So if you're stuck and you really prefer to do without assistance, you can sometimes get through just by talking to everyone a second time, or clicking on everything a second or third time.
One running source of frustration for me over the course of this trilogy was the fact that some actions had to be repeated in order to get results, and the first attempt offered little to no feedback that would lead me to expect it to work if tried again (and - sometimes - again).He's not always helpful, but sometimes he really is. If you try something and it doesn't work, pay attention to what Rufus says about the failure.Note that NPC's will sometimes not be marked even though it is possible to interact with them. Hold down the space bar to see all the interactable objects marked on the screen.Even if you don't get a helpful hint or a ray of inspiration, there's a pretty good chance you will at least get entertained. Examine everything you can (right mouse button), including items in your inventory.If you're stuck and have a lot of patience, talk to everyone again: you could discover that some character has a new hint for you, or you may see that a question you already asked is still on a dialogue menu, underscoring the importance of the information it leads to.
Sometimes a character will give Rufus information that unlocks the next segment of his Plan other times you'll be given subtle hints on how to solve a problem. Mouse over any drawing without a green checkmark on it to see what you should be working on. To view the Plan, you can either click on one of those icons, or open your inventory and click the light bulb in the upper left of that screen. Any time you hear a "ding" and/or the sound of a pencil scratching on paper, and see a light bulb or an exclamation point appear on the upper right side of the screen, that means there's new information for you on the Plan if you see a little green checkmark icon, that means you've completed one of the tasks on the Plan. All rights reserved on that word i just made up. However, extensive hints are difficult to work into a walkthrough without making it REALLY long and requiring readers to mouse over a LOT of spoiler text (which is unsearchable, making the guide MUCH harder to use), so perhaps a separate "cluethrough" is in order to do that up right. I've also made an effort to provide hints to tip you over the edge of figuring out a problem yourself before being handed the answer. Please note that this method does not always provide the fastest way through the game, if that's what you're looking for.
Therefore, i tried to organize this guide in such a way that you can search it for the obstacle you're trying to pass (like getting the Tournament Hand, for example) and find all the information you need collected right there without having to do very much additional rummaging around. Not to mention that in at least 3 instances (across several different guides, to be fair), i found information that was flat-out wrong. Worse, there were occasionally two actions that needed to be performed, but the first was described in a completely separate part of the guide and not mentioned anywhere in the vicinity of the hurdle that blocked my path, leaving me totally baffled as to why the second action didn't work. So for example, when it turned out that my problem was an item i'd missed, i then had to go digging around in other parts of the guide to figure out where that item came from. I'm guessing i'm not the only one who does it that second way. When referring to other guides, i found information to be grouped in a way that catered to readers who were following them to the letter start to finish, whereas i was only checking here and there to get past specific frustrations. Why ANOTHER walkthrough?I created these Deponia: The Complete Journey guides (links to the others are at the end, under "LINKS") based on my dissatisfaction with the way other walkthroughs are organized.