A lack of direction was interfering with my ability to acquire and distribute pornography. I didn’t have a map, so trying to pinpoint the local smut dealer seemed secondary to finding out where in the hell my own residence was. With that in mind, I also needed to stop this floating skull from literally cursing my existence. This required assembling a tablet, which an amorphous green blob promised to assist with if I were to fetch him some naughty pictures of herbage.
Let’s start over. Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is a simulation developed by the nice folks at Sundae Month. What it is a simulation of, I do not exactly know. Objectively, yes, you’re a lowly janitor, an Alaensee girlbeast, at the bustling spaceport Xabran’s Rock and your primary activity is collecting and incinerating garbage. You are given a pittance for this activity. Eventually your incinerator’s battery runs empty, requiring you to turn in for the night before waking up and starting the whole process over. Hopefully you make enough money to buy some dirt-flavored food.
Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is also kind of a miniature open-world questing game. Exploring the spaceport’s first-person sewer dungeon results in the acquisition of a curse, which is manifested through a large skull that follows you around and occasionally screams. Removing this curse demands assembly of a tablet, which leads to a handful of tasks. The aforementioned smut hunt is one, but it mostly consists of roaming around town trying to find fetishes (physical models) of nine local deities. There are nine days in the week, leaving activity and commerce around the spaceport subject to the whims of the Xabranian calendar.
It also possible to view Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor as a conscious critique of modern game design. All of the money you make seems to be spent on food. Whatever remains is either spent on more food or outright stolen by law enforcement officials prowling the spaceport in the evening. You can do nothing* because you are nothing. Around the spaceport you’ll run into countless decorated adventurers (whom you will never be) and peruse vendor stalls with inordinately priced weapons and items (which you will never be able to afford).
While somewhat understated, Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is most effective as a gender dysmorphia simulator. Gender at the spaceport is not only fluid, it requires constant overhauling. Not more than a few days can go by before your vision starts swimming, words appear jumbled, and a general feeling of malaise dominate your poor janitor. I imagine this to be an inspired take on what it’s like to feel like you’re in the wrong kind of body back over here in real life. Luckily, there are gender changing stations all over the spaceport, easily providing access to a handful of different options.
All of these modes of inquiry refine Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor into an extremely busy experience. Considering the game essentially positions the player to accomplish nothing, this is ironic. The world is happening around you, and you’re either too uncomfortable, too powerless, too overworked, too lost, or too deep in its tasks to care. This scope isn’t as critical as something like No More Heroes, which was trying to commentate on bad game design while also having bad game design, but rather an opportunity to consciously evaluate your position in this universe. What are you doing here?
The problem with monotony is routine, a facet of tedium Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor simultaneously embraces and rejects. A typical day (for me) entails walking around the spaceport, incinerating vomit, eating terrible food, incinerating my own vomit, and eventually stumbling across a fetish I needed for my collection. Sometimes I don’t vomit. Sometimes I would have enough money to buy the fetish at a vendor stall, or find some trash a vendor would actually want to buy, but mostly I got lucky. How lucky? I am not sure. Luck is (apparently. maybe.) a significant mechanic in the game, and while I spent a considerable amount of time burning the proper candles at the necessary deity shrines, I don’t know that it actually did anything.
Sundae Month did an admirable job in constructing Xabran’s Rock spaceport. It looks like someone bent the Sega CD’s sprite scaling and rotation effects to their will, injected a 2002 level of technological horsepower, adopted Mega Man Legends’ aesthetic, and drowned it in all Fantasy Zone’s color pallet. Before long I wasn’t really missing a map (making me question the necessity of one practically anywhere else—are you playing the game or looking at a map every ten seconds? I digress) and came to peace with my surroundings. My janitor had no place in that weird world, but it kind of felt like home.
I don’t understand a lot about Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor. After about six hours I finished the game, I guess, but, did I play it like the people who attempt to play Frog Fractions like a real math game? Is some piece of commentary that could change my interpretation of the game going completely over my head? Am I smart enough to get this? It’s weird because I’ve spent the last ten years reviewing 40 or so games a year and I slightly freak out whenever a game endeavors to be obtuse. This isn’t unprecedented, everything from The Stanley Parable to Back in 1995 gave my brain fits about presumed intent, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I’m terribly excited whenever a developer creates a game like Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor but I also have no idea how to handle it.
This is my steadfast understanding of Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor; it’s exciting even if I can’t quite place what it is specifically because I still can’t place what it is. I also feel this way about the contemporary killer clown epidemic and the evolutionary resistance of shellfish. Is this some sort of critical cop out? Possibly. I suspect, however, that I am actually in possession of an artifact that only reveals its power to a select frame of mind, and I’m part of the way there. Depending on the amount of games you’ve played—or the way you feel about your place in the world, or your ability to fight against the grind, or even your appreciation for pixel art—maybe you’ll get further. Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, despite its ponderous etiquette, actually has quite a few inroads.
*This isn’t exactly true. They can be avoided entirely by pushing the “escape” button on your keyboard. I have no idea if this is an oversight or part of the intended design.
