It’s helpful to think of “Citizen Sleeper” as one of those games where the journey is more important than the destination. It’s not about winning or losing, it’s the friends we made (and lost or betrayed) along the way.
“Citizen Sleeper” is a single player role-playing dice game, with a clear focus on the narrative journey.
I’m not sure if the creator’s criticisms of modern capitalism and the gig economy hit the mark with this game about synthetic humans trying to survive on a space station, but it’s an adventure full of evocative prose and interesting characters and offers many thought-provoking considerations about the future of humanity.
The Citizen Sleeper (that’s you) is a digitized human consciousness placed in an artificial body. Essentially, you’re like a Replicant in “Blade Runner” and you’re on the run – a rogue software emulation that illegally owns company property – and without the Essen-Arp Corporation’s own supplements, your artificial body is rapidly deteriorating due to planned obsolescence , a phrase many of today’s workers and consumers are familiar with.
So the sleeper has to do more than just escape in safety, but also has to work as a day laborer, doing chores and doing everything to survive the next day, such as working on a scrap yard to earn credits, using those credits to buy food to maintain energy, and see a black market doctor to stay alive.
The story is mainly told through text and illustrative portraits, but what happens to the Sleeper and the others aboard the aging Erlin’s Eye space station is nonetheless captivating. From the outset, the road ahead and the prospect of hope look bleak.
As the story progresses, the Sleeper will have to choose who to help and who to leave behind. Resources are limited and not everyone gets a happy ending.
The Sleeper has five basic attributes: Engineer, Interface, Endure, Intuit, and Engage. The start number is zero for this one, but the profession chosen in character creation offers a unique advantage and a “plus” or “minus” for two attributes.
For example, the Machinist gives a +1 to the Engineer attribute but a -1 to the Engage attribute, giving a chance to extract extra scrap during the Engineer action. The Operator gets a bonus for hacking missions and the Extractor can use dice to recover energy instead of spending money.
The Sleeper’s three main concerns are Condition, Action Dice, and Energy.
Condition represents the state of the sleeper’s artificial body. Each cycle, which represents a day on the Erlin’s Eye, decreases Condition by one segment. Condition can also be lost through violence, injury or lack of food. Without the patented drugs handed out by the Essen-Arp company, the Sleeper will have to find ways to stay alive.
The Energy bar is charged by food or sunlight. When the energy runs out, the sleeper’s condition will decrease at double the normal rate.
Action dice are rolled at the beginning of each cycle. The number of dice available depends on the sleeper’s fitness level. Taking damage decreases fitness, reducing action dice, making it harder to stay alive and finding resources, making downward spirals fast and hard to stop. At what cost will you stay alive? What are you willing to sacrifice for another day?
Any action performed during the day requires action dice to complete. A neutral result means the action succeeds; positive means it went better than expected; and negative means the action was a failure.
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Some actions available every cycle can be repeated, but critical actions can only be attempted once. Every action has a level of risk. Failure at the Danger Level will result in a Loss of Condition.
Each action uses one of the Sleeper’s five attributes, and the attribute modifier will either improve or degrade the action dice used.
It doesn’t take long to get to the end in “Citizen Sleeper” – a playthrough is only four or five hours – but there is some replayability. You can try the game with a different class and choose different characters to work with so you can see their whole story.
“Citizen Sleeper” is also a game that allows us to think about what the future of technology can and should look like. For example, there are car manufacturers whose heated seats only work if you continue to pay for an ongoing subscription, and tractor companies that don’t want farmers to be able to repair machines outside an authorized dealer. What are the implications of that kind of behavior in a future where the functionality of bionic limbs or life-critical implants can be taken away in the blink of an eye?
If dystopian sci-fi stories are your jam, don’t sleep on this game.
‘civil sleeper’
Platform: PC, Mac, XB1, Nintendo Switch
Cost: $19.99
Rating: Teen for Fantasy Violence, Alcohol, Language
Score: 7 out of 10
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