Deponia

This game is a Comedic Point-Click Puzzle/Adventure game that isn't funny. There are many points in the early game (the tutorial, the first room, and the train sequence,) alone where either a voice actor puts a very strange inflection on the entirely wrong part of their line, a sound effect is left out in an obvious spot (the tutorial compactor), a repeating sound effect plays to annoyance (the toothbrush), or a character doubles up on a phrase because it's two sections of recording. The main character would frequently say something akin to "Great! Great, now I've got it." It's an immediate lack of polish that makes it feel like no one played through the game once after all the parts were in place to make sure it felt right. There is no reason these sorts of problems should persist throughout the game, but I certainly wouldn't expect them in the very first room. Next, there is the main character, Rufus. He is reminiscent of Ethan from the pre-miscarriage days of Tim Buckley's Ctrl-Alt-Del webcomic. He is a whiney, unlikable, "random," jerk that you'll be tied to throughout the game. He's intentionally designed the be the butt of the jokes, but since this is a Monkey Island-style game, nothing actually kills him. As such, you're forced to sit through uninspired slapstick fairly frequently, even though it does nothing to alter the story. The worst failing, however, is the lack of understanding in terms of basic setup and execution. In the first room, you're required to solve puzzles to acquire a pair of bolt cutters and a toothbrush. The toothbrush runs away from you (zany!) and you have to find a mouse trap and bait it with something the toothbrush would be interested in (Wasabi-Peas. Obviously!) to trap it. The bolt-cutters are meaningless, and the toothbrush is meaningless. None of this matters, and it only comes up again as a half-hearted wink to the fourth wall. I bought it on sale for 50 cents, but I wouldn't recommend it at full price.

Deponia is... not really a very good game. Oh, it's an excellent representation of classic adventure games from the golden era, but if you go back to those games and put nostalgia aside for a moment you'll realize most of them suffered from major design issues. This game, being from after the 2000, has no excuse not to have improved on them. The most obvious one of those is the puzzles, whose solutions can get irritatingly preposterous at time and follow no discernible kind of logic. Solving one of these puzzles is usually not satisfying but confusing, which is a major problem in a game that relies on them. Another problem is the writing. There's really not much of an original story here. I will say that the world inhabited by this people is actually quite interesting, but the writer spends most of his time trying to fit old tropes and cliches in it rather than taking real advantage of the setting. Characters range from uninteresting to irritating, and sadly the worst of them all is Rufus. This is a problem, because he's the protagonist, so he's the one you'll spend all game with. He's annoying, stupid and plain unlikable. Things got really bad near the end of the game, where I had to ignore a simple and easy solution to a puzzle because I was forced by Rufus to pull increasingly idiotic maneuvers, based on nothing but his own arrogance, that only by ignoring the rules of reality ended up becoming a solution. I know that's supposed to be "funny", but it isn't. All over the game I had to work against much better, nicer and more interesting characters in order to further Rufus' agenda, but that was the last drop. That was the point where I absolutely lost any interest in him and realized I didn't want to see him reach his goal. I still finished the game, but I have no desire to play the sequel. Really the only saving grace of this game is its beatiful art. I recommend just looking at some pictures of it instead of buying the game if you want to avoid frustration.

If you don't find Rufus' antics funny, this game isn't for you. I think I enjoyed it because Rufus reminds me of Homer Simpson. Surprisingly, Rufus can be even more crass, but it's not so bad in this first game. The inventory based puzzles are mostly logical within the whackiness of this game. The actual puzzles are good, with decent number and variety. I liked the crisp cartoon graphics. The music and voice acting were also above par in my experience. But you can see the presentation for yourself on YouTube. I would say if you enjoy the game up to the first song with the game title, you will enjoy the rest of the game.

I really like this game, I haven't played many point and clicks at least not since i was a kid so i don't have any references as to how good it holds up but i really enjoyed myself. I love the characters, Rufus is a complete and utter ass but at the same time he lives on an awful world surrounded by awful people (Looking at you wenzel) so at first i was rooting for him, as it goes on it is clear he is unbelievably stupid and just a straight up fuck up but i still really want him to suceed. If you want a game that is politicaly correct with a goody two shoes main character that you can relate to this is not a game for you. This is more like that pac man game where you click on shit and see what the stupid character on the screen does. Sometimes it will frustrate you sometimes it will make you laugh and maaaaaybe it might even be progress! It seems most of the people that dislike this game either didn't have the patience to solve the puzzles. or they really don't like the main character. In terms of graphics and gameplay it looks gorgeous with tons of detail and bright colours and the gameplay is just a bunch of picking items up and using them on either each other or things you come across. The puzzles tend to make a good amount of sense and if you think about things or find the right hints by exhausting dialogue options you shouldn't have too much of a problem other than a couple of parts where you are given no hints what so ever I can think of one part that i solved just by clicking everything on everything for a really long time. The overall story is good however in both this story and in the next game. there is a large amount of the game that you spend in one area solving one puzzle that doesn't actually impact the overall arc all that much which can be quite frustrating that you have to spend so much time working on something quite insignificant. Despite this its fantastic and i recommend it!

Deponia has good art and a good story. But do take note the warnings of others. Puzzles make little to no sense at all aka "try everything in your inventory until something works". Trust me, a lot of the puzzles dont follow any order of logic. And Rufus walks really slow which is especially annoying with a lot of the puzzles requiring you to go back and forth throughout the town. Sigh. I wish I hadn't bought this game in the first place. There are tons of other puzzle games out there offering better mechanics and more enjoyable gameplay. PS: If you're really gonna get this game, make sure to have a guide ready as you would get easily annoyed by having to go back and forth through town because you forgot something on the opposite end of town. PPS: Rufus is such an annoying character and the comedy part in this story is very very VERY forced. (mostly about rufus making a fool out of himself or others)