Unusual Findings is a love letter to the 1980s that mostly earns the affection it’s asking for. Epic Llama Games has built a point-and-click adventure soaked in the era’s movies, music, and video games — and for a lot of players, that alone has been enough to make it a favourite.
The art style is spot-on, the soundtrack nails the vibe, and the writing has genuine comic timing. It’s the kind of game where one of our reviewers admitted they bought it purely because the trailer opened with “You Spin Me Round,” and then found the game entirely lived up to the promise.
Where it gets complicated is the puzzles — and that’s where opinions split hard.
The Loop
Classic point-and-click adventuring — examine everything, talk to everyone, and piece together what’s actually going on beneath the small-town surface.
Inventory logic and environmental problem-solving carry most of the runtime. This is where the game asks the most of you, for better and worse.
Dialogue-heavy and genuinely funny, with three main characters whose banter carries a lot of the experience.
Your choices matter and there are three endings to reach — unusual for the genre, and a real replay hook if the game lands for you.
The 80s Stuff Is Genuinely Excellent
The characters are a real strength. The three leads are entertaining, well-voiced in their writing, and the comedy lands more often than not. The story starts strong and the premise — small-town kids stumbling into something they absolutely should not have found — is exactly the right frame for the era it’s channelling.
And it’s replayable, which genuinely isn’t common in adventure games. Three endings and choices that matter give it more legs than most of its peers, and one reviewer put fifteen hours in without complaint. For a smallish studio, the production quality is impressive.
The Puzzles Divide People
The harshest feedback is worth taking seriously: one player who describes themselves as a big fan of puzzle games resorted to a guide about halfway through, and found the B-ending section crossed from “weird” into genuinely irrational. When most of a game’s runtime is puzzles, puzzles that don’t click can sink the whole thing.
There’s a secondary problem that compounds it — because the game is non-linear with multiple routes, looking up solutions online is genuinely difficult. There are countless ways to reach an ending, which is great for replayability and terrible for finding a guide that matches your exact state.
This is precisely why the Vinny’s Diary update matters so much. An escalating in-game hint system that can go all the way to direct instructions is the correct fix for exactly this complaint, and it’s free. If you’re weighing older reviews, weigh them against that.
Other Rough Edges
The save system is the one we’d single out as most fixable and most worth fixing. Being unable to save on demand in a dialogue-heavy adventure game — where players may well be fitting sessions around real life — creates friction that has nothing to do with the game’s actual design goals.
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
| The Good | The Bad | The Ugly |
|---|---|---|
| The 80s Aesthetic Is ImmaculatePixel art, soundtrack, and constant reverence for the era’s movies, music and games. It’s the reason several players bought it and the reason they stayed. One reviewer called it the best game they’d played in twenty years — that’s the ceiling this thing can hit. | Divisive Puzzle LogicWhere some found them satisfying and investigation-driven, others found solutions arbitrary and the ending segments close to aimless. When puzzles are most of the runtime, that split is decisive. The free hint update helps enormously, but the underlying design still won’t suit everyone. | No Manual SaveAutosave at fixed points only. One reviewer left the game idling for hours rather than quit mid-chapter and risk losing progress — inflating their playtime by about five hours. In a long, dialogue-heavy adventure, that’s a real problem. |
| Great Writing and CharactersGenuinely funny, well-drawn leads carrying dialogue-heavy scenes with real comic timing. The story’s premise is perfectly matched to its era, and the level and puzzle design earned outright love from a good number of players. | The Story Loses SteamA compelling opening that several players felt flattened out later on, with dialogue that becomes talkier without adding proportionate substance. Not universal — but consistent enough to note. | Guides Are Hard to UseThe non-linearity that makes it replayable also makes it hard to look things up. With countless routes to an ending, finding a walkthrough matching your exact state is genuinely difficult — which made the pre-update puzzle problems worse. |
| Replayable, With Three EndingsRare for the genre. Choices matter, three endings exist, and players are logging 15 hours without complaint. Impressive production quality for a smaller studio, and the devs are actively supporting it with free updates. | Not Quite LucasArtsPlayers specifically hoping for a spiritual successor to the classics found it fell short on charm and polish by that yardstick. Judged on its own terms it fares much better — but the comparison is inevitable and it doesn’t always win it. | Minor Visual InconsistenciesOccasional roughness in background detail, particularly signage, that sits slightly at odds with the otherwise excellent pixel art. Small, but noticeable when the rest of the presentation is this considered. |
The Verdict
This charming indie adventure nails the 80s aesthetic while delivering a genuinely engaging mystery that respects player choice. When Unusual Findings works, it really works — the art, the music, the comedy and the characters combine into something a lot of players have loved unreservedly, and the three-ending structure gives it staying power most point-and-clicks never manage.
The puzzles are the fault line. For some players they’re satisfying and properly investigative; for others they tip into arbitrary, and since puzzles are most of what you do here, that difference decides whether you finish delighted or frustrated. There’s no fudging that — it’s a genuinely divisive design.
What tips the balance is that Epic Llama Games clearly listened. The free Vinny’s Diary update adds an escalating in-game hint system that goes all the way to direct instructions, alongside improved controls and QoL fixes. That’s a developer responding directly to their game’s single biggest criticism, and it meaningfully changes the recommendation.
The honest split: if you love 80s nostalgia, pixel art adventures, and you’re happy to lean on hints when a puzzle stops making sense, buy it. You’ll likely have a great time, and the hint system means the frustrating stretches no longer have to end your run.
If you want puzzle logic that’s airtight on its own terms, or you can’t stand playing without a manual save, go in cautiously. Those are real, unresolved issues, and no amount of excellent soundtrack work fixes them.
For a smallish studio, this is a genuinely accomplished piece of work with obvious love behind it — and a developer still actively improving it. That counts for a lot.
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Score Breakdown
