Art, story, and exploration walk hand in hand. If you liked Hylics, give this game a try. Grab this heart felt game while it's on sale.

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.