Unusual Findings

If you had a minor degree of disappointment with the latest Monkey Island game as I did, let me tell you that this game will help scratch that itch.

The best feature presented here is that the puzzles will have different solutions depending on some dialogue choices, and it even has 3 different endings.

Try it out!

I absolutely loved this game. Just got literal goosebumps watching the outros but I won't say anything spoiler related. This is an old school point and click full of nostalgia for my favourite ever decade, the 80s. The puzzles are plenty challenging, the humour is right up my street, the friendship between the three main characters makes you feel like you are living through The Goonies or something like that. The creators of the game have the same love for simpler times of fun, freedom and adventure that I do too and you really feel that in the game. It is Pixel Art style and that is just perfect. I am a huge Monkey Island fan (1&2) and recently felt a bit underwhelmed by certain parts of Return to Monkey Island. But THIS game gave me everything I needed and was looking for and it pays homage to all those games like MI that came before and made this such an incredible genre. I highly recommend this game it has everything I would want from a point and click adventure. It has some edge as well which keeps it from being too shiny. A quality P&C always has a bit of grit, in my view. Honestly, buy it and play it. It's a win! I am already hoping there will be more.

The following review is based on my full purchase (no freebies, discounts or special treatment/incentives) of Unusual Findings.

I'm a long time point-&-click fan. I've played most, if not all of the greats over the course of my 35 years as a gamer (I'm now in my 50s). I have to say that this game stuck me as one of the best! Literally up there with Zak McKracken, Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and many others. I lived the 80s and they got the nostalgia just right. The puzzles and overall mood (I hate games where it's always sunny and bright. I like games with that dark and cozy feel if that makes any sense) were spot on. Speaking of puzzles, they were good and generally challenging and kept me motivated to play for hours on end. As I began this game and slowly realized the gem that it is, I thought for sure that such a good thing would surely end too soon. Thankfully, I was wrong as the story line kept twisting and turning and expanding. Ultimately, this is certainly a full length adventure that you can really sink your teeth into.

This game is a modern-day classic; one that I bet will be recognized as such as more people experience it. If you long for the classic quality of Lucasfilm, Sierra and other point-&-click adventures, GET THIS GAME AND SAVOR EVERY MINUTE!!!

To the developers and other game creators, PLEASE MAKE MORE LIKE THIS! This is the winning formula that seems so elusive. Bottom line, if you make more games like this, you will certainly get my business. I thank the game creators for bringing a smile to my face and giving me some great gaming entertainment.

I had a hard time deciding if I would recommend the game. To be honest, it is a nice game, but nothing more.
+ I like the nostalgia, pixel art and voice acting
+ the idea seems interesting
- I feel like the story would've had more potential that hasn't been used.
- I missed half of the "optional" puzzles, no idea where the other half was.
- the controls (in the inventory and using the 3 actions provided) feel bulky and lack context in many cases.
- the puzzles themselves are mostly pretty boring, so there has been wasted potential as well..

In total I can't recommend it. Maybe if you can get it cheap or enjoy pixel art games in general. But as an adventure game, I feel it is only okay and could've offered much more - if the developers decide to do more adventures, they should probably hire better writers for the puzzles and story in general...

Ok, so this is your run of the mill point and clicker game. It can be a bit boring but if you limit your game play to 30 min sessions, the game is tolerable.
Ode to the 80's Aesthetic:
Yes, this game has a STRONG 80's aesthetic, visually and musically (its trendy). One of the more insightful qualities of this game is it's portrayal of the 80's in the US. Something typically lost in a lot of 80's nostalgia, is just how much white flight there was and how segregated life was for the whites during this period. During 60's, 70's and 80's, there was continuous and extensive white flight across the US as businesses and institutions slowly began to desegregate on the heels of the civil rights movement. This game actually captures this quite well with it's all white suburb and where the only 2 black characters seem to be maintenance workers with stereotypical minstrel voices (another traditionally american product). The company that developed this game seems to be Argentinian, so they really did their homework on the US to get this just right. They have produced a not only representation of the white self-segregated enclaves of the 80's but also a product that they would enjoy with white visions of what racialized others would be like. What fun!

