Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor
Main game
3.22 average rating based on 45 ratings
- Developers
- Sundae Month
- Publishers
- tinyBuild
- Platforms
- Mac, PC (Microsoft Windows)
- Genres
- Adventure, Indie, Role-playing (RPG), Simulator
- Themes
- Science fiction
- Steam
- View on Steam
Release Dates
User Stats
How Long Is Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor?
this game is fucking miserable. on purpose
have you ever wondered, gee i wonder what it would be like to be a wageslave janitor that can almost never catch a break, constantly having to deal with feeding myself, getting sick, gender dysphoria, abuse of police power, sexual harassment, a cursed skull that yells at you a lot for no reason, and other such horrors that mimic the reality of our capitalist hellscape?
spoiler alert: it fucking blows !!!!!!!!!!
and i love it !!!!!!!!!!!!
where most games offer some form of escapism from the struggles of real life, spaceport janitor takes those very struggles and cranks them up to an 11. you sit there wondering, why is this useless trading card being sold by this marketplace guy worth more than the salary i've made over the course of in-game MONTHS? this game will repeatedly kick you in the ass and offer only the slightest hint at a light at the end of the tunnel, but even that small glimmer of hope keeps you going, and i fucking love it.
only reasons this isnt a 5/5 for me are a handful of bugs and the "ending" felt a little underwhelming. an amazing experience that i NEVER want to go …
have you ever wondered, gee i wonder what it would be like to be a wageslave janitor that can almost never catch a break, constantly having to deal with feeding myself, getting sick, gender dysphoria, abuse of police power, sexual harassment, a cursed skull that yells at you a lot for no reason, and other such horrors that mimic the reality of our capitalist hellscape?
spoiler alert: it fucking blows !!!!!!!!!!
and i love it !!!!!!!!!!!!
where most games offer some form of escapism from the struggles of real life, spaceport janitor takes those very struggles and cranks them up to an 11. you sit there wondering, why is this useless trading card being sold by this marketplace guy worth more than the salary i've made over the course of in-game MONTHS? this game will repeatedly kick you in the ass and offer only the slightest hint at a light at the end of the tunnel, but even that small glimmer of hope keeps you going, and i fucking love it.
only reasons this isnt a 5/5 for me are a handful of bugs and the "ending" felt a little underwhelming. an amazing experience that i NEVER want to go through EVER again
Go figure, being a janitor is not as fun as you'd think.
I liked the idea of this game. A chill, lo-fi experience focusing on exploration and a bit of survival. And now that I've played it I can say the game is basically that exact experience. It just turned out to be less fun than I thought it would be. The game is so chill that it doesn't really feel like the developers care if you have fun or not. Nothing really pulls you into the experience. The story is vague and non-engaging. The game mechanics don't feel like they have any meaning behind them. This quickly turns into a walking simulator in the worst sense. I spent twenty minutes walking around just trying to remember which of the dozens of merchants bought a can I found on the ground. Imagine doing that in real life, and you have this game in a nutshell.
DOSJ
This review is for the PC (Microsoft Windows) version
I enjoyed the game, unfortunately I ran into a glitch where the 2nd tablet piece disappeared, meaning I couldn't advance further. And I didn't like the game well enough to go back through and play everything all over again while hoping it wouldn't happen a 2nd time.
The game can be a bit confusing. Navigating the world is difficult even with included arrows, and learning what to keep and what to sell is on a big learning curve as well.
I liked going around and destroying junk everyday. I think if I hadn't been playing it for my youtube channel that I might not have felt as pressured to do the main quest so quickly. I def wouldn't recommend it as a let's play. I don't think it's super interesting in that format.
But I dug the colors, the music, the alien designs are great! and I liked destroying trash.
deepdoop's review of Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor
5/10
I'll give this a 5 despite not enjoying it that much because I like the lo-fi, colourful graphics, along with the music. I also enjoy the idea of this game and think it could have been something pretty special, even though it's an anti-adventure game about being a janitor. I think these are the types of indie games that could come out of the shadows and amaze the world with its sense of creativity. But this one doesn't.
Simply put, it's a walking simulator where you walk around and pick up or destroy trash, occasionally going into dungeons and gender shifting. There are survival elements because every game needs those apparently, so you have to eat. If you don't eat, you won't sleep, and you won't be able to incinerate said trash. You get paid for how much trash you rid the spaceport of, so the incentive is to walk around and clean things up. I don't think I'm missing much in my description: this is the basics of it.
That's really all there is, and the charm wears thin really quickly. It's not helped by the fact that the spaceport is pretty overwhelming, making trying to find the …
5/10
I'll give this a 5 despite not enjoying it that much because I like the lo-fi, colourful graphics, along with the music. I also enjoy the idea of this game and think it could have been something pretty special, even though it's an anti-adventure game about being a janitor. I think these are the types of indie games that could come out of the shadows and amaze the world with its sense of creativity. But this one doesn't.
Simply put, it's a walking simulator where you walk around and pick up or destroy trash, occasionally going into dungeons and gender shifting. There are survival elements because every game needs those apparently, so you have to eat. If you don't eat, you won't sleep, and you won't be able to incinerate said trash. You get paid for how much trash you rid the spaceport of, so the incentive is to walk around and clean things up. I don't think I'm missing much in my description: this is the basics of it.
That's really all there is, and the charm wears thin really quickly. It's not helped by the fact that the spaceport is pretty overwhelming, making trying to find the merchant you want really frustrating. It also has a terrible navigational system. Surely, these things get better as time goes on but it's not worth putting the time in to get to that point because it doesn't offer much. A walking simulator needs a good story otherwise it's just stupid grinding with no purpose, and this lacks it. Good sense of style but nothing else; the layering of gameplay elements don't gel well.
Enjoying this game much more than I thought I would. It's like Bernband but expanded, with more detail and interactivity. The music and atmosphere are wonderful. I was originally going to grab this on release but I was dissuaded; I remember it originally received a fair amount of negative press, and I also got the impression that it was one of those art games where you don't really do anything, a game that has no real objectives or win state. However, it turns out there's a lot to do, and there are objectives and you can beat the game (although it's looking to be quite tricky). It just goes to show you can't always trust review scores, sometimes you've gotta trust your gut.