Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is one of my favorite games, the world of the Spaceport is incredible and easy to get lost in, living the mundane life of a janitor in a fantastical world is truly enjoyable in a strange way.
A game about keeping a diary while working at a spaceport. As a janitor. Really it's hard to give the game a rating because on the one hand it's not exactly fun to play. The core gameplay loop involves going around and collecting trash. The next day you are given a seemingly random amount of money roughly correlating to the trash you collected. Occasionally you'll come across something worth selling. However hunger, random bouts of dysphoria, and shakedowns from guards eat away at your money.
On the other hand the frustration of grinding away for a goal you will probably never achieve is kind of the point. Diaries advertises itself as an "anti-adventure" game and it really achieves that. You're on a planet littered with ruins and teeming with the adventurers come to loot it. But you are not one of them. You are a janitor picking up their trash. There are shops selling all kinds of fantastical items, but you will never be able to afford any of them with what you're paid.
All in all, it's not a fun game to play, but that's the whole point. So at least it succeeds in what it sets out to do.
On the other hand the frustration of grinding away for a goal you will probably never achieve is kind of the point. Diaries advertises itself as an "anti-adventure" game and it really achieves that. You're on a planet littered with ruins and teeming with the adventurers come to loot it. But you are not one of them. You are a janitor picking up their trash. There are shops selling all kinds of fantastical items, but you will never be able to afford any of them with what you're paid.
All in all, it's not a fun game to play, but that's the whole point. So at least it succeeds in what it sets out to do.
I cleaned for like an hour and then didn't know what else to do. Accurate janitor work I guess
CWs for Memories of a Spaceport Janitor: bodily fluids, harassment, transphobia.
A deeply unfocused, dispassionate, and not very carefully tuned container for the weird liberal middle-class imagination of a distinctly working class job. I'm theoretically into the core loop and really a big fan of how consistently disorienting the city is, but it's in too loose of a frame and ends up stumbling where decades of sims have already produced so many models for designing day-to-day minutia. The scaling of numbers and the general cost of life is baffling given the dice roll to figure out your daily piece-wage and doubly so when you realize that there's just no rent due for some reason. I have a bit of sympathy for this game because I really did otherwise enjoy bopping around the city, but it holds a really nefarious and delirium inducing bootstrap moralizing directed at an individual in an abstraction of our own society that's way too fucking stinky.
A deeply unfocused, dispassionate, and not very carefully tuned container for the weird liberal middle-class imagination of a distinctly working class job. I'm theoretically into the core loop and really a big fan of how consistently disorienting the city is, but it's in too loose of a frame and ends up stumbling where decades of sims have already produced so many models for designing day-to-day minutia. The scaling of numbers and the general cost of life is baffling given the dice roll to figure out your daily piece-wage and doubly so when you realize that there's just no rent due for some reason. I have a bit of sympathy for this game because I really did otherwise enjoy bopping around the city, but it holds a really nefarious and delirium inducing bootstrap moralizing directed at an individual in an abstraction of our own society that's way too fucking stinky.
This review contains spoilers
One of the most interesting mechanics is the gender dysphoria one. Its near impossible to give the player anthing close to the abstract discomfort of gender dysphoria, but i think the effect of gender dysphoria: discomfort and a difficulty existing in the world is well represented by the wavy screen distortion and text scrambling. Though it doesnt really touch on depression, which i think is a major element of gender dysphoria and the way in which its bypassed with just a pill is fine for what the game is (infact it works well with the rest of the game) but it still feels like a missed opportunity to go a step further.
The game has pacing issues. Letting the player take the game at their own pace might have been a mistake. Theres too little to do, which is ironic for a game where theres technically something to do every 5 steps. Just throwing away trash isn't interesting enough. There had to be more meat. Having said that, boredom isn't necessarily a bad thing. Making the objectives easier to complete might have been nice so the game doesnt take quite so long. idk. I gave up on beating the game's 4th quest.
Navigation is probably my biggest complaint. The city feels like its designed to turn in on itself. I keep finding myself going in circles. as someone with poor navigation skills, and a poor visual memory. Everything but returning home (which is well sign posted) was an uphill struggle. Not only is navigation bad, but guiding the player through exactly what they need to do isnt great either. its not bad but i would have liked to understand how the money earning works or why i should care about luck
The strengths of the game are definitely in the background character design, and the sound design. I love the cat noises and the music that plays at festivals. Everything is so charming and colourful and cute.
The game does a really great job of selling the idea that you're actually on a spaceport for adventurers who do actually come through here and go on adventurs you can only dream of.
The game has pacing issues. Letting the player take the game at their own pace might have been a mistake. Theres too little to do, which is ironic for a game where theres technically something to do every 5 steps. Just throwing away trash isn't interesting enough. There had to be more meat. Having said that, boredom isn't necessarily a bad thing. Making the objectives easier to complete might have been nice so the game doesnt take quite so long. idk. I gave up on beating the game's 4th quest.
Navigation is probably my biggest complaint. The city feels like its designed to turn in on itself. I keep finding myself going in circles. as someone with poor navigation skills, and a poor visual memory. Everything but returning home (which is well sign posted) was an uphill struggle. Not only is navigation bad, but guiding the player through exactly what they need to do isnt great either. its not bad but i would have liked to understand how the money earning works or why i should care about luck
The strengths of the game are definitely in the background character design, and the sound design. I love the cat noises and the music that plays at festivals. Everything is so charming and colourful and cute.
The game does a really great job of selling the idea that you're actually on a spaceport for adventurers who do actually come through here and go on adventurs you can only dream of.
Uno de mis juegos favoritos.
En Diaries of a spaceport janitor no hacemos más que juntar basura del piso: cumplimos nuestro destino de paria. Levantamos la cabeza y vemos naves espaciales surcando los cielos. Ahí está todo el juego, en esa escena que contrapone nuestra desdicha personal al anhelo por una vida ideal que nos resulta inalcanzable. Este contraste se vuelve recurrente en el juego, aunque toma otras formas, y sirve para reforzar su tema principal, es decir, la aparente inalterabilidad del destino y nuestro conflicto interno para lidiar con la realidad.
En Diaries of a spaceport janitor no hacemos más que juntar basura del piso: cumplimos nuestro destino de paria. Levantamos la cabeza y vemos naves espaciales surcando los cielos. Ahí está todo el juego, en esa escena que contrapone nuestra desdicha personal al anhelo por una vida ideal que nos resulta inalcanzable. Este contraste se vuelve recurrente en el juego, aunque toma otras formas, y sirve para reforzar su tema principal, es decir, la aparente inalterabilidad del destino y nuestro conflicto interno para lidiar con la realidad.
I like it well enough but I may have to call it quits in the last leg. It's too grindy towards the end trying to get enough cash to hire someone. I'm gonna give it one more go but the repetition isn't too annoying at first, but it kind of accumulates as time goes on to the point of being a bit unbearable. All in all though, at least the first half of what I played was very charming and had some nice atmosphere, music, and design. and the gameplay loop for a spell was fun.
it's hard to describe the experience of playing this game in a way that reflects how i feel about it. it's a work simulator that actually feels like work. it's not fun to play, and "completing" it isn't rewarding either. but that's the point, so in a way, it's a great reflection of real life.
A charming little experience.
Poor janitor.
Poor janitor.
absolutely no part of this game is fun. 4 stars.
This game has alot of charm, I think it has an interesting premise, some really fun character designs, honestly just a neat lil concept all around, but its absolutely BURIED in pure, unadulterated trial and error. Be prepared to have your time wasted as you wade through chaos mechanics for a long time before it starts to make sense.