BEST GAME EVER!! Very reminscent of Maniac Mansion or Monkey Island or Callahan's Crosstime Saloon. The characters and locations are Excellent, Amazing pro voice acting, tons of lines or dialog, lots of clever interactive object based puzzles. The story is great - one could probably make a movie based on it - but best of all, the game's really got heart! I know that sounds like a cheesy cliche thing to say. But you could tell the developer really loves the 80s and everything about that decade, and it really translates perfectly through the game. A labor of love and extremely fun to play! I give it a 10 out of 10. I really hope they make more games like this!!! PS Maybe the daughter can have her own adventre!!! =)

SUMMARY

Coasting on nostalgia, just to merely get by.

While I had an enjoyable enough time with this game, the biggest appeal of it is far from the gameplay. The puzzles are mismanaged significantly throughout. It's also not because of the "retro vibe", which is primarily aesthetic and carries very little significance throughout, more of being a stylistic theme than something built into the fabric of the game. No, what is truly fun about this game is the interactions between the three friends, as they go with you everywhere in the world, and almost everything you observe, one or two of them chime in to say something and react to situations. The game is very personality driven.

The thing with the puzzles is, I solved a good deal of them on my own, but I spent the better part of around an hour and a half of total game time wandering around, wondering where to go, what to interact with, only to go into a walkthrough and see that the obvious answer was staring me right in the face. Not in the "haha, oh wow, that's so obvious," kind of way either, more of the "Wow, they literally hid that out of the player's purview on purpose." Now, I don't know whether it's because of the significantly open-ended nature of this game (there's a lot of optional puzzles and 3 different endings), but I found that for a lot of the "solutions", it involved interacting with things you are repeatedly allowed to interact with in the game world, but which do not carry any significant interactions. Trash cans are a good example. A number of trash cans in the game are merely set dressing. They provide no items, solutions, or progress of any kind. But then, there are a couple precisely positioned trashcans throughout the game that are required for progression. Then, there's other small things, like the key to the principal's home being hidden under his doormat, which is barely visible, and only a few pixels tall so it can easily be missed.

Needless to say, things are not telegraphed well at all either visually, through talking or observations, or through hints supplied by the game. Often times, hints will be cryptic, and finding the correct solution to puzzles is misleading since it will still allow you to progress down certain puzzle paths until it dead-ends and you think you're stuck. It creates a dilemma of not knowing what to do, what to use, or where to go at numerous points. There is also a problem with inventory management, as you will be stuck with certain items on the off chance that you encounter optional puzzle paths down the line in the future, leading to you wondering which items you are going to need to use, which creates an extra layer of confusion for the player. Steps could have definitely been taken to refine the optional puzzles and make their progressions clearer to the player, and items, and the environments, less cluttery. I had around a dozen items I didn't even need by the end of the game. The game advertises itself as having "classic point and click mechanics", but classic point and click titles were never this sloppy. Obscure? At times, sure, but they knew how to present items to the player, give textual hints, keep your inventory relatively clutterless, and made sure the environment emphasized what was relevant to the player's progression.

While I will harp on them for the puzzle design, the animations for a lot of things are stellar and executed exceptionally well. A lot of time clearly went in to making all the characters move and interact with seamless fluidity, and realism in staying on model as much as possible. It makes this game feel noticeably higher budget than it probably actually was. Action scenes are appropriately intense and violent, backgrounds are detailed and well planned out, and there is a supreme sense of genuineness about the art style that doesn't reek of "fad cash-in".

The soundtrack is mostly subtle, and there's only one time it really jumps out, which is during the intro when it has a licensed song playing as the characters ride their bikes through the various locations of the game. I thought it was kind of odd using 1984's "Spin Me Right Round" by Dead or Alive, especially since the song is quite clearly erotic in nature, and this game is centered around kids...I mean, there's so many more better fitting songs, like Tears for Fears "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", The Cars' "Moving in Stereo", Journey's "Don't Stop Believin", or New Order's "Blue Monday". There are so many songs that could have fit, but I guess the 'energy' of the song fits appropriately, even if the tone and theme of the song are wildly at odds with the theme of the game. Perhaps it was simply one of the more notable 80's songs they could get while also being on the cheaper side? Who knows. I just know that I raised an eyebrow when the song came on and then had a good laugh.

