The passage of time is a funny thing to think about. The nature of one's own mortality too. At some point they become so normalized you end up just accepting those concepts as they are, and that's a good thing! Cuz it's a natural thing! You can't alter the way things are, and you probably also can't change the system or how the world works.

Reflecting on those things can be good, too, and that's where this game comes in. Matter of fact, there IS a thing you can change; and that's the lives of the people around you, in the here and now.

This game talks about a lot of stuff, so i hope one of the things you get out of it, is that being kind is one of the best things you can do as a person. And that your body isn't who you are, and it doesn't define you either.

I just really like this game, it makes you reflect a lot.

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.

Something about this game is really appealing, but I just can't get into it. The Amos Roddy soundtrack is superb, the graphics fit the bill, and the atmosphere is palpable. The gameplay loop feels like an actual day, and you think about how it's going to unfurl and the encounters you need to have. The story is of a good calibre, and there's intrigue there. Yet, I just never switch on my Steam Deck and think I'll run through a couple of cycles, it just edged down my last played list until I uninstalled it. This has happened three times now, and I wish it hadn't. I feel like I need to have a few more cycles in the game, to perhaps get me to the point where I want to pick it up, so maybe the pacing's off. Hopefully I'll find out.

I can't say enough good things about this one. I will be thinking about it for a long time.
I was instantly sucked in by the evocative character art, and the game's mechanics plunge you into an atmosphere of harrowing tension from the outset as you struggle to survive. I felt that struggle deepest in the first 4-ish hours of the game, where every use of dice was measured against two or more looming threats.
I loved how in spite of these constant struggles, the Sleeper almost feels like a side character in the other characters' stories. The world and characters of Citizen Sleeper are captivating, grounded in truth through circumstances both real and surreal. The game as a whole is about the Sleeper, but it was delightful to play a supporting role in each smaller part of the story as events unfolded.

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!