Point and click adventure games have always been a favorite of mine, and to this day I look forward to the next Wadjet Eye or insert-name-of-developer-here game. The latest adventure I embarked on came from Backwoods Entertainment and Application Systems Heidelberg. Released just last week on Steam, GOG, and a variety of other digital distros, Unforeseen Incidents is a modestly priced treat for those that seek a classically designed adventure with interesting characters, great dialog and voice-acting, challenging-yet-fair puzzles, and an engaging story.
Unforeseen Incidents puts players in the shoes of Harper Pendrell, a young man skilled at practical repairs and MacGyver-like hacks. He hails from a small blip on the radar known as Yelltown where he makes a living as a handyman. When the story begins, we learn that lately there has been a strange disease going around that people are calling Yelltown Fever. It’s deadly, and works quickly. Harper’s friend, Rupert, is a doctor who at ground zero and is trying to diagnose the disease while a shadowy health corporation known as RHC is promising they’re working on a cure. Things get much more desperate when Harper encounters a young woman on the street who is dying of Yelltown Fever and asks him to deliver a message for him. The conspiracy will draw Harper, Rupert, and several other Yelltown and neighboring townfolk into a scheme that has far more dire and great reaching effect than what they could possibly realize.
Part of enjoying and investing yourself into any story — videogame, book, whatever the medium — is actually caring about the characters, and I thought Backwoods did a fine job with this. Harper is a simply a likeable character. He’s funny, even in a story and in situations that humor is not expected, but he’s also thrifty, crafty, and does right by others. The art and animation style help bring these character traits to the forefront, and what you see is a scruffy, mildly athletic young man that has a good head on his shoulders and is intent on finding out the truth and stopping the momentum of said truth (being vague here to avoid spoilers). Voice-acting for Harper, and the many other characters you will encounter, is very nicely done and certainly adds to the immersion and quality of the experience. Similarly, most every ‘room’ in the game has an accompanying tune and/or sound effects that give it a sense of atmosphere and presence. The sound of a hydroelectric dam engineer sipping coffee late at night, birds off the coast of Port Nicola, that kind of thing. It’s all done with the intent to envelope the player into the moment and the developers did a nice job with this.
Good characters are more important in this genre than others, so it’s good that Unforeseen Incidents did a solid job with these. The story, which, being careful to avoid spoilers, is also good, even if fairly typical. I don’t say ‘typical’ to be derogatory, in my opinion there is also room in any genre for another game that uses a familiar, tried and true theme and tells it in its own unique way. From a very high-level point of view, the theme here is that you have a simple man that is drawn into a plot that seems insurmountable; sort of a David and Goliath tale of how someone who is determined to see something through can, even against great odds. This story of a smalltown handyman who takes on a force much greater than he is, well, precisely that. So as far as the story itself, its telling and pacing, Unforeseen Incidents again delivers a commendable job of hooking the player, keeping them going, and hiding some surprises right unto the end.
In between that first hook and the ending there must be the meat of the game — characters, dialog, puzzles — I’ve talked about the first two, but the puzzles — these are crucial for an adventure game. Backwoods does a good job here, I admit having to resort to a developer-provided walkthrough a few times (in part due to needing to get through this game with some expediency during the last half), but none of the puzzles in this game left me wondering “how the heck was I ever supposed to know that?” Some games in the genre have those mind-blowing (not in a good way) puzzles that are so obtuse and cryptic that you’re just relieved when they’re over, walkthrough or not. With Unforeseen Incidents, there is a good mixture of inventory-juggling based puzzles, raw logic and procedural puzzles, a few that require quick timing, and others that just require you to listen intently to the dialog that NPCs either wrote or spoke. When in doubt, consider breaking out Harper’s six-piece multitool that is almost always available in your inventory.
Unforeseen Incidents checks all the boxes for what constitutes a great point and click adventure game. Solid characters, a good story, good puzzles that are balanced, and an impressive presentation thanks to well-drawn art/animations and a good aural package. At only $20, it’s hard to go wrong with it if you enjoy the genre.
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