Which brings me to the humor. The game, despite its dark subject matter and violent imagery, tries its hardest to maintain more of a light-hearted theme throughout. It feels like an R rated movie trying to escape a PG-13 movie. While the creators had a good sense of humor, and I found myself laughing considerably more than most other games, I feel like they could have leaned even more into the 80's theme with more thematic references to 80's films thrown in direct relation with the plot. Maybe a reference to Return of the Living Dead by having someone scared of a dead body and if it will reanimate like in the movie. Instead we get mostly just mentions of movies that don't exist, reworded/respelled to make them different enough for someone to not claim copyright. Most references are through casual conversation or movie posters, which is a shame, since I wish there were more direct homages.

As for the acting, it varied. At times, the voice acting was believable, at other times, it was stilted and awkward, because the voice actors were either amateurs, or directed to read lines verbatim, which lead to a lot of lines being read very deliberately without any sort of contractions, turning an other-wise casual sentence into something that feels rough. For instance, instead of a character saying "I'll see you later," they would say "I will see you later." Very robotic and weird sounding. Also, a number of the pronunciations were blatantly wrong, and a lot of the text was also either grammatically incorrect or spelled wrong. It wasn't enough to take me out every time, but it was all common enough for me to notice and include it in my review. I still think the character portrayals were strong enough to overcome this though.

The ending message, while heart-felt, is something I simply don't agree with. Nostalgia is irrelevant when judging media. It tries to have this speech at the end speaking about how important childhood is and how the best decade is the decade you grew up in, and watching stuff from older periods is important to get an understanding and connect with older generations, which is fine, but it is a firm principle of mine to not judge things based on nostalgia. Nostalgia is personal. It should stay personal. The true meaning and merit of a film should be what reactions it elicits and whether you enjoyed it, and whether its material still holds up. I would not rate something better because it is new, just like I would not simply rate something as being better because it is older and more people know about it and like it.

Overall, a fun romp through an 80's inspired Stranger Things clone, and it does just enough to make an identity of its own while maintaining the integrity of its own vision to deliver enough quality entertainment to recommend.

OVERALL SCORE

Somewhat Recommended

REPLAY VALUE

Above Average

It's a decent game, but some of the puzzles get annoying like old school point and click games where the logic is a bit weird. Still, the style, music and dialogues are good, so I recommend it. Might want to use a guide sometimes though.

This game is the best graphic adventure game of the year and top 10 of all time. There are lots of items & puzzles, the story is entertaining and funny, the music is really catchy, the art work is beautiful and is pixel art at its finest. I enjoyed this game more than the recent Monkey Island.
Game play 5/5
music 5/5
sound 5/5
graphics 5/5
puzzles 5/5

making the game a solid 10/10

Unusual Findings definitely provides a nostalgic 80s feel; reminding me of films like The Goonies (with slightly more violence and minor gore). The characters are well fleshed out and the scenarios around the town centre felt well thought out. It felt like a proper town you were exploring, with some pretty funny interactions.

The alien elements to it really reminded me of a 80s film, with the 3 kids trying to defeat an enemy more/less on their own. I did enjoy the fact that the 3 kids were not irritating and seemed like normal teenagers with normal dialogues.

Good points about the game:
- There's plenty of playing time in this game due to how depending on which dialogue option you choose at particular points, you can get a different ending. Plus future puzzles are played out differently too.
- The puzzles are medium difficulty level. so there was a good challenge with playing the game. I never felt bored.
- The developers did a great job on the themes and atmosphere; providing a genuine 80s feel.

What I didn't like about the game:
- The Save option was very limiting...you have to exit the game to save, in 1 game slot. So it becomes a bit of a pain to save at different points to check what different puzzles await you. I had 2 game slots saved (one where Vinny is being nicer; one were he is being a "jerk"). Ideally I would have liked to have been able to save at multiple points in the game.

