A text-based game with fantastic writing that utilizes engaging tabletop roleplaying mechanics to keep you hooked on the gameplay loop.
Text-based games are honestly hard for me. I struggle to focus and often even fall asleep while playing them. I was dragging my feet on starting Citizen Sleeper and the intro of the game did not help that. The game opens up with walls of text introducing both the story and an overwhelming amount of gameplay information. The tutorial literally just dumps about 6 screens of text on you that showcase every mechanic you'll see for the whole game, and then it kicks you off the ledge and says "Good luck!" It's a lot to take in out of the gate. Annoyingly, once you hit "OK" to clear the tutorial page away, none of that information is ever available to view again in-game. Wild choice.
That said, once I got my feet wet and the gameplay started to click, I was hooked. The loop of assigning my dice to progress clocks while managing my Sleeper's resources cycle-after-cycle was far more engaging than I expected. It became addicting to the point where we'd say "Ok just one more cycle. One more cycle. Just one more cycle" as the rad soundtrack lulls us into a zen state, until suddenly it's 9pm and we haven't eaten dinner yet.
Beyond the gameplay loop, the story was incredible and had me itching to learn more about the characters and the world they inhabit. I became invested in the lives of everyone on The Eye. I wanted to help them not just because it helped me level up; I genuinely wanted to improve the lives of these people because I cared about them.
Citizen Sleeper not only utilizes tabletop roleplaying game mechanics in an interesting way to tell a story, but it integrates all those systems into the game in a way that feels essential. The gameplay loop hooked me in and the writing kept me coming back. Never thought I, a person who typically hates reading games, would love this game as much as I do but I adored every minute of it.
+ Incredible story, world, and characters
+ Engaging gameplay loop
+ Rad soundtrack with great vibes
+ Fantastic art and character designs
- Overwhelming tutorial with walls of text that you can never look at again
- Navigating the space station with a controller was a pain
Text-based games are honestly hard for me. I struggle to focus and often even fall asleep while playing them. I was dragging my feet on starting Citizen Sleeper and the intro of the game did not help that. The game opens up with walls of text introducing both the story and an overwhelming amount of gameplay information. The tutorial literally just dumps about 6 screens of text on you that showcase every mechanic you'll see for the whole game, and then it kicks you off the ledge and says "Good luck!" It's a lot to take in out of the gate. Annoyingly, once you hit "OK" to clear the tutorial page away, none of that information is ever available to view again in-game. Wild choice.
That said, once I got my feet wet and the gameplay started to click, I was hooked. The loop of assigning my dice to progress clocks while managing my Sleeper's resources cycle-after-cycle was far more engaging than I expected. It became addicting to the point where we'd say "Ok just one more cycle. One more cycle. Just one more cycle" as the rad soundtrack lulls us into a zen state, until suddenly it's 9pm and we haven't eaten dinner yet.
Beyond the gameplay loop, the story was incredible and had me itching to learn more about the characters and the world they inhabit. I became invested in the lives of everyone on The Eye. I wanted to help them not just because it helped me level up; I genuinely wanted to improve the lives of these people because I cared about them.
Citizen Sleeper not only utilizes tabletop roleplaying game mechanics in an interesting way to tell a story, but it integrates all those systems into the game in a way that feels essential. The gameplay loop hooked me in and the writing kept me coming back. Never thought I, a person who typically hates reading games, would love this game as much as I do but I adored every minute of it.
+ Incredible story, world, and characters
+ Engaging gameplay loop
+ Rad soundtrack with great vibes
+ Fantastic art and character designs
- Overwhelming tutorial with walls of text that you can never look at again
- Navigating the space station with a controller was a pain