Elena’s Journal: Unfinished Expedition Review

Uncovering the Mystery

Developed by GameHouse Original Stories, Elena’s Journal: Unfinished Expedition follows an aspiring archaeologist following in her father’s footsteps. However, his mysterious death years ago left behind an unfinished excavation site and secrets of an undiscovered city. As Elena goes through college, she is determined to uncover the truth behind her father’s expedition.

A time management adventure game, Elena’s Journal resembles GameHouse’s other hits like Welcome to Primrose Lake. In it, you’ll play as different characters on multiple maps following a pretty interesting storyline.

If it’s one thing GameHouse loves, it’s a good mystery. The plot makes up for the repetitiveness the game can sometimes feel. The story is centered around Elena desperately wanting to find out what happened to her father during his expedition and how it went so wrong. She has to convince her university’s school board and old members of her father’s team to open an investigation into his passing. Unfortunately, her plans go awry as people try to get in her way. Not to mention the budding romances Elena finds along her journey. 

Standard Gameplay

The gameplay is standard for a time management game. Once you played one, you’ve played them all. Customers will request a particular item, and you must deliver it to them before the customer’s time or hearts run out. Sometimes you’ll have to combine or carry multiple items for one order. Some orders will be puzzles that players have to complete before a timer runs out. It’s all pretty straightforward enough to figure out after a couple of levels.

There is always a tutorial and how to play on the sidebar menu. You can also adjust the difficulty there, and the game will provide hints if you take too long to fulfill orders. There is a clock counting down in every round, but it doesn’t end until you serve the last customer. Most levels will have an objective that doesn’t need to be completed to progress but will help rack in more points.

Who Doesn’t Love Free?

The game is free with virtually no in-app purchases. A prompt will ask if you want to unlock all Original Stories games with unlimited play and no ads for a subscription fee, but you can bypass it or do a free trial. It’s only a three-day trial, but there is a chance you can beat the game in that time. There is nothing to upgrade that will help you beat the game any better. It’s all just dependent on skill and time. 

The game can start to be somewhat redundant when the rounds are slow and not a lot of people coming in. A feature that seemed pointless but could be entertaining to some was unlocking Elena’s office. When beating levels, you’ll earn gems that you can only use to unlock items in the office. However, only one is usable, and it’s practically given to you when you first unlock the office. Other than that, they are just for decoration.

Overall, Elena’s Journal is just another basic time management game and what sets it apart from the rest is the storyline. While it’s coupled with some well-done scenery and soothing background music, the excitement comes from reaching the end rather than playing. Still, if you’re a fan of strategy games and like mystery plots, you’ll probably get some enjoyment from Elena’s Journal: Unfinished Expedition.