Fantastic game! Really cool and authentic 80's vibe throughout. Really good puzzles, brilliant voice acting and entertaining story. Wonderful chemistry between the main characters. Interface is also okay. I can recommend this game quite openly!

I personally loved it! gives that nostalgic feeling of the 80's plus the look and feel of a retro game. If you like the old Monkey Island series then you will probably enjoy this. The game does have different endings depending on your choices, I spent a little time stuck here and there but that's ok. I got ending C on my first run I think.

The art and music is good. Overall, Unusual Findings is not what I was expecting. It's a point-and-click adventure with a ton of dialogue. This isn't a bad thing by any means. I may have missed the point-and-click in the description or somewhere else. From what I played, it was pretty good!

Was looking forward to this one but frustrating puzzle and cursor design and a hackneyed story led me to giving up on it (even after resorting to a guide). I was expecting a Stranger Things cash in and was fine with that, but there's just nothing fun about playing this one I'm afraid.

I'd totally recommend this game. The story line is pretty fun, the puzzles are the right amount of challenging (although sometimes they can be a bit easy) and I like it very much that some of them can be solved in different ways. The cherry on top is the multiple endings. 9/10

More or less a standard point-and-click adventure, set in the 80s for some nostalgia. Voice acting is pretty decent, music and art style fit the game. I found some of the puzzles a bit obtuse but not unsolvable necessarily. Biggest thing when you become stuck at certain points with these style of games is to talk to every character, look at everything possible and try to combine every item with every thing available.

Climb into the Wayback Machine and take a spin. 1980's all over again, deity help us! Just like driving my Pentium II, 250Mhz, Win '98SE (still runs!). The graphics are great at working hard to force the video card to go backwards and give a good rendition of a huge video memory onboard, normally 128 to 250Mg, WOW!
I like this game even better than Darkestville Castle for the reason that Epic Llama stayed with the Point and Click of yesteryear. Very much in sync for this time of year and for the times the program represents.

Some people want to write their reviews a bit longer. With headlines. In bold, and with some sort of logic. And comments about this, and that. Sprinkled with references and comparisons to other games et cetera. Me? I just want to take of my shirt infront of the people who made this game and scream: you fucking made it.

An enjoyable point and click. Great music, humor, and voice acting! The puzzles were sometimes a little complicated for me, but that isn't saying much! If you want to play a tongue in cheek throwback to the 80's. Give this a whirl.

If your a massive 80's movie nerd like myself then your going to enjoy this, its full of references that will give you that satisfied grin because you remember that movie or quote or poster you know the look im talking about

A very charming pixel point and click adventure puzzle game fully voiced with deliberately cliché but cool characters a very enjoyable score and interesting story containing more than a few head scratchers

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: My opinion does not represent that of super lemon kola

This must be a first for a classic point-and-click which changes the plot, dialogues, and puzzles based on your previous decisions. Witty commentaries and Argentina references are a bonus that almost made me choke on the water last night playing, hahaha!

This is USAUpAllNight reporter Vertigoink letting all you cats and kittens in BBS land know about the rad new point n' click, Unusual Findings!

Wanna play a game that mixes Maniac Mansion, Stranger Things and the best 80's ambiance this side of Dexy's Midnight Runner's? Here it is. Pixel art more polished than Madonna's pearly whites? Yo, you found it. How about a simple interface and sounds so intuitive they are like wearing sunglasses at night? Well then its a safety dance to arrive with this new generation of pnc!

But will it run on my Steamdeck 6200 you ask? Like velvet is my answer to you! Stop sitting on your mitts and come help the guys in their quest for pixelated txxx! Vertigo signing out...

At first, I was just a little skeptical about graphics. Pixel art in 2022? But my longing for good point-and-click games overpowered, and I gave Unusual Findings a try. And it was a right decision, judging by the time I have already spent with the game. The characters and atmosphere are awesome – 80s as I like it, and even all the dialogues have a voice-over. I mean all the phrases have a nice voice acting, including the ones when you are examining every single item and object. And the lines are almost always witty and funny, that’s nice. As for the gameplay, I like it so far. There are a lot if interactions with the other characters and objects (sometimes with funny animations), enough puzzles and classic point-and-click item tinkering in you inventory. Even different options in dialogues and puzzles that influence what you can do next. Right now, Unusual Findings has all the chances to become my point-and-click adventure of the year, along with the new Monkey Island.

