Разработчик: J. King-Spooner
Описание
Soundtrack on Bandcamp
You can now purchase the extended soundtrack for the low low price of £5 over on Bandcamp
About the Game
my granddad came home from the war a changed man. he was bitter, quick to anger and aggressive. he'd grown to hate animals too. should a dog yap, he'd rush to kick it.how does one discuss such a person without being exploitative? perhaps we frame him as a product of external forces, a war perhaps, in effect making him blameless. I like to remember him with the aphorism, "you can't kick every barking dog."
New game!
Pink Gator is a good name for a band I reckon. Stuck for a band name? Go on, call yourselves Pink Gator, I don't mind. Or Panda Punch. Something involving animals at least.
Features:
- Full colour
- Interactive menu
- Bosses and enemies
- Sophisticated Mode7 & effects
- Lots of noise
- Battery-backed memory saves the extraordinary progress of our young heroine
- Excellent fun for one player
"Get ready for the ride of your life"
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10
- Processor: 1.4GHz processor or faster
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated graphics should be fine
- Storage: 986 MB available space
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows 7
- Processor: 1.4GHz processor or faster
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA or AMD dedicated graphics with 1GB VRAM
- Storage: 986 MB available space
Mac
Linux
Отзывы пользователей
Finished the game.
Found it the same as I found it back in 2017: beautiful but cripplingly disjointed.
The loss doesn't feel ambient and omnipresent, it peters through the ridiculously-woven crust of the world in anemic brooks. Reckon that is the point, but nonetheless.
Horizon-wide thematic variety doesn't help, nor does the constant personal dev intervention. It's like he's injecting the game with a humorous analgesic for fear of it being too emotionally lopsided. Admirable, but heavily overdone.
Then I remembered I didn't do the sisters' request, and came back to fulfill it.
I take it all back.
Yes, I know.
No, I don't care.
Thank fuck
crazy af
best conversation i had have with a teacher
I have an up-and-down opinion of Dujanah. I love that it's experimental. I love that it's pushing the medium. I love many of its highs. But I'm also saddled with its lows. Ultimately, I'll recommend this game, as I think it's worth experiencing, but for most of my time with it I thought I wouldn't. I felt like the message was basic, and many of the vignettes to be trite and lacking the punch I was expecting from such a bold setup. But the parts that I connected with were strong enough, and in particular some of the writing in its most powerful scenes good enough, that it ultimately sticks the landing, though just barely.
Dujanah is a collage of different art pieces that pull you from one theme to the next. It's more an art gallery put into a video game package than a video game itself. This aspect of it depresses me if I'm being honest; I kind of hate that one of the boldest games isn't much of a game. It kinda puts a damper on the whole medium, and its potential for real art. There aren't many (any?) other games that have a Muslim woman suffering under colonial oppressors as their protagonist after all. Not that this little indie title deserves to bear the weight of the whole medium on its shoulders. And in fairness, there are a handful of "this could only be done in a game!" moments: the random events that vary from playthrough to playthrough, the nonlinearity of the experiences, and the subtle interactivity of its voiced-over stories (namely the witch story). But on the other end of the spectrum, there is more than a handful of moments which are just audio or video clips being fed to you while your inputs remain idle. Which is fine, but is worth bearing in mind: Dujanah doesn't put the medium itself to much use, for better or for worse.
Tonally it jumps around a lot too: sometimes it's a meme game, other times it's deadly serious. Not all of these moments work, but there were quite a handful that did for me. More than the motifs and themes being discussed themselves, King-Spooner's writing steps up in those most poignant moments. By far my favorite part of the game is Amquey Hotchkins' monologue about death. The ending at the funeral was also incredibly well-done. This guy has some serious talent. Some of my least favorite parts were actually when the game shied away from being bold, and said far less than it could have; leaving me with basic aphorisms and level 1 discourse that I can -tell- this guy can do better than. I -hated- the credits poem right after the funeral. Whoever wrote that poem is a far worse writer than King-Spooner; he'd have been better off giving his own game a send-off. Another big low point was the consciousness "discussion." The audio clip is about as basic an analysis of free will and its spectrum of possibility as you could get, and I was sitting there waiting for them to get to a point that I hadn't heard before. Maybe I've just read too much for that stuff to actually hit me as it will hit others.
