INTRO:
That Daedelic Entertainment is slanted towards adventure games is perhaps known to those who still keep an eye on this once-vibrant genre. However, instead of watching the genre fade into oblivion, Daedelic seeks to revive it.
It might have a rough start in its endeavour though. In the past, it merely published games by others and where it did produce in-house products, they were ridden with issues such as poor translation from their original German versions.
However, Daedelic Entertainment has since learned from the feedback to its past games. The result of these lessons was Deponia, the first of a series that would place Daedelic among the likes of TellTale and other game-makers that still see worth in the adventure game genre and more importantly, making considerable revenue from them.
TUTORIALS:
Continuing a practice that it has learned from past criticisms that its games are not sufficiently friendly to newcomers to the genre, Deponia starts itself off with a witty tutorial that happens outside of the actual story and breaks plenty of fourth walls.
Other than the silliness of the set-up of the tutorial and the banter between the two characters that are presenting the tutorial, the lines with the actual instructions are delivered with sufficient clarity and seriousness.
The lessons that are imparted would be standard-fare to long-time veterans of adventure games, but with the addition of the tutorial, the game would seem a lot more accessible to players who have yet to know the genre at all.
PREMISE:
After the tutorial, Deponia reintroduces itself with a short song, sung by a person that people who liked Harvey’s New Eyes may well recognize. (Each chapter would then end and the next one start with a short song too, amusingly.)
Rufus lives in Kuvaq, a town in a seemingly vast trash heap as far as the eye can see on the planet known as Deponia. Kuvaq is populated by people who make the most of their lives by salvaging scrap and other stuff from the garbage that the city of Elysium above Kuvaq drops onto the surface of Deponia.
Tired of having such a life on the surface, Rufus yearns to leave and go to Elysium, his drive being the delusion that he deserves a life as one of the privileged blue-bloods that reside in the city.
Unfortunately, Rufus’ callous and egotistical demeanour earns him no friends at all. Moreover, it is a self-defeating behaviour that sees him unwittingly scuttle escape plan after escape plan, among other messes.
One day though, yet another ruined plan would have him looking for means other than to physically bring himself to Elysium. However, this would get him into trouble that even he is not used to.
CONTROLS:
By default, Deponia utilizes a mouse-centric system that conveniently uses both mouse buttons for immediate manipulation and examination of objects, instead of the cumbersome palette of icons that was used in earlier Daedelic games such as The Whispered World. The mouse wheel is also used for bringing up the inventory screen, which can require some getting used to, though once the player has learned this, he/she can play the game almost entirely with the mouse.
The inventory display can also be conveniently put away by simply moving the cursor into space that it does not obscure.
Despite the pervasiveness of mouse controls, the keyboard is still useful for other purposes.
Pressing the spacebar brings up handy highlights of objects, continuing a wise trend in Daedelic’s games. However, the highlight icons consist of screws with coronas of bright lights, which can obscure what they are supposed to highlight.
There are also hotkeys for bringing up the saving and loading screen, though perhaps Daedelic may not be aware of the usual (albeit not unanimously agreed-upon) meaning for the terms “quick-save” and “quick-load”.
Double-clicking on doorways, corners and such brings the player instantly to another locale, without having to watch Rufus saunter over to the other place. This is a long-time tradition of Daedelic’s games. However, by Deponia’s time, the lack of any means to have the player character run or move any faster may be all too apparent already.
Nevertheless, the consequences of the lack of running are not too severely felt, because the locales are not too expansively big.
RUFUS:
Being the player character, the appeal of Rufus as a character is critical to the reception of the game. At first glance, Rufus’s appearance suggests that he is of the archetype of adventure game protagonists that go about seeking adventure and causing trouble. Indeed, he is one – in a sense.
Unfortunately, almost from the get-go, Rufus reveals that he has a personality that others would find unpleasant. He is self-conceited and quite pompous – but of course, players that are more experienced at story-writing tropes would know that this may well be a set-up to have events turn Rufus into a better person.
