The first thing is the concept of catharsis. Prior to playing Dujanah I had only understood it from contextual usage. I understood it to mean a sort of release when experiencing or reliving certain scenes. Like, "Watching the hero beat up a bunch of baddies can be a cathartic experience".
I'm not great at critical analysis, but I wanted to dig a bit deeper before playing the game, so I spent some time doing research on the concept for a bit before getting into the game proper. I jotted down the following question to answer as I played through: "Who’s catharsis are we experiencing? The developer’s? Dujanah’s? My own?" Some of my answers:
- Dujanah: example... The Sisters scenario, which i felt was executed perfectly (puns...) I love how its subverted. I really was worried about what direction Dujanah would take if/when she learned the truth.
- Dev: some off the beaten path details like inclusion of an long bit of speech from a certain orangeman, wow! Or that short film, my goodness.
- The various npc's that share their tragic stories with you. I read about this concept of social catharsis, where people share negative emotions to seek cathartic relief and to bond.
- It's an interesting way to cast the typical console style rpg npc. Very often in games like this we walk up to an npc in a town and press the interact button. Most of the time, the npc responds to some unheard question. What did the player's character say to get such a response? Maybe nothing, maybe the npc just needed to vent to someone who would listen!
It's late and I've got to go to bed... maybe more later.