This was solid. Decent space narrative, neat storyline options. Almost all story threads boil down to filling a meter and then getting to the end of the storyline and choosing Option A or B. Option A typically means leaving the Eye and Option B means staying. You can choose one then reload back and choose the other. And all of those choices, none really change the broader narrative.

And that's okay. There's a little too much illusion of choice and not enough consequence. The game doesn't do enough to railroad you into any choices. Which is normally a good or great thing. But it means there's very little practical stakes in your choices in Citizen Sleeper. Since it's a visual novel, with a really terrible navigation and UI, you hope that the narrative is strong and the choices are meaningful.

Neither is really the case. Pentiment offers a stronger narrative, Disco Elysium has a better art style, better gameplay and gives the player more agency and meaningful decisions, Roadwarden offers both a better narrative and better player choice. There are just much better visual novel+RPG mechanics games out there with budgets bigger and smaller and dev team bigger and smaller than Citizen Sleeper.

It's not bad. It's worth a play for cheap. I'd be interested in the upcoming sequel but I hope it's better and not just more of the same. It needs real improvements.

The game plays like an interactive novel with some light RPG elements. You get a character class with attributes that help with dice-based skill checks. It has a fascinating far-future setting aboard a kind of cyberpunk space station, and you have to navigate your way as a second-class citizen of sorts. Overall, I think the execution is solid, particularly in the storytelling and interactions with the characters on the station. I do feel like the gameplay loop gets a little stale near the end, but I was truly riveted for a good portion of my playthrough. Overall, an engaging experience that is worth playing through at least once!

"To be human and to be humane are two very different things."-Some 15 year old on Tiktok, probably.

Before I start this review, I'd like to give a massive thanks to @duhnuhnuh for gifting me a copy of this game. They have a steam giveaway list on their profile, so check that out!

Citizen sleeper is a game about obsolescence. This is made clear when you start the game, your robotic body already failing due to built in corporate dependency, washed up on an old space station that frankly, kinda sucks. A story about people who've either achieved their goals or become complacent. It's a cyberpunk setting, so implants, corrupt mercs, and lower city crime gangs abound here, but all with such stellar execution.
Once you finish the tutorial, you're pretty much free to explore the city at your leisure. You talk to people and take on odd jobs to get by and expand your scope of the city, in a day to day system similar to something like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, only your body can shut down if you don't take enough drugs. Standard stuff.
But the sandbox element is a great draw. It's not super limiting and anything that does have a deadline is pretty generous, the only limit is needing a specific dice which rng could just not give you (Feng bro I'm so sorry) The implant system is generally a genius mechanic, beautifully blending gameplay and narrative together. Do you use another for more desperate attempts at the dice, or do you wait until your robotic body is barely functional? Choice is yours.

But above all that, Citizen sleeper is a game about people. People stuck in the same situation as you just trying to get by. People like Tala and Emphis just trying to make the best of their situation, people like Sabine and Feng trying to change the system entirely, and people like Lem just working for themselves. I straight up cannot think of a bad character in this game.

The next thing I gotta praise is the atmosphere in general. Even at the start when you're trying to get your bearings, the world's beautiful setting and sound design keep you invested, as well as the general mystery of what's the next thing out there. If I fill this meter, what do I get? What, or who, is there for me? I gotta buy access to the next part of the ship? Sure thing, who's there? It's just such a brilliant setting.

If there's one thing I think should be looked into for the next game, I think more variance in sprites should be nice. Character sprites only change after a dramatic turning point in their plotlines, so just a few different emotion sprites would add greatly to the immersion.

So overall, it's just a masterpiece of an experience that left me engaged throughout, and a game you just need to play. I only got one of eight possible endings, so I'll definitely be returning at some point.

Citizen Sleeper is a story driven ressource management game. I know this sounds like someting that should not be really work and watching gameplay of it also doesn't really look compelling.

But this game achieves such a feat in telling a deep story with plenty of fleshed out characters, world buildung, choices that matter and time pressure that is supported by a great visual art style and soundtrack, that at the end of the game you will feel like you have become part of this whole ecosystem.

