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Duloga

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a reverse space shooter where you choose who lives and dies

can you survive 7 nights?


UPDATES:

13 jun 2020

  • fixed an issue with the game window being cropped, should be fine now


duloga is a game about our struggle against police brutality, extrajudicial killings, red-tagging, and state terrorism in the philippines

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Pretty good for what it is, a short political game with a fair message. Players who dont read the description might be tricked into believing they're doing the right thing, on the first level at least. The way the game builds tension is well executed, the attention to sound design is not getting enough attention.

The final level is the only let-down for me. Its a strong concept and seeing "Kills required: x1" is unnerving. But the problem is that you can seemingly avoid the policeman's bullets forever.

The game's message is maybe a bit undercut by the player's ability to dodge forever like a Matrix character. Its true that eventually the player will get tired, but they're more likely to get bored and commit suicide by cop. Which I think does not have the same effect as getting 'murdered' by the enemy NPC would cause.

I would have preferred for more police to show up as the level progresses. Maybe after a minute of dodging bullets they call in so many cops that there's no conceivable way to avoid the endless gunshots. Its kind of like an "escalating situation" where someone who resists arrest is overwhelmed by the State.

Again great game, but the final level is missing the same touch that makes the rest of the experience so effective. Otherwise very well made

I feel like this simple interpretation of police brutality is really genius. You kill 1 felon, even some of them didn't do anything necessarily wrong (ex. addict), and for the rest of the criminals you have to kill multiple innocent people, and by the time you reach the quota, you've killed more innocents than criminals.

A foreword: I ramble a lot, and I write about massive spoilers for what else the game has to offer if you play past the initial seven nights. Bear with me, but I so want to pour my heart out about this game.

Short review: I highly recommend playing through this game for everything it has to offer, -blind-. I played through it blind, my friends played through it blind, and it was worth diving into it headfirst without truly knowing what else it had to offer. I highly suggest this game to my fellows, to the point that when I finished it, I immediately sent it to my friends. The message it sends is worth the initial discomfort. (Of course, please do not force yourself to play if you cannot stomach it.)

Now, for a thorough review:

I don't know what my political standing is, and I don't think I'm the type to put a label on it. Whether out of cowardice or ignorance, I don't even know that. But whatever "stance" it is I believe in, Duloga showed me a reality in the world that I cannot stand.

I can watch little crosshair-faced men kill each other without batting an eye. I can shoot down countless enemies in other video games just fine. But watching Duloga's 8-bit people get killed, yellow or not, put me through so much discomfort, further enhanced by how the game puts names and social standings to them. And before the "ang arte mo naman, laro lang yan"— put succinctly by my best friend while I watched her play through this: "This is actually happening. It's real."

It built up to an ending I somewhat knew was coming, but what the game does after the ending stole my heart. Such a creative use of "Insert your name" that video games ask for in order to immortalize your accomplishment on a scoreboard. I absolutely loved that detail. A single word that tells a long tale.

But the completionist in me wondered, "what if I do this?" and so I went through the nights without reaching quotas. And I am so glad I did. I'll try not to spoil it too much since it's worth dodging bullets for, but I loved it. It gave me a little more hope for our country.

There was a glitch in the game, of which I cannot detail the exact circumstances to trigger it. But I will try: starting a game quickly may have it jumping immediately to the scoreboard while still playing the game in the background. Not only that, but no matter how many people you DID save, it would automatically give you 10. This was how I reached a score of hundreds quickly. Despite this flaw (which, while it helped me reach the "true ending," still may dampen the story somewhat), I highly enjoyed what this game had to offer.

Until it could offer no more. The "breaking" of the game's UI finally made sense to me. From a black background to white, jarring red text turning into kinder blues— eventually, the system was broken, and I could no longer play. The sense of peace was overwhelming.

I pray that we find the serenity of Duloga's ending screen one day.

Snackbyte responds:

grabe, ang arte mo naman, laro lang yan! HAHA

Jokes aside though, thank you so much! This review means a lot to me because this is what Duloga set out to do. It wasn't made to coerce people to side with a certain political affiliation, but to question and observe the reality we live in and to perhaps help clarify what exactly angers or frustrates us internally, and hopefully also give us some space to see what actions we can take in order to bring about real systemic change.

With the elections drawing near, I can only really ask you (or perhaps your friends, or older people if you can't vote yet) to give a lot of thought towards who should lead, how the country should be led, what it is they stand for and how their policy affects the most othered peoples, and most importantly, what /you/ stand for.

Thanks so much for playing Duloga in full! I too pray that one day we can find the serenity of Duloga's true ending screen.

Dark

this game makes me laugh, goodgame, goodjob

Credits & Info

Views
8,690
Faves:
48
Votes
286
Score
3.49 / 5.00

Uploaded
Jun 12, 2020
3:17 AM EDT
Software
  • Unity