Dungeons of Hinterberg
Odd but very fun!
Many things about it turned me off at first. For one, it feels like a combination of two completely disparate concepts: puzzle and fighting challenges and ... a dating sim. Yes, you read that right. The premise is wacky, too: A skiing town in the Alps has been converted to a D&D arena, and everything is extremely middle-class. The people you meet seem to have no financial worries and just follow their expensive dreams as they please. And all your interactions with them are gamified: You spend time with people to add relationship "levels", which reward you with combat perks. Ugh. Finally, your choices are extremely structured around a "day". You can only do one thing at once, and it always happen in a certain contrived order.
On paper, none of this makes sense. But somehow it works.
The mess above is designed with such earnestness and care. The people you meet are worth meeting, not just for the rewards. The bizarre story takes itself seriously and unfolds around you mysteriously as you go about completing dungeons. There is even character growth, for you and others.
The gameplay is good, with the "dungeons" being by far the best part of the game. The puzzles are at most medium difficulty, though there are clever ones. They sometimes suffer from poor controls and tediously slow backtracking, but this is complemented by super-fast moving levels. Skateboarding is awesome! Combat is as hard as you want it to be: If you stick to dungeons recommended for your level, easy enough, but if you try from something above your pay grade you might be seriously challenged and then nicely rewarded with better gear. I'm not a fan of the "day" structure, but am a fan of variety of pacing that it enforces. Slay monsters at noon, have a quiet dinner with a professor in the evening. After a few hours of gameplay this straitjacket became a comforting routine.
Things do break apart a bit if you are completionist. There are nowhere enough dungeons to match the amount of NPC progressions and quests, so I found myself in the end just spending each day doing nothing and waiting for characters to show up. Somehow this element of the design got extremely unbalanced. However, to be clear, you don't have to do this at all to enjoy the game.
I had a good time in Hinterberg. I don't live in a wealthy European bubble, but it was interesting and enjoyable to be part of it for a while. True to its premise, Dungeons of Hinterberg offers you a vacation that is both stimulating and relaxing.