There may be some amusement to be had from the deflated sarcasm that Rufus’s acquaintances have for his antics. The only exception is Toni, who is Rufus’ ex-girlfriend who sternly reminds Rufus (and the player) that he is really good for nothing, and Gizmo, a character that would reveal that Rufus has long been a menace to Kuvaq.
This goes on for much of the game, until a certain scenario far into the game slaps him with a rude awakening. Then, finally, he has some character development away from the insufferably egotistical Rufus at the beginning.
During the time in-between though, the player has to be very patient with him, especially if he/she had known protagonists with far humbler demeanours. His massive ego can be easily grating on the nerves, especially when it leads him to make terrible mistakes.
(It is worth noting here that in this aspect, Rufus is the exact opposite of Sadwick, who is the protagonist of The Whispered World, an earlier Daedelic title.)
(Also, interestingly, despite Rufus's callousness, he still closes doors behind him.)
PUZZLE DESIGNS:
The puzzle designs in Deponia have surprisingly convincing logic progression, considering that earlier titles by Daedelic have issues when it comes to this.
This is mainly possible due to the settings of Deponia, which mostly has Rufus dealing with machines that have mostly believable engineering. There are also people who describe to Rufus how things work, albeit in a manner that is not too overtly clear. Their deficient explanation also hints at how much of Deponia’s past history has been lost, though the game does not provide many answers to questions about this – at least not in the first Deponia title.
Most of the puzzles have Rufus damaging and sabotaging things with selfish mischief in his mind. There are a few puzzles where he actually fixes things, which may have symbolic meanings. Either way, Rufus would say out loud what needs to be done, and appropriately so because he does have some technical skill, despite his boasts.
Some puzzles and solutions may not have all corners covered though. For example, there is one scenario where the player needs to becalm another person so that Rufus can nick said person’s things, but Rufus can only nick one certain object that is needed to solve another puzzle. If the player attempts to have Rufus steal anything else, the other person’s warnings which were used before said person was becalmed would play out.
A few puzzles also resort to cheap puns to indicate to the player the solution that is needed. For example, Rufus makes a pun on the word “catastrophe” when describing a certain object to suggest that the associated solution requires certain animals.
Despite most of the puzzles being quite logical and believable, there are puzzles that can be considered rather outrageous. Granted, there is no telling whether Deponia is a world that is far removed from the real one or not, but it is hard to suspend one’s disbelief when Rufus uses a certain candy on a light source to obtain the means to solve a puzzle.
WRITING:
With an egotistical protagonist, Deponia’s writers (the main one being Jan Müller-Michaelis, who is the brains behind the story of many previous titles) have their work cut out for them. Fortunately, they managed to provide an entertaining story that is not too damaged by the narcissism of the main character.
For one, other characters’ sarcasm towards Rufus’s self-conceited personality has already been mentioned. This helps balance against Rufus’s possibly insufferable monologues, at least early on in the story.
The writing also has many references to earlier adventure games by Daedelic. For example, a certain green sock appears early in the game, suggesting that it may be a reference to a certain other green sock that appeared in The Whispered World. There are also subtle references to other adventure games, including well-known ones like the Monkey Island titles.
Most of the lines are tightly written enough to prevent the player from knowing about solutions to puzzles in advance, but there are still holes that can be discovered by having Rufus examine things; an example about word-puns has already been mentioned earlier.
VOICE-OVERS & SUBTITLES:
The game comes packed with voice-overs and text in English, Deutsch, Português and Español. It so happens that the latest build of Deponia has a handy button in the user interface that allows the player to switch language packs easily. On the other hand, the multiple language packs do increase the installation size of the game.
If one is willing to replay the game several times with a different language pack each time, he/she would know that the lines are delivered with satisfactory enthusiasm. However, there are a few blemishes.
Significant pauses are used as a tool of humor in the monologues and dialogues. Although these seem suitable with the comparatively slower German and English dubs, they make the voice-overs in other languages seem awkward.