A core problem, though, is that so little of the runtime is actually dedicated to those poignant moments. About half the game is spent in the "arcade," which as I'm sure others have mentioned, is where the game falters most. The racing game, the shooter, and the armadillo game do nothing to add to the overall themes and were largely a waste of time. The longest of the games, the Caves of Al Dajjal, loosely connects to everything, but even if it didn't I'm ashamed to admit I just enjoyed it because I found it rather fun. Cute little metroidvania they snuck into this thing; wasn't expecting that. There's something to be said for the meta narrative that we all use games to distract ourselves from what's really important (in this case the main storyline to find your family) but even that is dulled by the fact that it's required content. You have to play these minigames in order to progress. So that wrinkle isn't wholly there, either. That isn't to say it's all pointless: there is some connection, for sure: pie or anus touches on the theme of free will or the lack thereof, Caves of Al Dajjal give an awesome, foreboding sense of hopelessness and futility (you routinely feel lost without knowing where to go), and the shooter game looks like a bombing raid on civilian cities, though again, that one is kind of weak. I do like the fact that the spider people, who in fairly clear terms are meant to be local insurgents, are the ones that need the arcade coins, though. Speaks to their incompetence that they can't just win it themselves, but also their fake masculinity / terror. They're just hurt little boys who wish to see video games beaten, underneath their spider exterior (exoskeleton?).
As for the art and music? Largely brilliant, especially for a solo project. Love the use of FMVs; great to see an artist bear their soul without shame. Claymation is dope, though nowhere near Hylics' level (high bar). All Our Mothers Were Darlings is a standout track but it's not the only one; sound design is good all around.
I could go on (but I'm running out of characters lol) but the point is that Dujanah throws a lot at you, in rapid succession. Some of it works, some of it doesn't, but the parts that do are worth seeing for yourself. As for me? I'm happy I did, and am excited to play the rest of King-Spooner's catalogue.
Oh and one final thing: bless the Scots and their courage. To make a game in this setting, with these themes? As a Persian man I can tell you it's well appreciated; media/art like this really helps, and it takes a bold artist to be so clear in their anti-establishment slant. Love it.
This both is and contains poetry.
Mostly about death and grief.
If you've experienced it, this will give it a voice.
If you haven't, this will prepare you.
This game allows you to see the perspective and ideals of the creator in such a way no other game I have seen is capable of.
A favorite for me
Insanity, revenge, hope, love, mundanity, ascension, fantasy, grief, eccentricity... I have yet to play a game which has so succinctly captured the human experience more than Dujanah. Its heavy-handed, at times insultingly obvious themes are bashed over one's head, only to disappear in an instant to give way to a man complaining about eggs, and then to return once again in the form of a broken family. A revenge fantasy reaches a fever pitch, one in which the player is meant to believe it is real, that those who can carry it out are indeed incredibly powerful and have the means to do so, only to reveal itself as a sham. The constant ups and downs, the mundane, tedious walks and emotionally intense, soul-hollowing scenes, the raves and slaughter contrasted with soft doubts of one's own place in the world...
If there is an emotion to be had, Dujanah will rip it out of you and tear it to shreds before your eyes. It will do this before you're even aware there was an emotion to experience. The dev vomits upon the canvas that is Dujanah. It is every worry, every fear, every drunken rant and over-correcting day after. It understands beauty and ugliness, unafraid to deliver each to the player, if not emboldened by doing so.
For each brutally on-the-nose event, there are ten subtle details to flesh out a more complete world. It is the future, but also the present, but also the past, but also some fourth thing. It is real, but it is not. It is a distinctly human realm, but nobody seems all too human, but they are all so human in how they act, talk, hurt, and hope.
Play this game. You will never play one like it again.
I don't even know what to say. This has to be the most unique game I've ever played. More people need to experience this. If you are reading this and are at all intrigued, buy this game and play it blind. It has a lot to say, is dripping with style, and has fantastic music.
You will laugh, you will cry, and you will think a lot about life and death.
I played 44 minutes of this, Going to 3 areas completing 3 of the goals listed on the main menu only to get soft locked inside a menu and my only way out would to replay what i did. Which I'm not gonna bother
I can get why some people enjoy this game, Hell i enjoy yume nikki which is in a similar genre but... Man did i just not "get" this game. The entire time i just wished i was playing hylics or something
First off, this game has zero options and literally starts with glitchy tv static that is loud as fuck, Sure hope you aren't photosensitive or have your headphones on loud!
