Unusual Findings – Review

Unusual Findings is a point-and-click puzzle game set in the 1980s at Christmastime for those who can’t get enough of the Stranger Things universe. The three best friends, Vinny, Nick, and Tony, are all under house arrest and use a cable signal descrambler to watch adult pay per view movies outside. After activating the descrambler, however, they receive a mysterious alien signal, and shortly thereafter, something crashes through the sky and into the nearby woods. Once they get to the forest, however, a park ranger is killed, and the boys resolve to find a way to prevent the alien killer from wreaking further havoc. Let’s dive into a critique of Unusual Findings for the Xbox age.

Featuring an alien invasion and a heavy dose of ’80s nostalgia, Unusual Findings is a horror-based action adventure. With the exception of a few spot-on references to ’80s IPs like ‘Galaxy Wars,’ ‘Ponies,’ ‘The Amazing Arachnodude,’ and ‘Supersam,’ the vast majority of it is just a little off.

Quickly, I became engrossed in the action. In the first few minutes, I found the banter between Vinny and his father to be a bit clumsy, and the voice acting seemed a little forced. My interest in the game only grew after I stopped worrying about winning and started enjoying myself. The initial scene was a bit frustrating, and that set a somewhat negative tone for the remainder of my viewing experience.

A simple map of Southplanes’s streets and locations serves as your portal into a series of scenes. The scenes are entered and navigated as a side scroll, with you moving in and out of them. To advance the group, you click the screen; quicker clicks result in faster character movement, which is a nice touch. However, it is annoying when you just want to get across a scene quickly without being interrupted by clicking on cars in the foreground or signs on doors because it is so uncommon to walk in a straight line without encountering an object that will prompt the interactive menu. As you progress through each scene, you’ll encounter bushes, trash cans, doors, and electronics that you can interact with by clicking on them when the reticle turns red and revealing a menu with grab, inspect, and talk options.

It’s easy to talk to people because you’re given a list of possible questions and responses before you even start talking to them. I found that after completing a puzzle with a character, there is no additional dialogue to help you with the next step or what to do afterward; the dialogue options remain unchanged until you complete the puzzle corresponding to that character, at which point maybe one or two options change or drop off. I solved a difficult puzzle in a video game for a specific persona… We will not engage in further conversation. I returned to the scene after having successfully diverted another character’s attention so that he or she could steal something. There will be no more talking. Someone in the family rushes out the door to get me something I need… When I try to look for her where I think she’ll be, I can’t seem to track her down.

To be honest, I had a lot of trouble getting into this game because so many of the puzzles were too hard and convoluted. For some reason, this game made me feel like a complete idiot even though I am not a moron. Perhaps it is the Covid hangover.

After six and a half hours of making no headway, I decided to either collect everything I could and sort it out later, or use everything I had collected on every object that could be interacted with, in the hopes of finding a clue. I scavenged everything I could find, which wasn’t much, but most of the items needed to be fixed, exchanged, or improved in order to interact with the puzzles and characters, leaving me with very few choices.

The most annoying part was that you knew what you had to do but couldn’t do it because you needed to figure out how to make it work after you knew what you had to do. If you’re looking for a comic book or video game to barter with, and you find one, but it doesn’t work, that’s just one example. Inexplicably, you come across a comic book but are unable to keep it. Although I get that this is a puzzle adventure game, I was disappointed by how few hints there were despite the fact that each character had four to six possible responses to any given conversation prompt.

The visuals have the expected retro pixelated aesthetic, complete with wide trunk bodies and skinny legs. The Christmas decorations in one yard were bright and colourful, but the scene in the woods, which was arguably more important to the story’s progression, was murky and important objects were difficult to make out.

The music was fantastic, as it is in so many independent games. There was a vibe to the background music. Some of the music in a particular scene was reminiscent of the theme from Twin Peaks, prompting me to pause and consider whether or not I should switch to playing a game that draws inspiration from that show instead.

Finally, I’d like to say that I was looking forward to playing this game. Even though the art style and plot held my interest and I was eager to learn more about the story as I progressed, I was frustrated that I didn’t get to see very much of it. The premise of Unusual Findings is interesting, but the game’s constant movement and incredibly frustrating puzzles turned me off. After enduring 6.5 hours of boredom and frustration, I have decided to abandon the effort. Others with a better grasp of the genre than I have, perhaps, will appreciate this more than I did; if so, my best wishes go out to them.