Deponia stars Rufus who is probably the least likely person to be a hero in a game I’ve played in ages. He’s lazy, stubborn, not exceptionally bright, unorganized, and he keeps chucking himself into the sky only to come crashing down; you’d think he would’ve gotten the point by now and learned the sky isn’t having none of his shenanigans. Did I mention that he also reeks of Guybrush Threepwood charm?
Deponia
Developer: Daedalic Entertainment
Price: $20
Platform: PC (reviewed)
A copy of Deponia was supplied to us
Fortunately enough all this makes for the perfect combination of characters in a story that’s just as wacky as the inhabitants of a city made of trash. It’s the classic story of boy dreams of launching himself in a rocket to a flying city, boy gets girl knocked off of said flying city, both survive an impossible fall, and boy has to save the day while getting into hilarious situations. Lots of the things are really goofy but it works. What I particularly enjoy about this game (coming off of Book of Unwritten Tales) is that it’s a comedy adventure game that plays the comedy straight. While Book of Unwritten Tales was a bit too meta for its own good at times, Deponia keeps its humor out of that territory with it only occasionally deciding to take a tiny step over the line of self-awareness before skirting back. My only real complaint about the story is that it leaves you with a Halo 2 ending that basically means we’re going to have to buy the sequel to learn what happens next (which is conveniently coming out this November).
Although you might see me comparing this with Book of Unwritten Tales a few times just know that I only do it because Unwritten Tales is the most recent adventure game I’ve played in a long time so I have nothing modern to compare it to. Just know that if I were to compare it to something in the entire genre I’d liken this more towards Monkey Island than anything else I’ve played. The game itself plays very strictly to the point-and-click formula; you’ll be given an objective and a room full of objects to interact with until you eventually find the right item or set of items needed to solve the puzzle. There’s a handy inventory menu that I thought was pretty nifty in that you can use the mouse wheel to lower or raise it. It’s just little details like that which leave me feeling good while playing. Of course this game contains one of my biggest enemies in adventure games and that’s when the character states that he needs a certain type of object and in that room there’s easily 2 or 3 things that fit that description. Instead of having some sense and being able to pick those things up you’ll instead need a very specific item instead or combine two items to produce something that does the same thing the other items in the room could have done. I get that sometimes you have to keep things interesting, but it’s really annoying when someone says “I need a pair of socks” when they really mean “I have this green sock and I need another green sock but to get that second green sock you need to find another sock and dip it in oil because because that somehow turns things green”.
Just like in Book of Unwritten Tales you’ll be able to tap the space bar to have a bolt show up on all the interactive objects in a room. It’s easily my favorite feature to show up in the genre and stops me from not leaving a room until I know damn well I clicked on everything. Rufus of course makes quite a lot of humorous quips for almost everything you click on and I’m happy to see he’s as big a fan of puns as me. I simply couldn’t stop grinning whenever I played this, it’s like the developers knew I had a weakness for easy humor. I enjoyed how the puzzles skirted the line between being simple enough to actually requiring some thought put into them. It struck a nice pace between the puzzles so that things didn’t swing too far in one side for too long. There are also regular puzzles like adjusting the aim on a rocket that Rufus needs calibrated to launch himself to the sky. This puzzle for example put you in the view of a targeting reticle and you needed to aim for the ship in the distance by only using a limited amount of buttons in the control panel. The game itself will last you a good amount of hours so expect to have some time put down in Deponia.
So the game looks absolutely gorgeous. Everything is beautifully drawn and the characters animate well enough. I’d say my only complaints are that things you can interact with are completely blended into the environment due to the art style and that the animations could use a few more frames. Thankfully the first issue is alleviated by pressing the space bar to show an icon on any objects you can interact with. The voice acting has the right amount of charm to it as does the music.
The Final Word
Germany needs to seriously chill out and let other countries try to put out some good adventure games because after playing Deponia and Book of Unwritten Tales I’m really excited to see what comes out of that place next.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