This is really the best find for fans of classic quests! Puzzles are nice, not too hard, not too easy (but I'll rate it at the end of the game). I don't think I'll remember the story, but I appreciate the opportunity to enjoy the recreated of the 80s.
And I absolutely love this music!

By the way, Unusual Findings has nothing to do with Stranger Things, which is a pity :(

The game is quite elementary in terms of gameplay, but very effective and has fresh vibes in it. In any case, it's more than I expected. Good story, absolutely cool atmosphere, nice and a little naive dialogues.
Frankly, it doesn't seem to me that all the puzzles here are logical. But this thing is pretty much enjoyable and I definitely recommend the game to those who are nostalgic for their childhood.

So far so good.

Okay, I haven’t played much yet, because quality point-and-click games take time. But Unusual Findings really piqued my interest, and by far I have a very good time. Most of all I like the attention to all the little details, including different hidden interactions, Easter eggs and references to the pop culture of the 1980s, etc. The Puzzles are interesting too. But most of all I like the mix between old-school pixel art and some modern effects, and, of course, the MUSIC! It’s awesome to hear You Spin Me Round by Dead or Alive in the opening of a video game! The rest of the game OST has nice vibes too.

Haven't passed it yet because don't watch the clues from others, but what I have managed to see I definitely like.
First of all the atmosphere, it's like the first season of Stranger Things, only pixelated xD

Great voice acting, interesting story, a lot of humor, logical puzzles, the atmosphere of the 80's... what else do you need for a good game? =) Definitely a really good game.

I don't usually review games but rn I feel the need to send my regards to the devs for all those not-so-stealthy easter eggs and references. Conando and Galactic Wars yeah right :D

Really cool!

I played the demo for this during Steam's Next Fest event in October of 2022. Last week. I've always been a bit wary of adventure games that look like they are trying to capture the look and feel of classic adventures, especially ones that lean more LucasArts. But the demo was good, so I bought this day one. Alas, I do not recommend it.

As far as adventure games go, it's got all the bells and whistles you'd expect. Inventory items, using those items with different areas of the game, and a lot of meaningless conversation. There are puzzles as well, and the ones you see will be slightly different from others depending on your choices in the game. I think. The choices open it up for other play throughs of the game but I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

Graphics: the pixel art in the game is really well done. There are a few areas where objects don't really stand out much, so you can miss them as they aren't obvious interaction points or objects you can pick up. There are a ton of nostalgia driven easter-eggs throughout the game, but those might fall a bit flat if you're not a child from the 80s/90s.

Sound: Music is pretty good throughout, with some licensed music that surprised me for being in an indie title. Voice acting is mostly very good.

Gameplay: Ah, this is where my non recommendation comes from. There is a lot of dialog in the game, and that dialog is where a lot of clues are hidden to give you an idea of where to go or what to do. It's in so much trivial nonsense that you may not catch it, and find yourself running around to previously explored areas to search for things you missed. You'll also in some cases need to look at something, or talk to it, prior to interacting with it. You're figuring things out faster than your characters in the game, and it isn't really prepared for that.

Puzzles are mostly "find an object and use it." I.e. Find a game cartridge for trade, and then blow into it by attempting to speak to the console... Because you can't blow in it via inventory interaction. You will have contextual clues through conversations with your characters, or an observation with the object... But there's not a lot of clear direction so you'll find yourself in areas without knowing what you should be doing there.

In the last hour of the game you'll be treated to the Street Puncher 2 puzzle, which almost had me leave the game out of sheer frustration. In this puzzle you're playing a game that's a nod to Street Fighter. Only, you simply have to pick a character to face your opponent and win 3 times in a row. Sounds easy enough. But you don't know what the characters strengths are, who they are, and if there's any variance between who is playing the character. I ended up making a spreadsheet to capture what match-ups would result in a win/loss. That was pointless, because there were times previous wins wouldn't actually result in a win. In any case, I hated this puzzle. Hated it with every ounce of my being.

