Deponia

[b]TLDR[/b] A traditional point-and-click adventure game with a heavy comedic tone, looks great but the writing is all over the place, the puzzles fairly simple. [13/20⭐, 10h🏅, 2/5💡] [b]Context[/b] Another classic point-and-click adventure game from Daedalic, this one being a comedy in contrast to [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/macwh/recommended/327220/]others[/url] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/macwh/recommended/314790/]I’ve[/url] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/macwh/recommended/230820/]tried[/url] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/macwh/recommended/268540/]before[/url]. However, I continue to have trouble finding them engaging: the writing misses the mark, and the puzzles are mostly mediocre. [b]Writing[/b] The game takes place in the titular Deponia, a post-apocalyptic junk world where the playable character, Rufus, lives. Rufus is not what you’d call a productive member of society: his only concern is escaping to Elysium, a utopian floating city, regardless of the damage caused to anything and anyone around him. In an attempt he “saves” an Elysian, Goal, who in the process falls into Deponia. Rufus spends the game helping the Elysian / himself get to Elysium. This a cartoonish, absurd comedy game, so it may sound like I’m being too picky, but the overall plot is just lazily written. [spoiler]Why were Goal and Argus already on the ship? How can Elysians believe that Deponia is uninhabited is they are just floating over it? How can it be so easy for anyone to swap Goal’s mind?[/spoiler] Regardless, one could still enjoy the journey despite the big picture. Except that Rufus is an obnoxious and unlikable character without any redeemable quality, and his dialogs are often juvenile and cringe inducing. The game in general tries too hard to be funny and succeeding only occasionally. I admit part of this may be due to English not being the game's original language. [b]Aesthetics[/b] The game has a colorful, hand drawn-like style that fits well with its silly and slapstick comedy tone. The soundtrack tries to be playful and upbeat, but gets annoying and repetitive fast. The voice acting is decent for the style of the game. [b]Gameplay[/b] This is a completely traditional point-and-click adventure game, you progress by dialogging with NPCs and collecting, combining and using items. There are also a few logic puzzles along the way. The game is not particularly challenging, and it’s clear the devs wanted to avoid a frustrating experience. You can highlight the hotspots in the background, so no infamous pixel hunt. The logic puzzles are also skippable without penalties. In the first chapter you also get a couple of checklists to keep track of the objectives. And you can double click for instant-travel between areas, which is a must when there is a lot of moving around. There are no deadends or gameovers, and the the game auto-saves, but you can also save/load at any time. I did encounter a game-breaking bug [spoiler](in the magnets puzzle)[/spoiler] that cost me quite some time to identify (apparently the devs are aware, but the solution was to share fixed savefiles rather than fix the cause). [b]Value[/b] It took me about 8h to beat the game, and then about 1.5h to get all the achievements (which, inexplicably, required a full new playthrough where the dialogs are replaced by gibberish). There are unlimited save slots that can be used to revisit previous chapters (and get missing achievements, except for the one mentioned above). Achievements are mostly connected to progressing the game, not skipping puzzles, or finding hidden interactions. The plot is linear, except for puzzles that can be solved in arbitrary order. As all Daedalic games, this seems to be on sale very often, so at least don’t spend the full price on it. [quote][i]For more puzzle-game reviews and curated lists check out the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43326007-The-Clueless-Adventurer-Puzzle-Trove/]Puzzle Trove[/url].[/i][/quote]

I am very conflicted on this game because it has a really nice writing in my opinion, with having an irredeemable protaganist thats always a jerk to everyone (the world is constantly being a jerk towards him too though) . I hated the crafting and puzzle solving aspects a lot though, with little connection between what items can be combined to solve a puzzle, or how to solve the minigames was really infrituating, I had to look up the answers a few times because it either was a random item combination that I just didnt think of / an interactable that I didnt know was possible or it was just brute force which is not really fun. I think the short playtime is not bad at all since it would have been a lot more annoying if i had to do more puzzles and I liked the end section that had less puzzle solving (apart from that one annoying minigame) and more dialogue that also gave some background to some characters. Overall I think its a good game that should be played at least for the story

[b] A fun adventure where you can't go wrong. Funny characters, a fairly interesting story, and slightly challenging puzzles make the game highly recommended. [/b]

Sideways thumb for this one. I don't really connect with its humour and it does that really obnoxious thing some p&c adventure games do where the opening area features elements of much-later puzzles so the early game is a mess of just too many clues/elements for you to sift through.

Good game for point and click, buy on sale as its really short

I did not really like this game. This game features an especially annoying protagonist who embodies what I would describe as the worst personality traits I have found in men. The supporting characters are all often equally unlikable. It has a story that doesn't seem to make much sense. Certainly, a lot about it is never explained. [spoiler]Like, what planet are they even on?[/spoiler] The puzzles were often absurd and had nothing to do with logic but rather with just trying every combination of things to get the right one. I frequently ran into issues where even a walkthrough couldn't help me because I didn't trigger this other thing that there was no clue was necessary in a previous screen. It got so bad that I thought I had run into a game-breaking bug a few times. In short, I absolutely hated it. I don't even know how it ended up in my account. I do like plenty of inventory/environment pixelated point and click puzzle games so maybe I bought it? Anyway, I don't recommend and I won't play the sequel. I finished it only because of a desire for completion. The only nice thing I can say about it is that, at times, it felt like I was playing an old Doctor Who episode from before the reboot. That wasn't enough to get past the many negatives, though.

Short review; subject to change or replacement later. Deponia puts a humorous and wacky spin on the point and click genre, but the comedy won’t land for everyone. The puzzles can be quirky and occasionally nonsensical, which means you’ll spend some time experimenting. It’s a decent experience overall, but definitely not for everyone.

A shattered dream blooming in a heap of junk.

too many unlogic puzzles

funny indeed

7.5/10