Parents' Guide to Deponia Doomsday

This unexpected fourth chapter in what should have been a complete three-part series is surprisingly good. Rather than pump out a tired add-on just to make money, Daedalic Entertainment creates a quality adventure game by couching serious moral questions inside a colorful, irreverent package. It does this by adding time travel into the mix. Time travel is endlessly fascinating, especially in games, because games let players disrupt the time continuum and experience the Groundhog Day-like after effects. Doomsday takes full advantage of this by adding new dimensions (pun intended) to puzzles and creating solutions that span multiple time phases. This makes for some really clever puzzle design that includes traditional item-based brainteasers and weird, guffaw-inducing mini-games. Occasionally, cleverness slides into unfairness when some of the puzzles become misleading or even nonsensical. On the whole, though, fun overshadows frustration thanks to great writing and a cast of eccentric characters. Nice music and sound design help, too (notwithstanding an annoying singing flower and horrible hobo minstrel), as do the fantastic comics-style graphics. Deponia's art team goes hog wild here and jams the game with fun details and beautiful things to look at while you work your way through its thought-provoking story line. No question about it; once again Deeponia Doomsday proves—with its signature blend of off-beat humor and challenging puzzles—that the adventure genre is as relevant as ever.