The Great Leader Watches
Monthly Dystopia is a survival adventure game by Faith Beceren. It is a retelling of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. The book and the game take place in a dystopian world where a political figure has 24/7 access to people via telescreens. In Monthly Dystopia, players blend in and hide from the Great Leader while finding four stamps from the Resistance to leave the country.
Nineteen Eighty-Four changed my life at the tender age of 12. Monthly Dystopia is a pale love letter, but nonetheless, it is a love letter. It is disturbingly accurate about dictatorships and people’s resilience to survive and fight.
Resistance, Comrade
The game takes place over the course of 30 days. D503 encounters the Resistance first in the form of your grandfather, C409. He grants you a passport and asks that you leave once you get four stamps.
Soon, as time progress, D503 is caught in a whirlwind of political powers and a means to escape.
Monthly Dystopia‘s gameplay is divided into three sections, morning, work, and night. In the morning, D503 can shave (I highly recommend this, so you don’t lose money at work), eat, take painkillers, and tend to C409. He can also watch the propaganda broadcast or the murders of civilians and write in his journal. These two tasks don’t progress the clock.
Slavery is Freedom
D503 is tasked with adjusting public records at work, just like Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The tasks become complicated and more complex as time goes on. I typically made $15 a day. But the actual tasks, typically held at night, are following the Resistance members and doing their jobs. They involve trading alcohol, finding someone, and bombing cities. You can even fall in love and start a sexual relationship with I330 if you choose.
Peace is War
By the end, assuming the player succeeds in escaping, there is no joy. Though the world is bright with color, D503 is still unnamed and receives a newspaper about the tragic fates of C409 and I330. It doesn’t feel like a victory. It was better to have a community and suffer than be alone to prosper.
Monthly Dystopia leads to a game over if you play an upstanding citizen. It was disappointing that you couldn’t report C409, I330 or anyone else for being a Thought Criminal. I hoped for subversion in a game that is strictly based on government control.
Strength is Ignorance
Monthly Dystopia has frustrating crashes. Players might click too fast on something, or a transitioning scene will cause the game to crash. That brings up the save system. The game saves at the top of the day and not in between. There is no pause function, so the clock will keep ticking if you need to set your phone down during work at the ministry. Thankfully much of the game isn’t based on time, but it needs to improve its accessibility by being able to pause more often.
Depression is Joy
It’s a great game that feels aptly timed with the current political and socioeconomic pitfalls across the globe. With rising costs, lack of livable wages, housing crisis, and declining fertility rate, the world is falling into the fear of dystopian novels. Monthly Dystopia is a reflection of our world’s state. It’s depressing, though, and if you aren’t ready to feel the monotonous and derelict dystopian world, I recommend skipping this.
