The 2022 Indie darling Citizen Sleeper slowly but steadily crept into just about everyone’s year end list of favourite games it is hard to find a single video or article that isn’t glowing praise for the game. If you are into Indie story heavy games, chances are you have at least heard of it . And this positive reception genuinely confuses me.
I found Citizen Sleeper lacking in just about all aspects from its storytelling, general quality of the prose, the soundscape and the gameplay department.
The game dragged me in with it’s setting and art-style at first, a cyberpunk game set in space is right up my alley and I was enjoying the game quite a bit at the start. Its a very bleak game, with themes of debt slavery and you being the property of a corporation looking for freedom, themes I find myself interested in. And the game starts harshly, you are dying you need to scrape by enough nutrition to just barely sustain yourself. But that’s just at the start, survival wasn't a problem after just a bit, I never really was in danger and these elements of the game just became a tedious chore, rather than an engaging part of the whole.
So a lot of the game’s appeal now lies on the game’s ability to make the narrative engaging which is hard to do when the game doesn't even let you have an actual full-fledged conversation with characters, it breaks up the dialogue constantly by these characters sending you constantly on fetch quests which would be fine if the conversations can continue within a few minutes. It cant. So the game has a mechanic where events occur every few cycles, which means quests drag cause you do one part -> wait 4 cycles for it to continue->Do another part -> wait for another 4 cycle for it to continue. It breaks and the flow of the quest’s story as I have jump between and do multiple quests just to pass the time for the quests I actually want to do to be done. It’s very annoying.
But getting through these tedious quests didn't feel that rewarding either cause I never felt that the characters were that well written. There isn’t really much depth in the conversations, all of it feels disconnected from one another and simplistic. They lack a certain human charm to them. The game tries to invoke feelings of warmth, hope and belief, but it needed a stronger climax to the quests (writing wise cause story wise they are about what can be expected from the game) and characters whose thoughts, inner workings explored more. I don’t dislike the characters I am just consistently underwhelmed, for some I liked the focus on the sentience aspect(easily the best part of the game for me), but I don’t think it did much with any other of its themes. Fengs quest left me wanting more, same for the Yatagan questioned. I liked the characters a bit but I couldn’t find myself getting attached to any of them by the end. I felt like half the time I was just collecting mushrooms for 3 different quests. There’s not much engaging about any of it.
And all the time the game is failing with it’s complex prose. Which while it can describe a scene, it fails to actually describe being in that scene, a part of the world. It doesn't induce any emotions in me. A game doesn't need to have that as it can use its visuals and soundscape to ground the player in the world but the soundscapes in this game are lacking as well, would have loved if it matched the environment a bustling city sound at low end or something like metal works when working on ships but its strangely empty other than the music, the music is pretty good though. The art is great but I wanted to see more there’ not much of it, just some more detailed backgrounds would also have helped a lot.
The dice roll gameplay is not interesting or challenging so when a lot of it I felt was just grinding away cycles passing, and with minimal engagement I was done with the game. I got an ending and don’t see myself ever going back for more.
I found Citizen Sleeper lacking in just about all aspects from its storytelling, general quality of the prose, the soundscape and the gameplay department.
The game dragged me in with it’s setting and art-style at first, a cyberpunk game set in space is right up my alley and I was enjoying the game quite a bit at the start. Its a very bleak game, with themes of debt slavery and you being the property of a corporation looking for freedom, themes I find myself interested in. And the game starts harshly, you are dying you need to scrape by enough nutrition to just barely sustain yourself. But that’s just at the start, survival wasn't a problem after just a bit, I never really was in danger and these elements of the game just became a tedious chore, rather than an engaging part of the whole.
So a lot of the game’s appeal now lies on the game’s ability to make the narrative engaging which is hard to do when the game doesn't even let you have an actual full-fledged conversation with characters, it breaks up the dialogue constantly by these characters sending you constantly on fetch quests which would be fine if the conversations can continue within a few minutes. It cant. So the game has a mechanic where events occur every few cycles, which means quests drag cause you do one part -> wait 4 cycles for it to continue->Do another part -> wait for another 4 cycle for it to continue. It breaks and the flow of the quest’s story as I have jump between and do multiple quests just to pass the time for the quests I actually want to do to be done. It’s very annoying.
But getting through these tedious quests didn't feel that rewarding either cause I never felt that the characters were that well written. There isn’t really much depth in the conversations, all of it feels disconnected from one another and simplistic. They lack a certain human charm to them. The game tries to invoke feelings of warmth, hope and belief, but it needed a stronger climax to the quests (writing wise cause story wise they are about what can be expected from the game) and characters whose thoughts, inner workings explored more. I don’t dislike the characters I am just consistently underwhelmed, for some I liked the focus on the sentience aspect(easily the best part of the game for me), but I don’t think it did much with any other of its themes. Fengs quest left me wanting more, same for the Yatagan questioned. I liked the characters a bit but I couldn’t find myself getting attached to any of them by the end. I felt like half the time I was just collecting mushrooms for 3 different quests. There’s not much engaging about any of it.
And all the time the game is failing with it’s complex prose. Which while it can describe a scene, it fails to actually describe being in that scene, a part of the world. It doesn't induce any emotions in me. A game doesn't need to have that as it can use its visuals and soundscape to ground the player in the world but the soundscapes in this game are lacking as well, would have loved if it matched the environment a bustling city sound at low end or something like metal works when working on ships but its strangely empty other than the music, the music is pretty good though. The art is great but I wanted to see more there’ not much of it, just some more detailed backgrounds would also have helped a lot.
The dice roll gameplay is not interesting or challenging so when a lot of it I felt was just grinding away cycles passing, and with minimal engagement I was done with the game. I got an ending and don’t see myself ever going back for more.