Shot on the cheap in its creators’ Toronto apartment, Dakota may not have the luxury of Hollywood production values but it does have something nearly as important: cool new party games. While the one called What’s in the Cupboard? is pretty much self-explanatory, more exciting is Perps, which pits phony cops against phony criminals in improvised scenarios that generally end in imaginary head wounds. Fun!

A first feature by actor-writer Brendan Gall and director Matthew Atkinson, Dakota — which enjoys a three-night run at the Royal before getting a DVD release via Mongrel Media on May 20 — is at its best when at its snarkiest, partially because such moments work in contrast with the movie’s otherwise downbeat premise. A group of twentysomething friends reunite for a weekend-long suicide watch for Jack (Chad E. Donella), who’s equally distraught over being dumped by his girlfriend and abandoned by his best friend Brian (Gall), an aspiring artist who’s decamped to Vancouver.

With its abundance of equally amiable and aimless chatter among young characters, Dakota fits into a bubble of quarterlife-­­
crisis movies alongside Mutual Appreciation and The Puffy Chair. (Well-deployed songs by Do Make Say Think and Royal Wood further boost its indie cred.) It’s only seriously hampered by a lack of dramatic tension and narrative drive, which is not so surprising given how Dakota’s characters try to make a virtue of underachievement. Gall and Atkinson, however, display much more ambition and promise by pulling off such an engaging debut.