In gaming terms, there’re few things more disappointing than really looking forward to a game and then when it finally arrives, you don’t like it. I don’t mean situations where a game arrives buggy or has launch day issues — that kind of thing can be fixed. No, I’m talking about when you just don’t like the game’s design.

I’m sad to say, that’s me and Dungeons of Hinterberg. Now I hasten to add, this is a ME thing. The game has Very Positive reviews on Steam and I’ve seen plenty of folks on social media talking about how much they enjoyed it. But for me it just isn’t clicking.

But let’s back up. The premise here is that magical dungeons suddenly start appearing in the Alps, complete with monsters. Rather than this be a cause for widespread panic, the little town of Hinterberg turns it into a tourist attraction. You go there, enjoy relaxing at the resort and spend your days dungeon delving. In game terms, it’s a combination of dungeon crawler and life sim. When you’re aren’t in a dungeon you’re hanging around making friends, which in turn leads to better stats and such. It’s not a new formula (Persona is saying “Hold my beer” right now) but it’s not a super common one either. The graphics are bright and upbeat, the town of Hinterberg oozes cozy vibes. It seems like a place I would LOVE to explore.

Except, puzzles.

What I didn’t anticipate is how puzzle-heavy the game would be. If you like the kind of puzzle where you have to move items to climb on so you can get to place where there’s a button that opens a door so you can blow up a weakened wall to get through a locked gate, this game is for you. I am honestly NOT the biggest puzzle fan in the world, and what exacerbates the issue in Hinterberg is that there’s a lot of walking back and forth across pretty big areas trying different things, and your character doesn’t really move very fast. In addition to not being the biggest puzzle fan, I’m almost famously impatient. Y’know those Telltale games that so many people loved…walking across rooms in those games about killed me. SO SLOW. I feel the same way in Hinterberg.

To be fair and transparent I only did the first two dungeons and maybe these are just teaching you about puzzles; I’m not sure. But for the 2nd dungeon you have to find your way through a maze just to get to it, and THEN solve the puzzles inside. So yeah, I think puzzles are the point. They’re the kind of puzzles that take me 20-30 minutes to figure out, but once I know what to do if I re-played the dungeon it would take me like 5 minutes. Maybe I’m just dumb! There’s actually not much fighting in the dungeons. When you get near the end, suddenly monsters teleport in for a brief battle.

Thing is, this is just how the game is designed and as mentioned, a lot of people really like it. But for me, I’d prefer mostly combat and a few puzzles rather than vice versa. So Dungeons of Hinterberg was a big disappointment.

And not to pile on here, but there were some other more objective issues. I felt like I was fighting the camera a lot. Particularly when I had to aim a projectile spell at something up high. As the ‘over the shoulder’ camera sinks down to let you see up, your character totally obscures the view. Likewise the FOV is such that monsters get a lot of cheap shots on you by hitting you from off screen. Of course that stuff could be tweaked in a patch and I hope it does get tweaked.

As to the ‘social’ aspects, they’re fine but are mostly just very narrative driven. You meet someone, click through some dialog options, get whatever bonus you’re going to get from talking to them, and that’s it. I’m not sure what I expected; maybe some kind of activity though honestly I’m not sure what.

This is a game I might come back to when I’m in a different frame of mind. Maybe when I’m on vacation or something and feel like I have lots of free time. Life is really hectic right now and my gaming time is precious so just kind of wandering slowly back and forth trying things to get a door open just frustrates me because I want to get on to the stuff I like (eg, smacking things with a sword). I’ve been tracking this game for a year or more and I’m not sure how I missed the fact that it was basically a puzzle game. Oh well.

On the bright side, it’s on Game Pass so at least it didn’t cost me anything!