PC Gamer

Unforeseen Incidentsis a point-and-

click game made much in the mould

of its predecessors from LucasArts

and Sierra On-Line – right down to

the main character being a lovable

idiot caught up in intrigue,

accompanied by a

much, much smarter

woman who really

doesn’t need their help

at all. For the record,

Unforeseen Incidents is

not a bad game. It’s an

enjoyable romp

through a mystery that

literally plagues your

hometown, with people coughing up

blood in the streets and hazmat-

suited troops quarantining the town.

However, the stakes are sort of

low-ish, because you play as a generic

bum with not all that much to lose.

The puzzles within Unforeseen

Incidents are pleasantly brain-teasing

without being overly abstract,

although the larger puzzle is often

figuring out the exact combination of

steps the system is waiting for, even

when you know what you’re trying to

do. One frustrating moment had me

trying to combine a cigarette packet

(containing foil) with

something that needed

a conductive material,

although what the

game wanted was for

me to inspect the pack

to remove the foil first.

If you’re a point-

and-click connoisseur,

or a curious hoarder,

you’ll likely end up picking up items

that mean nothing at the time but

come in handy quite a bit later, which

feels a little like you’ve robbed

yourself of the pleasure of figuring

puzzles out rather than just brute-

forcing your way along. Around 80%

of the time, it’s easy to work out

where you need to go next. For the

other 20%, it would have been nice to

have an in-game reminder of my goal,

because this is 2018 and I don’t

always have a pen and paper to hand.

These might all feel like nit-picky

issues, but the fact is that these were

issues back in the genre’s heyday so

there’s not much reason for them to

persist now. The recently released

Thimbleweed Park managed to play

on the expectations of adventure

lovers while poking gentle fun at the

works of its own creator, LucasArts

legend Ron Gilbert. Likewise, the ’90s

inspiration comes through strong in

Unforeseen Incidents, but with little

innovation. It reads more like a love

letter than a homage.

However, there’s a lot to admire in

the aesthetic. The art is, perhaps, a

little divisive but it’s memorable, and

its unusual sketchiness grows on you

throughout the ten-or-so hours it

takes to finish the story.

LAST LAUGH

The game’s real strength, though, is

its writing, which manages to

expertly avoid being snarky and

unfunny with the help of its English

localisation writer, Alasdair Beckett-

King, a British comedian who

previously made the Nelly Cootalot

games. There are lines to elicit a

chuckle even within the throwaways.

There’s also a surprising volume of

dialogue, all of it voiced to cover a

range of personalities, each one

compelling in different ways.

Unforeseen Incidents might not be

pushing the point-and-click genre,

but perhaps it doesn’t need to. It

scratches an itch that doesn’t get

tended to all that much these days.

Though it definitely has its quirks

• the unsettling eyes of its art style
  for one – it also has a great deal of
  charm thanks to its witty writing.

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT?

A point-and-click, Twin

Peaks-y adventure

game.

EXPECT TO PAY

£15.50

DEVELOPER

Backwoods

Entertainment

PUBLISHER

Application Systems

Heidelberg

REVIEWED ON

Intel Core i7-gg50U,

Intel Iris Graphics 540

MULTIPLAYER

None

LINK

http://www.backwoods-

entertainment.com/

unforeseenincidents

68

It’s not groundbreaking

stuff, but still a very

decent point-and-click

for fans of LucasArts and

Sierra On-Line classics.

VERDICT

There are lines

to elicit a

chuckle even

within the

throwaways

I

t’s hard not to love what makes point-and-click games the way

they are: the tests of abstractly applied logic; the trial-and-error of

adding paint cans to every item in your inventory because your

character vaguely mentioned the word ‘colour’; the absurd chains

of item requirements you have to plod through to get someone to

do a task for you. But how much of that is nostalgia blurring the lines of

something that, in the harsh light of reality, feels too much like hard work?

POINT-AND-SICK

UNFORESEEN INCIDENTS combines rose-tinted glasses

with witty wordplay. By Kate Gray

HARPER’S

MULTI

TOOL

It’s useful in a

bunch of

situations

BOTTLE OPENER

Used primarily for bottle

opening, obviously. The

only use of this tool is

actually not crucial to the

story at all.

FILE

If there’s a use for this file,

we haven’t found it. Unless

there’s a manicure bonus

level in between all the

conspiracy and intrigue.

WRENCH

Sometimes you just gotta

wrench stuff, to get the

thing that the guy needs to

help you to get to the

place. No spoilers here.

PINCERS

They’re pliers, but the

game calls them pincers.

Good for breaking through

fences, despite being

pliers and not bolt cutters.

KNIFE

Good for cutting. Also,

stabbing. But that never

happens, despite all the

people constantly trying to

kill you and your friends.

SCREWDRIVER

It takes a while to figure

this out, but the

screwdriver can be used to

break into places by doing

something to doors.

SCISSORS

Things that knives can’t

cut, scissors can. Except

knives can cut everything,

so there’s really not much

point in scissors.

Unforeseen Incidents

REVIEW