The subtitles sometimes do not match what the characters are saying. Occasionally, the game may even call up the wrong text. These may be random glitches, of course, but it should be worth noting here that this problem occurred in earlier Daedelic titles.
This brings the review to more acute problems about Deponia.
TECHNICAL ISSUES:
Unfortunately, even though Deponia was the most refined product by Daedelic Entertainment by its time, it can still have technical issues. This is despite the game having more than a dozen playtesters for quality control.
These might stem from its use of Visionaire and Microsoft’s .NET Framework 4. Although some machines are able to run the game without a fuss, yet some others do not take kindly to the game’s need to install .NET Framework 4 redistributables on them.
This is not proven to be the root cause, of course. Yet there are issues that Deponia shares with its older compatriots in Daedelic’s roster, which also use Visionaire and .NET Framework 4.
Although rarely, transition icons can fail to function, causing the player to be stranded to a locale. Saving and reloading does not work because the saved game is corrupted with the glitch. Occasionally, the mouse cursor may stop moving, and the only way to fix this is to disconnect and reconnect the mouse. Some voice-over lines are also randomly skipped, which can be irksome.
These problems occurred in earlier Daedelic titles, such as Harvey’s New Eyes and The Whispered World. However, perhaps to Daedelic’s credit, they appear to occur with much less frequency in Deponia.
VISUAL DESIGNS:
Deponia was, perhaps by its time, Daedelic’s most visually catching in-house-developed game. Its artstyle is cartoonish and vibrant. The influence of anime/manga can be apparent to more experienced players, but it is not too significant as to detract from the otherwise convincingly original style of Deponia.
Deponia is a junk-covered world. This much is apparent when the player gets to see Kuvaq in all its ramshackle glory for the first time. The scenery also reflects on the resourcefulness of Deponia’s inhabitants, most of whom have technical knowledge to certain degrees, including even Rufus.
On the other hand, most of the scenery that the player would see is nothing but junkyards. Elysium is mentioned plenty of times in the game, but it would only be seen in the sequels.
In previous Daedelic titles, the characters have visual designs that contrast severely with the background. This is not so in Deponia. Like their environments, the characters are crafted with the same cartoonish but detailed style. Each character looks vibrant and quite unique from one another.
If there is any common visual trait to the characters, it is the lack of visible noses on the female characters. This is of course a deliberate visual design that is intended to make them look more peculiar. (It is worth noting here that such a visual design is in a significant number of anime/manga works.)
Furthermore, the animations of characters in Deponia are far better done than those for characters in earlier Daedelic titles. There are more frames of animations, as well as more illusory tricks to suggest motion on the part of the characters. Most puzzles and solutions also have their own unique animations of Rufus manipulating them.
SOUND EFFECTS & MUSIC:
As to be expected from a game that is set in a junkyard of a world, the sound effects are going to be mostly noises of metal clanking and machinery hissing and chugging, among other noises that are associated with the mechanical. They do not make for good aural variety, but they are otherwise appropriate for the settings.
As for the music, the best soundtracks are of course the short songs that play before the start of each chapter. They are actually part of a whole song, “Huzzah!”, but have been cleverly edited by their composer, Finn Seliger, to sound like they are separate.
The admirably multi-talented Jan Müller-Michaelis (who is also the writer for the game and one of Daedelic’s co-founders) provides the lyrics for “Huzzah”, just as he had for “Needle & Stitch” in Harvey’s New Eyes and perhaps other in-house Daedelic games in the past. Considering his Deutsch upbringing, that he could force a convincing American accent for the song is commendable.
The other soundtracks are less memorable in comparison, but they are otherwise quite pleasant to listen to and are usually appropriate for the scenarios that they are played in.
CONCLUSION:
In perhaps an unabashed overstatement, Deponia is the culmination of Daedelic’s past experiences in designing adventure games to keep a once-dying genre alive. Deponia may not have addressed all of the issues that occurred in Daedelic’s earlier titles, but it was arguably the best game that Daedelic offered during its time.