People that simply want action and gameplay might be dissapointed. For everyone else, even if you are usually not a fan of clicking through menus but you are someone who wants a game with a great narrative, then I would absolutely suggest this game to you.

the way i finished this game in 2 days, omg i was LOCKED in -- this is one of the many indie games that made me think about my own life + thought about for 2 more weeks

-what if you were a robot stuck on a space station with no real goal or motivation to do anything except to find a reason to keep living?
-plays as a dice roll when you make choices + has diff job "classes" that gives you benefits for doing specific tasks
-art is amazing + I wish I could draw as good as this
-the music has the perfect tone for the overall theme
-multiple different pathways you can take + endings, in which can be good, bad or neither
-i felt like i was just reading a really good visual novel

I loved the opening 2 hours for the focus on survival, getting your feet under you, and soaking in the atmosphere of the space station. I loved the next 2 hours because the game began to open up and I got to focus on things which seemed interesting over immediate survival. I learned more and more about the world I was living in. And the last 2 hours I finished all the little story lines that the developers had laid out. I ended up loving both the mechanics behind the gameplay and the visual novel elements. It was short and sweet and didn't overstay its welcome, beautiful little game.

I mean it’s not usually a game for me but I really liked this, once I stuck with it and kept it going for a while I really got into this and really liked the variation you have. Because I feel the worst thing you can do with these type of games is just limit your options but I felt overwhelmed in a good way by how much I could do.

One of the big things with this is story felt very blank and dull, and the biggest thing is every character felt exactly the same I mean not everyone is kind hearted right but it just feels like every character is just the same basic personality just doing a different occupation and giving you a different task. And there’s just not that much dialogue to really branch out with who you want your character to be.

But the atmosphere is fantastic, I mean you’re just looking at a screen but still I feeling like I’m involved in every aspect of this spaceship and what it has, and the tasks are good for a space ship it really feels like you’re doing something futuristic, and the look is down perfectly.

Overall a great intro into these type of games and I hope to play more of them soon need to look into ones that are similar to this, did it in about 70+ cycles could go back to it and probably will eventually.

This game was sold to me as a cyberpunk disco elysium where you played as a fugitive on a corporate space station doing anything to survive. Although the comparison is apt, as both games are TTRPG style narrative experiences from burgeoning indie developers and containing a strong anti-capitalist and pro-community message, and this game has taken inspiration from the former in some ways, I feel the comparison ultimately did a disservice to the game, as I came expecting a fun, funny experience full of hijinks.

Instead I got Citizen Sleeper, a much more earnest tale which forgoes' Elysium's humorous cynicism and instead builds a wholesome but realistic and stress inducing experience which sets it apart from contemporaries.

Along the way it also manages to weave in seamlessly the lives of many fantastically illustrated (in both meanings of the word) characters which force an emotional attachment onto the player that makes our player character's decisions feel completely in tune with the players own feelings. There is no need for infinite pathways and dialogue options when you have writers who are simply able to make you want to do what you are allowed to do within the framework of their game.

Mechanically this is more of a game than Disco Elysium, as Citizen Sleeper's carefully designed dice system interacts with the story in such a way as to make you feel the pressure of your situation with every step of the way.

I cannot stress enough how every aspect of this game feels like it's guiding me into personal growth, into my feelings on The Eye and its inhabitants changing in tune with the game's progress as if i was another carefully planned part of the world.

I cannot wait to see what the team at Jump Over The Age has in store for the sequel set in this galaxy that's ripe for further exploration.

I'm torn on Citizen Sleeper cos I feel like it both really should have been longer and more complex than it was, while also having to admit that it provides a lot of content and is satisfying just the way it is. Really gorgeous artwork and general vibe to the game - I loved the mellow soundtrack and the generally melancholy-but-hopeful feel of the game. Really cute little storylines about finding home, and what home is to someone who isn't even at home in their own body. I can't imagine replaying it unless I wanted to knock off a few more achievements - but I don't think replayability is necessarily a must for a game like this. Nevertheless I'm very happy I finally got around to it, and I'm very excited about the prospect of Citizen Sleeper 2 being bigger and better.

For what it's worth, my favourite ending is 'STARWARD PASSAGE'.