So i tabbed out of the game and wrangled windows audio mixer to turn down the game and by the time i tabbed back in i had the dev of the game pop up in full view and talk to me which is... Not good to me, I'm sure some people fount it fun but that just instantly took me out of the mood, And it didn't help that apparently i was "lucky" and was just told the underlying theme of the entire game, I thought it was the indie game trope where they'd fake you out with a dumb explanation and then go "Ah I'm just joking" but considering the rest of the game, I'm sure what he said is actually true. All this explanation did was just make me annoyed when i got into the game and slowly realized that almost nothing the npcs said has anything to do with that underlying theme and they just spout random analogies or philosophical stuff in very heavy handed ways
The first area of the game is a utterly massive feeling desert, your character moves just too slow to feel good and the desert is almost entirely empty. Luckily the game pretty obviously points you towards finding a vehicle (mech) to traverse it faster which is really nice... If it weren't for the fact the camera is still incredibly zoomed in so any speed you get from that mech is basically useless. Seriously, the damn thing takes up almost all of the screen, I only fount the exits by just hugging the walls and going down them. Going down from there i fount the military place which gave me a good sense the game was actually gonna go somewhere, It had a great atmosphere, a cutscene which felt weirdly written but gave me something to do and then its kinda just over.
Went to the second city, North east of the staring desert and there is not much to do there. There's alot of npcs that say effectively nothing, Some random teacher which drops a whole book of dialogue on you that seems entirely disconnected from anything. 3 girls in a laundry mat which give you a button sequence to put in... somewhere and then theres an arcade full of games that just completely ruin the vibe the game had going for it. Either because it has the dev in the background dressed up and talking like hes desperately trying to be funny or because its literally a fucking game where your shown snippets of a picture and have to tell if its "An asshole or an Pie", You really couldn't of just hidden that one somewhere else where it wouldn't ruined the mood so easily?. And looking at reviews apparently they aren't optional! which is just terrible because from the brief snippets i played of them, I do not want to play ANY of those. There were a few other things in that city, I think the theatre was in this town where i saw a video of a blow up doll being violated and heard the devs voice talking about god knows what and just noped out cause obviously it wasn't going to go anywhere.
Then i went to a little city near the ocean, I think its supposed to be a coastal town or pier, something like that. Couple of nothing rooms later and i fount a room that is very very obivously just 9 colored buttons, so i put in the combination those 3 girls gave me and I'm teleported back to their laundrymat and watch a surprisingly good cutscene with good music in the background... Its a shame the music is utterly ruined by the lyrics from both singers. After the cutscene the girls just go "lol, that didn't actually happen, violence doesn't solve anything!" so the entire thing just felt useless which i suppose is the point but, still feels not great. I drive BACK to the pier town and bumble around some other rooms, Fount one where a kid was only "talking through his play" and shrunk down, I thought this would be a cute interaction where i'd talk to him but instead i got sucked into a 5 minute long playable cutscene where the dev just reads out a nothing story while you walk through vague places related to it. its probably required for completion considering it checked off a thing in my menu but that didn't make it any less fun to go through.
Afterwards I went through some other buildings hoping that maybe one of them would start the story or lead to anything important or not just be a weird failed joke or blatant moral message only to get stuck inside of a text box and end up soft locked. Thats where i left the game and i don't see myself going back.
It SEEMS like it could have an awesome story and vibe to it but man is it hard for me to take a games story seriously when anytime i walk into a building i have to be scared of the actual fucking dev popping up and ripping me out of the story with something equally as gaudy as those arcade machines
love the art style and variety of oddities to experience, the game crashed on me a few hours in and I gave up. I'll come back to finish it when the time is right
I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL I FUCKING HATE DAJJAL
Bizarre.
Nice game. I knew i had to get the arcade tokens ahead of time from reading reviews, but I did not find the arcade section too long and drawn out, I just blindly kept exploring and finished the game in a timely manner. the dialogue didn't really land with me but the overall story was simple yet im gald i finished it out.
Incredible
How have I not reviewed this gem? Go in blind. Read the text and try to understand it for what it is. This game is a top 10nner.
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | J. King-Spooner |
| Платформы | Windows |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 31.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 90% положительных (214) |