The fear of death
Is what this game is so good at invoking
Even when you know it will not happen
Cause the game is much kinder than it seems.
The writing is throughout envisioning a cold world encompassed in darkness with the few specks of light giving you hope while at every periphery the potential for absolute collapse lies in wait.
But the game believes in you, and in humanity, and from the space-punk drenched corridors it carves you a life.
Citizen Sleeper is a cavalcade of space opera and cyberpunk weaved together, with a healthy injection of humanism (and some nice diversity). There are many ways this story can end, and you can see them all with a bit of reloading. As the game goes on, it becomes easier to survive as you learn the place, create connections, gather resources, and overall carve out your own little place in this world floating through space where you can feel relatively safe, the panicked survival of the first part of the game giving ground to a more relaxed just-getting-by (though it does feel like you've broken the game). You can even feed a cat.
The knowledge is always there, that you're not quite part of them; but the heart of the game is firmly in a kind of multicultural amalgam of poor people trying to live beneath the larger political and economic forces that occasionally break through, and usually not in a helpful capacity. The free DLC trilogy deals fully with such bigger forces, but the predominant themes still concern the lives of those that are othered and the people who can accept them.
For a game where the main visual is an nondescript space station and the only colours the occasional (very cool) character portraits and the gameplay basically scrolling up and down the station, clicking on points of interest and choosing dialogue options, it's a wonder how riveting and exciting this game can be, and how atmospheric, the writing pitch-perfectly evoking the feeling of living on a capitalist space station (with all the nostalgic strength of a childhood spent in sci-fi novels), and how touching, with moments that will remain (it's the kid and the dad for me - for, amongst others, deeply personal reasons …), right up to the gorgeous ending of the last free DLC.
Almost like a good book - only there you won't feel you're one bad choice away from dying of an illness that you don't have the money to cure.
Oh damn, it was "living under later-than-late stage capitalism" sim after all.
Is what this game is so good at invoking
Even when you know it will not happen
Cause the game is much kinder than it seems.
The writing is throughout envisioning a cold world encompassed in darkness with the few specks of light giving you hope while at every periphery the potential for absolute collapse lies in wait.
But the game believes in you, and in humanity, and from the space-punk drenched corridors it carves you a life.
Citizen Sleeper is a cavalcade of space opera and cyberpunk weaved together, with a healthy injection of humanism (and some nice diversity). There are many ways this story can end, and you can see them all with a bit of reloading. As the game goes on, it becomes easier to survive as you learn the place, create connections, gather resources, and overall carve out your own little place in this world floating through space where you can feel relatively safe, the panicked survival of the first part of the game giving ground to a more relaxed just-getting-by (though it does feel like you've broken the game). You can even feed a cat.
The knowledge is always there, that you're not quite part of them; but the heart of the game is firmly in a kind of multicultural amalgam of poor people trying to live beneath the larger political and economic forces that occasionally break through, and usually not in a helpful capacity. The free DLC trilogy deals fully with such bigger forces, but the predominant themes still concern the lives of those that are othered and the people who can accept them.
For a game where the main visual is an nondescript space station and the only colours the occasional (very cool) character portraits and the gameplay basically scrolling up and down the station, clicking on points of interest and choosing dialogue options, it's a wonder how riveting and exciting this game can be, and how atmospheric, the writing pitch-perfectly evoking the feeling of living on a capitalist space station (with all the nostalgic strength of a childhood spent in sci-fi novels), and how touching, with moments that will remain (it's the kid and the dad for me - for, amongst others, deeply personal reasons …), right up to the gorgeous ending of the last free DLC.
Almost like a good book - only there you won't feel you're one bad choice away from dying of an illness that you don't have the money to cure.
Oh damn, it was "living under later-than-late stage capitalism" sim after all.