[ played via steam deck ]
So, I've had a load of games I've wanted to get through in the beginning of 2024. I've played a pretty good spread of genres and qualities and got hit with both a blessing and curse: a two-day long, still ongoing power outage. I got sick of playing the things I've been getting through so I took a break with this one. Sitting in the pitch dark, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I... enjoyed my time with it, I think? Although I felt very underwhelmed once I realize how shallow the world, the systems, and the characters were.
It's weird to say, and it sounds a bit pretentious, but have you ever played a game and been struck by the realization that you are not the target audience? Not because the game doesn't appeal to you in themes or genre, but because it feels like its targeting players unfamiliar with what its trying to be? Thats what Citizen Sleeper has felt like to me. I don't like saying it, but it's true, and it boggles my mind ever so slightly because resource management simulators in the way CS presents itself are not new-gamer familiar. Despite this, you are given very long, hand hold-y dumping menus the first time you interact with people, with systems that seem to serve no.. real purpose? After only an hour or two, I had gamed the system well enough to not feel any of its difficulty. Despite the many paths in its story, I never felt pressured or had the fear I couldn't feasibly complete the content available to me. I don't think every game HAS to be difficult or lock me out of content and require many playthroughs (i honestly hate it when games do this), but CS's world would have been the most perfecf place for this and it rarely comes up. You can encounter different endings, yes, but it is entirely possible to accidentally stumble into every piece of content even if you don't fully understand the systems. I was very confused on the condition/energy system for a solid 2+ hours and still managed to complete every time gated prompt with ease thanks to the generous leveling systems and time windows.
In fact, the entire class system is pointless. All it did was ensure that when I finished the game, the stat I had a debuff for was the only one that ended at a +2 bonus rather than a +3. If the stats were fixed or more scarce or even impacted by the choices you made in the story, it would have felt more rewarding to pick and choose what risks you made. Instead, I just chose "what do I have perks for", which often was a +1 or +2 to a critical dice roll, with the option to reroll my dice if they were low costs. There was consistently no stakes present, and the one part of the game (the 3 part DLC? after stories) that stressed how intense and difficult the window of time would be... I completed it in half the allotted time.
I am not a game designer. I don't have a perfect recommendation on how to fix this in a neat way, but removing the outright stat bonuses to dice and only having perks or only providing bonuses as a result of your choices would help increase the pressure and difficulty a little bit, while still feeling satisfying and not changing the core mechanics so much. There were other issues I had with balancing (by the end of the game I had an overflow of 700 coins, and could effectively buy any of the balancing resources necessary without thinking), but this was probably the most game-breaking. It removed any hint of strategy I faced, and I felt really disappointed by this aspect of the game. I hoped that the story and overall world-building would suffice in picking up this slack, but...
The premise at CS's core was great. I loved the idea of our emulated Sleeper robot self finding their place, seeking refuge and their place in the world. It was fun to meet characters and find new places constantly that made the Eye feel alive, but unfortunately the writing, aside from a few select characters, felt so bland. It is well written for the most part in its prose and when it has things it wants to say, but the actual time we spend with most characters to get to know them is short.
One character I really liked was Tala, a bartender who you meet after facing discrimination for being a Sleeper, and eventually befriend and work for. Unfortunately, you talk to her for a few minutes, do some fetch-dice-quests, and then suddenly you speak in another visual novel-esque sequence and you are already good friends. None of the build up is actually there, on screen, and while I still liked the relationship the MC and Tala have and the things I learn about her, it still feels like I'm not even experiencing this in my own story. It happens without me, and this occurs multiple times with other NPCs. The after stories fix this and is genuinely the better part of Citizen Sleeper's entire campaign, but it happens so late. You're given brief impressions of characters and asked to invest in them, and you do and you can, but I wish that 75% of them had been expanded on whatsoever. Feng was wonderful, as well as Peake and Riko, but they are also the few characters who have long and sprawling storylines that interweave with the Eye's political turmoil and each other's struggles at least tangentially.
Even the big political factions are only brief mentions with little impact on the story until the absolute end (and it still feels tacked on). You can choose to provide intel and complete stories where you side with conflicting political factions and rise in their ranks but it never reflects elsewhere.
Citizen Sleeper takes itself seriously, but feels too shy to commit fully to anything. It doesnt want to give you complex narratives, maybe because it doesn't have faith that the dice mechanics are capable of supplementing the decision-making systems, I dont know. But there is a really strong foundation that it fails to capitalize on. I think it's a good game regardless, but that almost makes it worse because I can see so clearly how it could have been great.
I still recommend you pick it up as I enjoyed my time with it, but I dont know... I see they're making a sequel and I hope that when they do, they aren't afraid to be more in-depth with the mechanics and storytelling at hand.
