Hi guys,

I just need some recommendation on which game would probably be a better starting point for me:

Deponia series or the Book of Unwritten Tales series.

My primary familiarity with adventure games comes from the LucasArts group of adventure games like Monkey Island and more modern adventure reincarnations from Telltale. Which series would be more suitable for someone like me? Thanks in advance!

I think Deponia has a more distinctly German style of humour and of course art styles are quite different. It's a matter of personal preference, really. You could watch some gameplay videos on Youtube or grab the playable demos and see for yourself.

yep, at least look at the screenshots...

Book of Unwritten Tales has really ugly characters but is more fun in my opinion... Deponia looks great (comixy look) but the gameplay is worse (in my opinion again :)

Now this piqued my interest, what is a distinctly German style of humour? I already feel the difference between British and American forms of humour but since I am from Germany I have difficulties grasping it.

Back on topic:

I just played a bit of the first Book of Unwritten Tales.
It was rather fun for an Adventure game (and I don't like adventure games mind you)
It's full of references making fun out of the sterotypical things taken out from Tolkien, WOW and the likes. Oh and the India Jones references...

Since I like the whole fantasy genre and I'm quite fond of the first three India Jones films this was a hilariously funny experience.

I cannot really put my finger on it, it's just something I subconsciously know. The same applies to movies -- sometimes I see a couple of seconds of a comedy on TV and go, "ah, it's German, right?" I didn't feel that when playing BoUT, though.

A pity, I normally recognise the origin of the movie with the dubbing. There is something distinctively different when the voices/script are original instead of dubbed.

Speaking of which, I played the book of unwritten tales in German, so maybe the translation detetiorates the overall experience. Wouldn't be the first time.

But German is its original language, right? It's from German developer King Art, and Wikipedia has the following release dates which indicate that the original audio was German:
DE April 2, 2009
UK October 28, 2011

Regarding the "German humor" debate: I can understand the part about German comedies, and I usually find them somewhat weird. I am not so sure about games. Gothic may be an example of German directness, but it is harder to pinpoint the "German" elements in Drakensang or Book of Unwritten Tales.

I played both Deponia (first chapter) and Book of Unwritten Tales.
For me, Deponia is much better because is really funny. Book, on the other way, TRY to be funny but it can't. And it was really boring, for me.

Hmm, I suppose that...just confirms to me that everyone has a different opinion.

I suppose another question I have is which one is easier to breeze through? A more...To the Moon experience, if you will, though obviously I doubt either comes close.

Unfortunately I'm in Beijing at the moment so Youtube isn't an option. I wish it was though. I used to love Let's Plays :(

I'm stuck at first Deponia but was able to finish the Book without much trouble... but you're right, both these games have absolutely nothing in common with To The Moon :o)

Yep, it’s definitely a thing of personal taste.

I’d choose and pick the Book of Unwritten Tales over any Daedalic game any time a day. The guys and girls at Daedalic do a great job. But their adventures have a distinguish style that I simply can’t stand. It’s mainly that they always manage to have (main) characters in their games that I personally find totally annoying and nerve-wracking. In fact, A New Beginning is the only Daedalic game I’ve ever finished. And I wasn’t really impressed by the game either.

The Book of Unwritten Tales at the other hand may have some shallow characters. But personally, I found it really funny due to all the references to other games, films, genres and so on. And the gameplay was quite nice. The puzzles were well manageable, as far as I remember, and not too complicated. Plus, in my opinion, the graphics are quite nice too. I remember that I was really impressed by some of the levels in the game.

Yes, it's also from Germany. But that's excatly what I mean, maybe Book of Unwritten Tales loses some of its humor along the way because it has been translated to English.

I just read an English Wikipedia article about German humour and one point that should be noted is that the German sentence structure offers ambigious interpretation making room for some funny misinterpretations. Another problem is the sarcastic and ironic tone of voice which an English speaker doing the dubbing may have missed a couple of times.

Can't say anything about Deponia, and I think the only Daedalic adventure I've played through so far is The Whispered World. Judging from that and my short glimpses at their other titles, Daedalic's adventures seem more original, while BoUT is more parodistic, which is something I've come to hate in point-and-click adventures most of the times, since I often don't find these jokes funny at all and rather lame and repetitive.

That being said, I enjoyed BoUT a lot more than I thought I would, partly because of the great voiceovers in the German version (by famous voice-actors), but also because somehow quite a few jokes hit the mark nevertheless and most importantly the puzzle design was very fair and resulted in a more or less smooth playthrough with motivating challenges and not too many detours to a walkthrough. Especially the third chapter of BoUT (I think) was a lot of fun. I felt the gameplay of the Whispered World was more tedious in that regard, the ratio of solving puzzles on my owns vs. getting stuck and having to cheat was much higher with the TWW than with BoUT, IIRC.

Of course, it's just another opinion; clearly a matter of taste,

Deponia of course, although I might be biased because I'm pretty convinced almost anything by Deadalic is pure gold. At least in the original german version, I don't know how watered down the other ones are.

They are two easy game, but Book is easiest :)