Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor
Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is a deceptively cute game where you play as an impoverished alien trash collector struggling amongst a bustling hub of interstellar heroism and adventure. Below you are a sprawling planetoid series of ancient tombs that tempt the brave. Above you, all of the gleaming fleets of all the empires in the known universe ready themselves to delve the furthest stars. But on the streets of the city, you are stuck with the only gig you could get, which is picking up after all the travelers’ partying, festivals, and luxurious dealings. Often you’ll find yourself cleaning up your own vomit for some extra cash after you had a bad day and didn’t make much money and decided you were hungry enough to eat at the sleazy food stall in the alley. On other days you’ll have to burn your meager savings to buy medication to stabilize your fluctuating gender. All the while, the kaleidoscopic, scintillating, and cloying cute denizens of the city continue along their exciting journeys as you scuttle underfoot, too hungry to fall asleep. Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor—a self-described “anti-adventure”—uses visual irony and self-damning math to encourage empathy for the cyclical nature of poverty and highlight the types of unjust infrastructure that ferments just out of sight of our masculine stories of heroism and grandeur.
Creator: Sundae Month
Link: https://tinybuild.itch.io/diaries-of-a-spaceport-janitor
Connections:
Ursula LeGuin - The Dispossessed
Junko Mizuno - Pure Trance
James Agee and Walker Evans - Let Us Now Praise Famous Men