One of my favorite things about going to E3 is learning about games that might not normally be on my radar. My first appointment this morning was with Daedalic Entertainment, who were eager to show off a couple of their upcoming titles. Of the games I was shown, it was Goodbye Deponia that captured my interest. It’s the third in a series of point and click adventure games. As I watched a demonstration of the game in action, I wondered more and more why I hadn’t played any of the games in the series before. But before I explain what I saw, here’s an explanation of Goodbye Deponia in the developer’s own words:
With two adventures already on their backs, Rufus and Goal finally seem to find a way to Elysium and to save Deponia from certain destruction. A happy ending never seemed that close! But not even half way through, Rufus once again proves his innate talent for chaos and mayhem. Instead of his greatest triumph, a crippling setback awaits. And for the first time, Rufus is ridden by self-doubt. Cast back to the dirtiest depths of Deponia Rufus finds himself confronted with a whole heap of new problems. He soon comes to the conclusion:
‘One Rufus just won’t cut it!’
In this terrific final of the Deponia-Trilogy writer Jan Mueller-Michaelis and Daedalic Entertainment once more go all-out: Odd locations, like the pipe jungle beneath Porta Fisco, inhabited by even more odd characters; the Deponia-Series’ unique humor, which is never afraid to show its teeth. Of course there are a good deal of tricky puzzles – and all that in a setting showing more of the trash planet than ever before!
This is the recipe for a fast paced comedy of errors and gales of laughter. Find out what fate has in store for Rufus, Goal and all of Deponia in fall 2013.
“One Rufus just won’t cut it!” is referring to the fact that in Goodbye Deponia the player controls not only Rufus, but a pair of Rufus clones! It’s simple enough to switch between the three of them using an interface at the bottom of the screen. As you might imagine, this feature is highly relevant to the puzzle solving mechanics common to point and click adventures. I was shown one level in which one Rufus could manipulate the environment so that another Rufus could advance in a different area. Using all three of them is necessary to solve the strange and bizarre puzzles throughout the game.
The puzzles are also a lot of fun to work out due to how creative and humorous the setting and characters in the game are. In the brief amount of time that I got to watch the demonstration, this happened:
Now, putting aside that a Rufus is being devoured and that there is a fire coming out of… that… the real issue here is that when you see this in the game, you will have solved a puzzle, not failed one. For all his plans and scheming, nothing ever works out quite like Rufus plans, and therein lies much of the comedy that makes Goodbye Deponia so appealing. It’s never so simple as putting a key into a lock.
I think it’s about time to go back and play the two other games in this series, Deponia and Chaos On Deponia. That should set the stage well for when Goodbye Deponia is released this Fall.
Related Link(s):
Gamer Horizon 