Once you get past that part you're on the way to the end. There were items in my inventory that I didn't use, ever. I hate junk inventory in adventure games. If I picked it up, I want to use it somewhere. Now some of those items could have been used in "optional puzzles," which I apparently missed close to half of what's there. Could be because of the choices I made, and how the game played... But then why was I even carrying around the Alien Eggs ?

So, fans of games like Day of the Tentacle or Maniac Mansion - there's probably enough here to give you an enjoyable experience. But if you get frustrated by obtuse puzzles and limitations of ideas... Maybe pass.

Honestly, I hadn't heard anything about this game until I accidentally saw it on Steam Next Fest. Since I was born in the 80s, the nostalgic art style, retro music and plenty of in-game easter eggs attracted me a lot.

The game turned out to be quite difficult, but it's definitely worth buying and I'm going to pass it to the end with pleasure.

Beautiful old-school adventure game with the atmosphere of Stranger Things!

+ Retro 80s vibe pervading every detail of every location
+ Music that you want to add to your daily playlist
+ Awesome nerdy humor and lots of geeky pop culture references!

- Sometimes non-obvious ways to complete tasks and locations, cruel pixel hunting hahaha :)

Genuinely enjoying the game so far. Good puzzles, good music, good soup. I think I'll never get tired of the 80s trend is games and tv shows, what a great time indeed.

Definitely recommend.

Such an amazing game! currently have a series on my youtube page! brings back fond memories of Diskworld + Monkey island! There needs to be more games like this! thank you Devs for the throwback!

My Youtube page if anyone wants to check this game out...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChDsmInQFETwENjzQ0viojA

Got actually soft locked in the second half of the game because i apparently said the wrong dialog option to a companion so he would not help me obtain a key item. why not just game over me instead of soft locking me?

A cool lil' adventure game taking us back to the 80s. Full (and solid) voice-acting, fun characters and a great setting. In all honesty, the demo end screen of the boys dancing made me try the full game, and it was good fun.

There were a couple of moments where I hadn't the slightest clue how to continue, but thankfully guides exist, and in hindsight the actions made sense. On rare occasions the voices did get really soft, which is most likely a bug. I appreciate that they animated a certain something playing with the wheel swing among other things. Made the game feel charming and alive.

Amazing game in several aspects! Great story, amazing humor, nice characters, beatiful voice acting, astounding pixel art... worth every penny.

Nice little point and click adventure game with a rad 80s feel. Though some of the puzzles are weird and the Street Puncher 2 puzzle can straight up f*** off.
Other than that the game is very fun and interesting. For the price I can definitely recommend it if you're into this thing.

PS: the music absolutely slaps :D

Edit: Forgot to mention that the game has multiple endings and puzzles that change based on your decisions. Definitely has replay value.

An 80's style adventure game that takes place in the 80's.

Where this game shines most is in it's retro style graphics, and it's nostalgic setting. The story and characters are cheesy, but in a fun way. In terms of game play it is very much a point and click adventure game so if you like those you'll like this, if you don't you probably won't. There are several different paths through this game so I haven't seen all the puzzles, but for the most part the ones I came across were logical and fair.

If you loved the 80's and like adventure games give this one a try.

I wish I had refunded this game, would only have been my second refund on Steam ever. I played the demo and thought it charming enough after 20 minutes to wishlist it and then impulse bought it when it came out. I fell asleep during the first part (to be fair, no real fault of the game's) but slept through the 2 hour refund mark.

The quality level is so low I feel like I got bait and switched. RIDDLED with typos, TERRIBLE script writing and even WORSE voice acting makes me cringe and eye roll at each little reference they ham fist in. Oh, "COHN JONNER" GOOD ONE I WONDER WHAT THAT IS. JON BOVI HAHAHAH WOW NICE. Each character is beyond 1 dimensional, they're somehow like half a dimension. The puzzles seem OK honestly but I got so annoyed with the logic that I was so ready to be done. And above all else, yes, I enjoy 80s references and stuff, and I understand this is basically "Stranger Things: The Video Game", but liking the 80s is not a personality trait.

