Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor

Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is an anti-adventure video game developed by Sundae Month and published by tinyBuild. The game released on Steam on September 16, 2016.[1]

Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor
Developer(s)Sundae Month
Publisher(s)tinyBuild
Platform(s)macOS, Microsoft Windows
ReleaseSeptember 16, 2016
Genre(s)Adventure
Mode(s)Single-player 

Gameplay

The player controlled character plays the role of an NPC, acting as a janitor in a sci-fi themed bazaar. The player character must pick up and incinerate trash, the ability to do so is on a cooldown rate per day, while managing hunger and periodically purchasing "gender".

Development and plot

Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor was created in light of the Gamergate controversy, where female video game developer Zoe Quinn was repeatedly harassed for non-conventional projects. Developer James Shasha said:

"Obviously, [harassment] wasn't new. We all knew it was happening. We were feeling pretty disenchanted with certain aspects of the community. I think it's impossible at some level to separate certain cultural things about game spaces from games themselves. We had a lot of conversations about what player expectations are, and how we can either subvert, play with, or outright fuck with their expectations,"[2]

The player's role as a janitor that never escapes their original routine, the regular abuses of power by the game's police force, and interactions with other NPCs are all intended as metaphors for capitalism.[3]

In addition to this, the game contains themes of transgender experience and of mental health. The skull that follows the player immediately after finishing the introduction is a metaphor for depression as well as whatever the player's personal experience with mental illness be.[2] In order to avoid the player's field of view from going hazy, they must regularly purchase "gender" -- a metaphor for dysphoria.[4]

Reception

The game's themes and narrative were praised for being "a reverse-power fantasy"; even being compared to Papers, Please and Cart Life, if only "with a happier aesthetic".[5] The game has a Metacritic score of 69.[6] Its "gender" mechanic allowed itself to be placed in the "Queer Games Bundle" on Steam.[7]

References
  1. Sykes, Tom (2016-09-10). "Burn alien trash in Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, out next week". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
  2. Knoop, Joseph (2016-09-28). "'Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor' Asks Players to Find the Beauty in Garbage". Vice. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
  3. "Diaries of A Spaceport Janitor Makes Cleaning Up Trash Beautiful". Kotaku. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
  4. Martin, Gareth Damian. "How Video Games Discovered Their Humanity". Frieze. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
  5. Beltran, Blynn. "A frustratingly good poverty simulator of a space janitor". The Skyline View. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
  6. "Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor". Metacritic. Retrieved 2021-01-15.
  7. Heller, Emily (2018-08-09). "Steam's Queer Games Bundle puts LGBT representation front and center". Polygon. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
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