Diaries of a Spaceport
Janitor

Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor (2016) is an intentionally dull (and weird) adventure game about picking up trash as a Janitor. You work to find garbage for the incinerator (or to sell) with the thin hope of leaving the planet for a better life. It's a bizarre game not least because it doesn't try and be entertaining. However, that's kind of the point. It's a game about playing as the working poor.

---

Play involves exploring the spaceport's maze of alleyways, side streets, plazas, and bridges. As you go you can pickup the discarded items to burn and earn money. It's a mundane quest, but your only way to get enough food to feel full enough to sleep at night time.

You might investigate one of various subterranean sewers, or climb the ominously symmetrical Ziggurat to get a better view of the landscape. As you get a sense of the geography of the place you can start to identify which traders may offer you the best prices for the junk you've found.

It's a game about embracing routine, and the life-deadening consequences that can bring. As you spend your days cleaning up litter and finding food time ebbs away and your finances remain largely the same. Still, as long as you get through your daily list, there is some semblance of meaning: pray, work, eat, sleep.

The result is a game that invites you to step into the shoes of a cleaner. Not for empowerment or escape or a starting point for an inspirational story, but because that's an interesting thing to do. It calls itself an anti-adventure. But the adventure you really go on, is one into uncovering the limits of your willingness to experience life like this. Can you find a middle ground between menial drudgery, endless quests and never quite getting enough sleep?

---

Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor 22 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 19 months ago.