This game has a bit of everything, a great variety of levels, amazing scenery and best of all a captivating story. I enjoyed getting the achievements and decorating the study, I'm kinda excited to see what the follow up will have in store for Elena and how her heritage will unfold with her mother. I do hope we will see more of the Amazon city and how Elena fights for what is rightfully hers, would be great if she becomes the queen after all and punches that red headed secretary in the face. Lol, would definitely recommend this game for all the history lovers out there!!

Approximate amount of time to 100%: 9h
Estimated achievement difficulty: 2/10
Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
Is there a good guide available: No, but you don't need a guide
Multiplayer achievements: No
Missable achievements: No
Grinding Achievements: Not really, you might need to repeat a few levels to level up the last items
DLC-Only achievements: No
Speedrun achievements: No
Time-gated achievements: No
RNG-achievements: No
Does difficulty affect achievements: No, you can play on the easiest level
Unobtainable/glitched achievements: No

Elena's Journal - Unfinished Expedition has a very mysterious and intriguing story that gets quite dark, so is not recommended for young children, but it kept me wondering where the story was going and how it will end.

I love this type of time management game in which you complete orders. I don't know what it is, but I just enjoy it so much and Gamehouse/SQRT3 is a pro in making this type of game. and in my book they did it again, this is a lovely game. I prefer the newer titles from GameHouse a lot because they don't have crazy mini-games that are hard to do with a mouse.

The achievements in "Elena's Journal - Unfinished Expedition" are typical of what you expect in this type of time management game. Completing all levels with 3 stars, find the lizard, and level up all the items, that last one will be the longest one as you might need to replay some levels in order to be able to do that. There is also an achievement for watching every cutscene, so I would strongly recommend not skipping them. If you did by accident, you can go into the menu and watch the ones you didn't watch, you can see which ones you missed. Elena's Journal - Unfinished Expedition has no missable achievements and can be played on the easiest difficulty while still unlocking all the achievements.

Elena's Journal - Unfinished Expedition is a time management game developed by SQRT3 and published by GameHouse. You take on the role of Elena Morgan, a university student who has been plagued by thoughts of her dad's death when she was a baby. Elena wishes to go to the excavation site where her dad died, but of course, there are many obstacles. From various incidents ranging from important documents going missing to key people mysteriously turning up dead, it's obvious that someone wants to stop Elena. But who and why? I'll end my story synopsis here to avoid spoilers and all that.

As for the gameplay, Elena's Journal has the usual elements that are typical of GameHouse games. There are a total of 60 levels, and you can choose from among three difficulty levels: easy, normal, or hard. (For review purposes, I chose to play on normal mode.) In each level, you have to serve clients by delivering the items and/or services they request, and depending on how quickly you do so, you can earn up to 3 diamonds (the equivalent of stars). Also, you get an additional diamond for finding the hidden lizard (the equivalent of mice from the Delicious - Emily series). In addition, you can earn one more diamond if you complete the specified task for that level (which can range from packing suitcases to calming down people). Diamonds are used to purchase pieces of furniture for Elena's office. There are the usual Steam achievements/in-game trophies although no Steam trading cards at the time of this review.

Now that I've gone over the story and gameplay, I'll move onto my critique. I can't help feeling excited when I hear about a new GameHouse game on Steam, so of course, I wanted to get this and play it as soon as I could. First, I liked the story mostly. Here, we follow Elena as she wants to go to the archaeological site where her dad died. Elena wishes to continue where her dad left off although she also wants to learn about the circumstances that led to his death. Right off the bat, one can tell that there might be dark parts to this story. There's narration of death and such, so do keep that in mind. As for Elena, I found her to a pretty likable character (for the most part). She is enthusiastic and has a great sense of adventure, even if she seems a bit naive at times. Although I mostly liked the story (especially the huge twist towards the almost end of the story), there is one part that bothered me. When the university's archaeology department is threatened to be shut down, Elena's mentor Nathan comes to the rescue. However, he does this by taking the credit for the expedition, not bothering to mention Elena or her dad. Rightfully, Elena is upset, but when Nathan explains himself (without even bothering to apologize), Elena just accepts it and loves him. I'm sorry, but if someone were to do that, even if they had justifiable reasons, and they don't bother to apologize, I wouldn't be so easily forgiving. Anyway, in addition to the whole mystery behind who wants to stop Elena from going through with her expedition, there's the usual love triangle and whatnot. It seems like GameHouse likes adding this element in its games on occasion. XD

