Oh Deponia, took me long enough to finish you. Here it is, the game that defined Daedalic when Germany was ruling the point n click world (between Kingart and Daedalic you have almost two thirds of the best adventures of the new millennia), and the game that pretty much sets their best and their wost. Their best is a generally fantastic puzzle design in open environments with just enough signposting and not too many random combinations (except for some parts on the coffee puzzle to be honest), a fantastic production with beautiful animation and backgrounds, and a generally stable game. Their worst? Their main characters are generally unbearable, and they love them to be unbearable. Rufus has some redeeming aspects in the sense that there is some parts of this journey where it seems he is learning, but then the game enters in some weird exploitation themes like shaming his naked ex girlfriend in the shower - a kind of acrid old fashioned humour that I never liked. There is animal abuse? Well, if not all 90% of point n click games have an animal abuse puzzle (and a main character who is messy and has hygiene issues), so it sticks to the tropes of the genre. Well, maybe even worse because the damsel in distress is terribly underwritten as well.

In general there is something that I see in Deponia, which is some fear of deviating from all the narrative and design tropes of point n click games. Though it's true that you can do limited things with inventory, dialogue and other puzzles, I wonder why do they need to have the same kind of characters and their corresponding puzzles or jokes since Lucasarts did some adventures that turned out to be good and established the genre.

Anyway, good game, very good actually. TLDR. Just a couple of absurd puzzles, a couple of unfunny parts, a douche hero that is impossible to like and of course a cliffhanger. But the word created is so beautiful that I forgive it all and I enjoy it.

2024 state of this game:
I initially played the "complete journey" that is why the playtime is off. The complete journey is completely bugged and you can "fix" it by just using savegames in a couple places and miss out on a bunch of content.
This standalone works*
*some of the puzzles are bugged and you can't complete them all. The mosaic puzzle was impossible to do for me. The data disc cleaning had a sound bug as well as the mine cart puzzle. But at least you can finish the game without using savefiles.
Then we come to the game itself. You play a horny dude that tries to take ownership of an unconscious woman. So you might immediately see what's wrong with that premise.
You will definitely use foul play on humans and animals at some points to get very very minor profit for yourself. About half the puzzles are of such bad quality and without sufficient hints in the game that you either trial and error everything or use a solution.
The story of the whole game feels like it goes nowhere. There is no character development or progressing anything really. You just mess about, some of the jokes are nice, but overall most of what you do is morally questionable and of very little importance. I played this game when it came out and it just didn't age that great.
Also the sound mixing is horribly off. Even if you try and adjust it - you have a different sound level on every sound clip that is in the game.

If you are not deadset on experiencing this specific adventure game, I would not recommend this to anyone,

goated