I hated this game.

Well, this game had the misfortune of being my rebound game from "Return to monkey island". After almost a month of rigorously canvassing every inch of Ron Gilbert's latest masterpiece the feeling dawned on me that I needed to move on. Unusual findings, which was already on my wishlist, seemed like a suitable candidate and a few days (and 20 hours of playtime) later I can safely say that I made the right choice.
With just a few exceptions which I will point out shortly (Most can be ironed out with a patch, mind you), unusual findings is highly enjoyable both as a point and click adventure, and an 80's horror/ sci-fi nostalgia romp.

Pros:
Aside from the obvious which are the absolutely spot on visuals and soundtrack, I have to recommend the writing. The plot is nothing too original, but is engaging enough to keep the player interested. However its in dialogue and interactions between the main characters and their surroundings where the writing really shines. As for the 80's premise - I was afraid of nostalgia reference bombardment a-la "The wardrobe" but it couldn't be further from the truth. The visual references are rarely out of context, and the textual ones feel mostly natural and on point. There is, however, some inconsistency in the reference department. The game is obviously set in "the 80's" and not in any specific year, which is perfectly fine and works great in "the Goldbergs" for example. This obviously eliminates the nit-picky "This ___ only came out at ___ and shouldn't be here" stuff, but I don't think there's any excuse to include clear 90's references in such a setting (Yeah, evil dead is obviously 80's, but Army of darkness is 90's for example).
The puzzles are mostly logical and well structured. Yes, they do require you to be observant and listen to the other characters, but this is what an adventure game is all about (I'm looking at you, some of the other reviewers here, complaining about the need to be observant in an adventure game is like complaining about needing to chew your food before swallowing).

Cons:
In the technical department, there are 2 very annoying quirks which need to be addressed by the devs:
1) Whenever Vinni, who acts as the main character, finishes a sentence, there is a short half second delay which creates an unnatural flow to the conversation. This doesn't happen when other characters speak, and can be manually eliminated by clicking whenever Vinni finishes a sentence (which is what I did most of the time), but come on...
2) Upon almost each object interaction on the screen, be it starting a conversation with a character or trying to pick an item up, before the action itself is triggered, the three protagonists need to walk to a specific position. It happens automatically, and the path finding is usually good enough to eliminate weird toe stepping between them (although they do occur from time to time), but this is a nuisance since it delays the interaction.
The on-screen text has quite a few typos, someone needs to proof read it a couple more times.
The voice acting is mostly service-able, but some deliveries do fall flat on occasion, although this does feel right at home with the 80's B movie vibe.

In conclusion, Unusual findings is a highly enjoyable point and click adventure which shouldn't be overlooked by any fan of the genre. It's also a fun 80's nostalgia romp which can be enjoyed by any fan of the era.

I have but one word for this game: RAD!

5 out of 5 stars, and here is why:
Knew nothing about the game till 3 days before it came out. Played the Demo and was hooked on the theme of teenagers solving alien mysteries in a 80ies setting. So bought "Unusual Findings" and 12hours later i can say: It's 110% worth it!
"Unusual Findings" is the perfect mix of teenager adventure (The Goonies), mystery sci-fi (E.T. / Short Circuit) and basically every 80ies pop culture reference and movie I could think of, put together with a charming story, interesting puzzles and whacky humor. And ofc don't forget about the 80ies music.

Graphicly classic pixel artstyle, it comes along with super smooth animations. All characters have their own unique personaly and are fully and excellently voiced.

As a streamer I'm giving it extra points for it's "Streamer Mode" so DMCA is not a problem.
During the whole playtime i came across not even one glitch or bug - unlike a lot of bigger titles.
Two minor flaws was 1 voice line playing double (Snake in the Arcade) and some voice lines played at a different volume then the rest (f.e. the alien prisoner). But these were very minor flaws.

THANK YOU ELPICLLAMA TEAM! Haven't that much fun with a brand new game in ages.
And special thanks to Hernan, who just came by and had a lil talk about the game with me.