Regarding the gameplay, I didn't find any technical issues. It's pretty straightforward, and there are the usual mini-games. This time, the mini-games are pretty simple. All you have to do is click on the red marked areas and do so quickly to earn the maximum points. (I mention this since the game doesn't make it a point to explain this after the first mini-game, although you can click on the question mark icon if you want instructions on how to complete it.) Steam achievements are obtainable although you may have to replay a few levels to get a couple of specific ones. Fortunately, there's even an achievement for replaying a level 5 times, so that sort of gives an incentive to replay levels. lol

As for the art, the style is in the usual one typical of GameHouse games. It has that cartoony feel, but it feels right for this style of game. Sprites are well done, and the backgrounds are beautiful. There are a couple of cinematic cutscenes that I felt were pretty well done but looked perhaps a bit dated. (However, considering that parts of the story take place in the past, that probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise.) Finally, in regards to the music, there are a good variety of tracks, and most of them have that adventurous feel to them. One can tell that there's a sort of Indiana Jones vibe going on. Tracks were present in all the levels, so there were no technical issues regarding that.

Overall, would I recommend Elena's Journal - Unfinished Expedition? If you're a fan of GameHouse TMs like I am and you want to dive into a fun adventure (but don't mind a bit of darker material), then I'd say to give this a try. GameHouse tends to make really wonderful TMs, and I'd like to see more of them on Steam. For the asking price, I'd recommend to hold off for a bit of a sale, as it took me over 8 hours to 100% complete the game. (That's with replaying levels to get all of the achievements.) However, it's totally worth getting and it's a lot of fun. ^^

Flying free and writing reviews solely for The Introverted Gamer.

Played this game on easy and found it quite unbalanced throughout the game.
Found the story lacking and wasn't a fan of the dream sequence which had me stuck on the same boring scene for 10 levels.

Bug in one of the early levels where you are unable to reach the required target number for 3 stars unless that particular level is played on Hard difficulty (which wasn't that hard).

At a complete loss as to how to achieve a couple of the achievements ... not sure if they bugged out or if I simply didnt replay enough even after achieving 3 stars in all levels.

It's a difficult one to recommend. I would advise playing other recommended gamehouse titles prior to this one. However, besides achievements bugging out, it's a decent game.

I question is there part 2?
like: characters + plot
Dislike: leaves you standing "what"
Personal Opinion: most expeditions are more just 1? It felt like intro Elena existence. If there part 2 will we see Elena's Romantic life or more into how her dad died? If there was dlc to add more content to the original game I like to know does finish this tale.

Great clicker game. You change locations almost every 5 levels which keeps it fresh. Story is interesting and surprising with few plot twists. I hope that the words "To be continued" gonna be true because I really don't like when there might be more and you don't add. Thankfully story ends in a moment that can be considered as cliffhanger or open ending so it won't bother me that much if there won't be second part.

~~Check my curator's page!~~

Well... What can be said about this one that can't be said about other SQRT3 tame mannagers? Not much, it is just different story... and it has murders. It's like those Hidden object games. If you played one you played all of them.

So... Is story any good? Neither meat nor fish. You play as a young adult girl, only this time it's about an expedition. So you'll be managing documents in university, artifacts and knick-knacks at antique shop, wine at wineyard, resources at excavation site and training amazons in a flashback. Gues this is it.