This game is currently in the Humble Choice for March 2024, and this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before April 2nd, 2024, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.

A visual novel with resource management.

Citizen Sleeper has good writing and interesting ideas. The writing almost reminds me of Disco Elysium, but I feel like that comparison is a little far. Still, the situations have a real weight on them, it feels like the odds are stacked against the player and the characters are interesting. The gameplay revolves around slotting dice into different actions, to determine the odds of your success. Better dice have better odds, and that influences the actions you can take in a day.

However, having played this in Game Pass, I can tell you after the first hour or so, the game starts to resolve some of the stressful situations, and make the player's lives easier. It feels like every big bad danger seems to get resolved just as it gets intense, and while it feels like your decisions are stressful early on by the end of the game, you’ve amassed so much power that it’s just waiting for time, or just plunking away at a challenge to pass the time. The story loses all its intensity.

Pick this up if you like a good story. The narrative here starts strong and the resolution to the story is well told. The only problem is almost all the highest and most dangerous stakes in the story have been resolved about halfway through the story, and there’s no randomness so a second playthrough means all the same reveals will happen allowing you to manipulate the playthrough to your liking.

If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/PX2c6Gm5Jbg

I covered this game as part of my coverage of the Xbox Game Pass for May 2022

Resource management in spacceeeeee…

Citizen Sleeper starts with the player waking up on a distant space station. His body is failing him, he’s starving and needs money and rest. From there, players must spend their days trying to satisfy all their needs and wants. Each day involves the player getting action dice, and applying those dice to different jobs to accomplish goals.

Citizen Sleeper reminds me of Norco and Disco Elysium as it’s a completely story-driven game. Players will meet many different characters, and through them will get different opportunities and challenges. The writing is good and kept me engaged, and the first hour of this game is intense as the player struggles to meet the right people to earn the right resources. However after that opening hour, players start getting entirely too many resources and easily will have run of the space station by the end. Even when a big bad danger arrives, it feels like Citizen Sleeper is afraid to give players a bad ending, which is appreciated after four hours invested and an aggressive autosave, but also removes any desire to replay the game and try to get a different or better story.

Pick this up if you like a strong narrative. This is very much about the story, and while there will be a decent amount of time while the player has to chase resources, and the dice component is rather important, the majority of the experience is meeting people and learning about their struggles.

If you want to see the video this was taken of, or more from me on the Xbox Game Pass, check out: https://youtu.be/62CjXwS1zQg