That feeling when you hear a song(Tony's Theme) from your favorite childhood movie(Scarface). Priceless ♡
https://youtu.be/GgTILZdVKzE

Puzzles are fun, varied and also a lot. The game looks and sounds great, though the story isn't much to write home about but rather reminiscent of your average 80s movie, which likely was the intent. It makes up for that with likable characters. One thing speaking against the game is the sloppiness when it comes to small errors and typos, but nothing that would really make me enjoy it less. Overall a pretty good game.

I'm a bit torn about this one, haven't completed it yet and not sure if I ever will. I like the style, the atmosphere and especially the music. The story is nice so far.
There are several possible storylines which I think is really interesting and provides some replayability. After having played the demo, I loved the game. But in hindsight, the demo feels like a tutorial, very easy compared to the rest of the game, at least for me.

The game doesn't feel very polished. Some details, that got annoying for me after a while:

• In the first part of the game (I haven't gotten much further than that), I can most of the times choose all the dialog options and don't see which ones I've used already. Makes it sometimes hard to know if you missed something or (in rare cases) one option has been replaced by a follow-up one, especially when getting stuck and going through everything again. I think some of them should just vanish after using them once, unless the answers to them contain a hint or something. Or at least change color like they do in some other games.
Also some options just don't make sense to always be there, e.g. asking someone for a fire extinguisher after you already put out the fire is just weird.
In a later scene, options suddenly did go away after I've used them. But that seemed to be a rare exception.
• Navigating is sometimes a bit hard. Scenes scroll to the side, so when there are a lot of hotspots at the end of the picture where you wanna go, it's hard to hit some free space so you can actually walk.
• It feels strange that sometimes Tony is talking while he's standing outside the picture and I don't see him.
• The 3 friends move in weird ways sometimes, almost like going in a circle so their order is correct again and only then they go where you clicked. They also need annoyingly long sometimes to get into position, so you can do something. Although, on the other hand, it works pretty well that they walk around obstacles.
• A lot of times, when trying to use an item, you get a standard response. Which leads to some weirdness, addressing persons as "that", e.g. "that doesn't need X" or "that doesn't have Y".

Most of those are things that I could overlook, if I didn't get stuck so often and ended up aimlessly wandering around, trying random stuff, getting more and more frustrated. Not sure if that's just me, maybe the game is too hard for me, but most of the time I know what I need to do on a bigger scale, but have problems figuring out how to get there. I'll probably abandon the game, because except a few small parts, this is not fun for me.
Of course here the different storylines, although nice in most ways, don't really help when you're trying to find info about how to proceed.

It was good, but could not finish it.

This game was sloowww- I kept feeling like i had to skip a lot of the dialogue because of how slow everyone was talking and the wait time between each response. Second and last thing- There were too many little pieces of a lot of puzzles to find and figure out with little to no guidance. I had to find a guide online, even with the guide I felt like it was still going to be dreadfully long, so i quit.

I had a hunch that they wanted to have the player experience a longer game, but it didnt need to be long, just well done and enjoyable.

I recommend this game to people that have a lot of time to burn and love tedious things.

this game ooze of atmosphere and love!
The characters are great and very well written. I really connected with the gang!

Puzzles are mostly very straight forward and not to complicated. But not really in a bad way.
Sign-posting is very subtle and not super obvious which was great!

Overall I've spent good time solving it. Nice pixel graphic, good length of the story and amount of puzzles. I managed to complete it in less than 8 hours.

There were few downsides :
- Stranger Things vibe - not very original, even the music is similar
- Some puzzles were not really making any sense like "spill the oil, because after you will do, someone will come and slip on it" - no matter that nobody was walking there before. I would prefer if every action had some logical purpose.
- You need to pay attention to loads of dialogues, while some of them are just long and not bringing any value, others includes some important clues.
- Sometimes you are forced to do some actions in particular order to unlock the other ones. So if you figured out something faster than characters in the game, the action may still be locked until you will not "look" on something first etc. At the end I had to look on every single object on the game to not skip anything. It was annoying sometimes.
- Some decisions influence the story + there are hidden objectives and puzzles too. It made me a bit disappointed when I ended the game with loads of unused inventory, because apparently I missed some parts.