Hello, everyone! I’m Hernan Lopez from Epic Llama Games, excited to share the great news about the release of our new adventure game Unusual Findings with you and all fans of the 1980s! As I look back on all the work that has been done, I want to give you some insight into the game’s background.
It took a lot of effort to make unusual findings. I mean a lot! The game script alone is gigantic and full of scripted things and unique events. And yet it was so much fun making it!
In case you have no idea what the game’s plot is about, I’ll summarize it for you. It’s Christmas Eve in a quiet small town where three kids are desperately trying to watch an adult pay-per-view TV channel with an illegal signal decoder. In a sudden turn of events, they had encountered a killer alien from outer space. So of course they had to catch him! Rest assured that nothing will go according to anyone’s plans… things will get wild and the stakes will skyrocket!
You can see that most of our team was born in the mid 1980s, so we grew up surrounded by that vibe. Although we were too young to “really” experience the 80’s as we hardly lived in that era, we grew up with 80’s pop culture. When we were kids/teens we were obsessed with popular TV shows like Journey into the unexpected, Disco late night cinema, show business. I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about as these were extremely local TV shows (We are from Cordoba, Argentina). With all that said, I’m also pretty sure you (if you’re 30+) grew up listening to some pretty similar stuff. These shows used to be like this: a host talks a little bit about the movie that was supposed to be next, and then… the movie! It could be horror or action (depending on the time of day) but usually it was an 80’s movie. Sometimes they showed a big blockbuster like The Goonies
in the Unusual Findings We wanted players to feel like they were in one of those movies. Even more! Immerse yourself in a quintessential 80’s movie that incorporates the best elements of that decade’s narrative. Let them explore, visit, revisit, play around, talk to interesting characters, experiment with things and try to unravel the mystery behind them Unusual Findings. So to achieve this, we had to do a lot of homework. On top of all the 80’s pop culture we were already consuming back then, during the GDD (Game Design Document) and script development phase, we forced ourselves to watch at least one 80’s movie or TV show episode every day!
However, Unusual Findings is not just about the 80s. Of course, one of the main themes here is nostalgia, and I’m not just talking nostalgia for the 80’s. For example, one of our main characters, Vinny, is a big fan of the 1940’s and the black and white movies of the time.
Other great themes of Unusual Findings are friendship and towards the unknown. That’s what happens all the time throughout the game in a variety of ways. Anyway, I won’t spoil it for you.
To emphasize the point of “facing the unknown” we had to add some unusual insights, I mean features, to the usual point-and-click game loop. So instead of just having one main character running around investigating, we came up with a group of three friends… to go around investigating! While the player still only controls one character, Vinny, Nick, and Tony accompany them, offering their opinions or directly helping Vinny when they can. It plays much better as the main character is no longer “monologues” but instead converses organically with the rest of the team.
We wanted Vinny, Nick and Tony to be true teenage friends who would support each other on their adventure. They constantly joke and sometimes argue with each other.
As the player chooses between different dialogue options, the trio reacts accordingly. It’s not only a nice narrative feature, but also a game gimmick as the player really influences how things develop and many puzzles change along the way, sometimes in radical ways! To give you an idea, the final chapter is basically three different chapters that don’t have a single location or item in common (all the puzzles and dialogue are unique). So this feature increases the replayability a lot, even though the game is quite long anyway.
In terms of location, these three friends will visit some places iconic for horror movies (woods at night, lovers alley, a junkyard, a secret lab, sewers) and some places full of nostalgia like an arcade, a VHS store or a tree house.
Another feature we are very proud of is the game graphics. Not only from the pixel art with particles, smoke and modern enhancements, but also from the music! We are so extremely proud of the sound in the game: we were able to land the #1 hit You spin me around (like a record) by Dead or Alive – the true kings of synth pop! You wouldn’t believe how much effort it takes for a small studio like ours to get them into the OST! Not to mention how much it means to us to have a true slice of the 80s in the game, but aside from that mind-blowing fact, we also have music from some New Retro Wave stars like Robert Parker and Midnight Fighters. The icing on the cake is our original OST composed by LATAM Grammy nominee Tomas Ferrero!
Unusual Findings pays tribute to all the iconic movies we’ve seen, all the toys we’ve played with, all the wonderful synthesizer music we still listen to, and overall this wonderful era that shaped us… Me hope players will enjoy the game as much as we enjoyed making it for them!
Unusual Findings
ESDigital Games
$19.99
It’s the 80’s and Christmas is just around the corner, Vinny, Nick and Tony are young and their new cable signal decoder has just arrived. The same night as they try to decode an adult pay-per-view channel, they pick up the distress signal of an alien spacecraft making an emergency landing in the woods near their town… Things only get weirder as they discover that the towering alien kills very specific members of their community! Explore the world full of nostalgia, look for clues in the Video Buster Store, challenge other kids in the Laser Llamas Arcades, learn a new trick in the Emerald Sword Comic Store, try to hide with the punky looking Lost Guys to get by or even dare to ask THE BULL, the quintessential 80’s action hero, for help! Follow the story that pays tribute to 80’s classics like The Goonies, The Explorers, Monster Squad, The Lost Boys, They Live, Terminator and Aliens, and gameplay that replicates the mechanics of point-and-click masterpieces like Full Throttle combined with its own unique twist and more. Your choices matter, and the way you get these three friends to interact with each other will increasingly affect their friendship and the whole story, changing the way they solve the game’s puzzles, the locations, they visit, the answers they find, the story, everything. Uncover the truth behind the alien invasion… well, sort of. Why here? Why is it killing locals? How can the boys prevent this? Will they turn on the adult channel after all? The answers to these and other questions… in Unusual Findings.