Citizen Sleeper | Game Review (PC) | Game of the Year 2022 | Game Award 2022
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Citizen Sleeper Review (PC)
I have a five, which is functionally a six, so I sunbathe to allow my photoelectric skin to give me energy. It beats paying for a meal made of fungus. Some light trading gives me the cryo I need to get a round at the bar, even if the alcohol apparently has no effect. I plunge a one and a two into two virtual reality nodes, extracting data that pushes two of my quests forward. I then end the cycle, wake up, check my decaying body, and take a look at the dice I got. This seems like a no bones day, which means I might have to take a few more risks than I want to.
Citizen Sleeper is developed by Jump Over The Age and published by Fellow Traveller. I played it on the PC via Steam and interested players can also pick it up on the Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One.
The game offers a narrative-focused experience with The Sleeper from the name, a future way of transferring human consciousness into an artificial body, with none of the rights that a biological being has. This citizen has chosen to run from his exploiters, the Essen-Arp corp, and aims to try and make a living on Erlin’s Eye, a space station on the edge of the regulated universe. The Sleeper will meet a range of characters, find out plenty of secrets, and choose long-term goals.
The entire experience is driven by the story and the writing, while a little flowery, does its job. It creates an interesting science-fiction universe and makes the Sleeper feel coherent. There are a few moments when characters' reactions or choice results are weird. The gameplay in Citizen Sleeper does not rise to the level of its narration. Gamers pick a class. The space station has locations, in the real world, and network nodes, in virtual space. At the beginning of each cycle, players get dice.
They need to place them in the real-world spaces to pass challenges (the game delivers a clear breakdown of chances for good or bad results). In the virtual space, the die needs to exactly match a value to hack a node. These actions allow gamers to get cryo, the cryptocurrency of the station, scrap, data, and more. Deposit them in the appropriate character receptacles and quests get completed, netting upgrade points as rewards and new opportunities.
Life on the Eye is not all progress via dice. Players have to worry about their artificial body’s condition, a total of 20 that drops by one each day and more if hurt, and energy, which tops out at 5 and drops by 2. Eat or take in the sun to get energy back. Rare and expensive medicine is required for constitution, so try to keep violence to a minimum. The game also features negative events, constantly on a timer, coming for the protagonist. There are a lot of plates to spin, especially once it becomes clear what the Sleeper has to do to secure a good life.
The biggest problem with Citizen Sleeper is the waiting. Put a die in a node to hack it, you then have to wait for a few seconds that serve no purpose. Scrolling (thankfully, speed can be adjusted) is required to see all locations on the station. You have to click on something any time you need to get to a certain area. There’s little respect for the player’s time and all this detracts from the story.
The narrative also struggles after the early game. On my first playthrough, with almost no care to dice investment, I never felt like the Sleeper was under real pressure. It is not hard to make progress, as long as you focus effort and make sure to investigate network nodes with all low dice. Once a certain threat is dealt with, most of the game feels like a big collection of fetch quests.
The Good
Narrative focus
Explores some deep themes
Visual identity
The Bad
Dice mechanics
Limited sound design
Some weird character reactions
Conclusion
Citizen Sleeper creates a strong universe and gives the main character an engaging story with plenty of choices. Erlin’s Eye feels like a small part of a well-designed narrative space that can support more exploration. The visual design fits in with the wider themes of the game and the characters never become preachy.
The problem is that the developer also cares about gameplay and the concept of investing for a result. The dice system is adequate enough, but everything takes so long and requires too many clicks. Citizen Sleeper would have probably worked better as a more classic visual novel, with the resources assigned to mechanics re-routed to deliver more story.
STORY = 9
GAMEPLAY = 6
CONCEPT = 9
GRAPHICS = 9
AUDIO = 7
MULTIPLAYER = 0
FINAL RATING = 8
Review: VERY GOOD
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