So, I've had a load of games I've wanted to get through in the beginning of 2024. I've played a pretty good spread of genres and qualities and got hit with both a blessing and curse: a two-day long, still ongoing power outage. I got sick of playing the things I've been getting through so I took a break with this one. Sitting in the pitch dark, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I... enjoyed my time with it, I think? Although I felt very underwhelmed once I realize how shallow the world, the systems, and the characters were.
It's weird to say, and it sounds a bit pretentious, but have you ever played a game and been struck by the realization that you are not the target audience? Not because the game doesn't appeal to you in themes or genre, but because it feels like its targeting players unfamiliar with what its trying to be? Thats what Citizen Sleeper has felt like to me. I don't like saying it, but it's true, and it boggles my mind ever so slightly because resource management simulators in the way CS presents itself are not new-gamer familiar. Despite this, you are given very long, hand hold-y dumping menus the first time you interact with people, with systems that seem to serve no.. real purpose? After only an hour or two, I had gamed the system well enough to not feel any of its difficulty. Despite the many paths in its story, I never felt pressured or had the fear I couldn't feasibly complete the content available to me. I don't think every game HAS to be difficult or lock me out of content and require many playthroughs (i honestly hate it when games do this), but CS's world would have been the most perfecf place for this and it rarely comes up. You can encounter different endings, yes, but it is entirely possible to accidentally stumble into every piece of content even if you don't fully understand the systems. I was very confused on the condition/energy system for a solid 2+ hours and still managed to complete every time gated prompt with ease thanks to the generous leveling systems and time windows.
In fact, the entire class system is pointless. All it did was ensure that when I finished the game, the stat I had a debuff for was the only one that ended at a +2 bonus rather than a +3. If the stats were fixed or more scarce or even impacted by the choices you made in the story, it would have felt more rewarding to pick and choose what risks you made. Instead, I just chose "what do I have perks for", which often was a +1 or +2 to a critical dice roll, with the option to reroll my dice if they were low costs. There was consistently no stakes present, and the one part of the game (the 3 part DLC? after stories) that stressed how intense and difficult the window of time would be... I completed it in half the allotted time.
I am not a game designer. I don't have a perfect recommendation on how to fix this in a neat way, but removing the outright stat bonuses to dice and only having perks or only providing bonuses as a result of your choices would help increase the pressure and difficulty a little bit, while still feeling satisfying and not changing the core mechanics so much. There were other issues I had with balancing (by the end of the game I had an overflow of 700 coins, and could effectively buy any of the balancing resources necessary without thinking), but this was probably the most game-breaking. It removed any hint of strategy I faced, and I felt really disappointed by this aspect of the game. I hoped that the story and overall world-building would suffice in picking up this slack, but...
The premise at CS's core was great. I loved the idea of our emulated Sleeper robot self finding their place, seeking refuge and their place in the world. It was fun to meet characters and find new places constantly that made the Eye feel alive, but unfortunately the writing, aside from a few select characters, felt so bland. It is well written for the most part in its prose and when it has things it wants to say, but the actual time we spend with most characters to get to know them is short.
One character I really liked was Tala, a bartender who you meet after facing discrimination for being a Sleeper, and eventually befriend and work for. Unfortunately, you talk to her for a few minutes, do some fetch-dice-quests, and then suddenly you speak in another visual novel-esque sequence and you are already good friends. None of the build up is actually there, on screen, and while I still liked the relationship the MC and Tala have and the things I learn about her, it still feels like I'm not even experiencing this in my own story. It happens without me, and this occurs multiple times with other NPCs. The after stories fix this and is genuinely the better part of Citizen Sleeper's entire campaign, but it happens so late. You're given brief impressions of characters and asked to invest in them, and you do and you can, but I wish that 75% of them had been expanded on whatsoever. Feng was wonderful, as well as Peake and Riko, but they are also the few characters who have long and sprawling storylines that interweave with the Eye's political turmoil and each other's struggles at least tangentially.
Even the big political factions are only brief mentions with little impact on the story until the absolute end (and it still feels tacked on). You can choose to provide intel and complete stories where you side with conflicting political factions and rise in their ranks but it never reflects elsewhere.
Citizen Sleeper takes itself seriously, but feels too shy to commit fully to anything. It doesnt want to give you complex narratives, maybe because it doesn't have faith that the dice mechanics are capable of supplementing the decision-making systems, I dont know. But there is a really strong foundation that it fails to capitalize on. I think it's a good game regardless, but that almost makes it worse because I can see so clearly how it could have been great.
I still recommend you pick it up as I enjoyed my time with it, but I dont know... I see they're making a sequel and I hope that when they do, they aren't afraid to be more in-depth with the mechanics and storytelling at hand.