized.
The story is quite predictable and a bit dull.
SummaryIt's the 80s and the Christmas is coming, Vinny, Nick and Tony are young and their new cable signal descrambler just arrived. That same night while trying to decrypt a pay per view adult channel, they pick up the distress signal of an alien spaceship crash-landing in the woods near their town... Things only get weirder as they realize th...