100%PC

Different. Fun, great sound design.

95%PC

This was a great game, great soundtrack, great writing etc. my only problem with it is that you run out of things to do towards the end. Will definitely play the sequel.

85%PC

Such a beautifully detailed world woven from such brief, but impactful bits of writing. Some of the actual mechanics could use some tweaking for two, but I loved having to make do with whatever dice I rolled for a day, it made each decision impactful.

I also cried, so seal of approval for that. Definitely want to replay this at some point before 2 hits because there were so many breadcrumbs I didn't get to fully explore.

95%PC

This is a narrative masterpiece. The gameplay is interesting and got me hooked extremely quickly. As the game continues, the mechanics become more predictable and without challenge, but at the same time the story starts handling such a wide array of social and philosophical subjects in such a delicate and personal way that I'm honestly astounded. The design of this game is very minimalist, but at crucial points the music kicks in and it becomes a true reflection on living and doing so in a world as complex as ours.

The free DLC is essential to the game and features the best writing in the game, culminating in a beautiful and satisfying conclusion. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in a story about the hardships of life and the power of determination and community.

I played it on Steam Deck and it runs perfectly.

70%PC

I do not think the story and the characters are that good, could be the reason that I found the English writing was a bit hard for me as a non-native English speaker.

60%PC

Citizen Sleeper
• First time playing
• Looking for a good text-based game.
• Yeah, this is pretty good. It basically takes the life-sim part from Persona and combines it with the text-based gameplay from Disco Elysium.
• It’s nowhere near as good as either of those games, but it does the job in a pinch.
• For some reason, the art and music remind me of The Fermi’s Paradox game, even if the only real thing those two games have in common is outer space.

100%Nintendo Switch

Really enjoyed this game!

90%PC

Terminé une deuxième fois le 07/06/2024
DLC fini le 16/06/2024

80%Xbox One

Diet Disco Elysium

70%Nintendo Switch

The first few hours of the game are pretty great, but in the endgame, everything feels so...pointless? Probably because you're not struggling to survive anymore. The writing is pretty good, but I couldn't bring myself to care about the characters that much. The character art is spectacular though, and I would love to see more from the artist.

90%PC

Citizen Sleeper is an astonishing game.

The writing in a game had never made me think like that before.
The overall theme of the game is really deep and the lore seems huge compared to the title, clearly looking forward for the sequel.

I saw some people critizise the gameplay of Citizen Sleeper because of his lacks of renewal, I understand that but for me, it was perfect during the whole game. Was really hard at the very beginning and tends to become easier while you advance.

On point art style aswell
Will do all the ending one day

65%PC

2.8/5

70%Xbox Series X/S

Smart little RPG about the exploitative nature of capitalism and coporatism. Makes intelligent use of light tabletop-style mechanics and deft writing to create tricky situations with no clear outcome, keeping you guessing and engaged throughout its intriguing story (despite the upgrade system making the mid-game a little easy).

80%PC

addicting gameplay loop; somehow made a visual novel compelling with dice rolling gameplay and an interesting universe

85%PC

What a clever little game.

Written with the perfect bittersweet note to make me shed a little tear on the endings that resonated the most with me. The right game at the right time for me.

Gameplay wise, the idea of "strategizing your dices usage" over the course of the turn is very clever, and a unique take (to my knowledge) on the dice mechanic in any rpg I played or heard of.
Furthermore, especially in early game where your options and survivability are limited, you feel like you have to survive within a complex world that does not care not revolve entirely around you, swarming with people and interest points.

Unfortunately, passed the mid game, this feeling is reduced as you master the game system and have an understanding on how to leverage your options and possibilities better. By the endgame, you really can stomp the game without much difficulty thanks to clever resource management. For instance, the final part of the DLC is supposed to be quite hard, but I finished it with nearly half of the clock ticking... Other example, vial for survival are supposed to be rare and a difficult resource to acquire, but with the game finished, I still had 2 and could have 2 more without issue (and a full condition bar).

Another point is the story. Each character is well written and touching. But the game falls a bit short in term of the consequences of your "decisions". The illusion of having choice works well, but once you realise that choices do not matter that much, and that you can do everything with a bit of strategy, it removes a bit of the magic. But as what matters (at least to me) is more the emotions and themes this game conveys, it did not bother me that much.

TLDR: the difficulty curve is a bit broken, which is a bit of a shame in such an elegantly crafted title, and a bit of an irony for a title where the base speech is to survive.

HOWEVER, I still HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT for its unique take on the genre, and the writing that just touches your heart at the perfect place.

100%Xbox Series X/S

masterpiece!!!!

90%PC

The first 4 hours were amazing, just for that you should play it, it is a beautiful game, especially the sounds ! The last hour was a bit long, i'll try to do all the endings to see every glimpse of the story though.

100%PC

Perfect, no remarks. One of the best text-based choose your own adventures. Amazing writing, great art work, lovely background music. Touches on a lot of sci-fi hallmarks, but manages to rise above the rest in execution.

85%PC

Wow, what a hidden gem! I don't remember how I heard about it, but it was certainly not in the spotlight around me. But to me, it was one of the best discoveries Steam had ever handed me. I finished my 7.5 hours in basically a single sitting. I didn't get everything but the game is forgiving with the endings: you can't savescum but you can reload and keep playing after credits have rolled; so I saw quite a few different endings.

I think the best way to define this game is ""mini Disco Elysium"". It has a very similar vibe, good writing, and captivating story with many interesting subplots -- but, of course, it's much smaller, has no voice acting etc. Mechanically it's pretty simple, and also quite easy: you won't have any problem surviving or even thriving after a couple of hours. At this point, survival fades to the background and the game becomes purely about the stories -- and yeah, it was fascinating to live through the stories of the Eye. I wholeheartedly recommend the game, and have high hopes for the sequel and for ""In Other Waters"".

100%PC

More than just an unique game, this is an experience with a powerful message, one that I will likely never forget.

80%Nintendo Switch

No cutscenes. Not one word of spoken dialog. Barely any animation. But none of that was needed to tell a compelling, emotional story with simple yet satisfying gameplay. The setting and atmosphere, sound, music, and plot created something that was like Blade Runner meets the Expanse. Citizen Sleeper is just a great game. This is why indie developers are so important. I highly recommend!

80%Xbox One

Pros

* The characters and world are super interesting. For the short amount of time you have with most of them it's easy to get some level of attachment to your favorites.

* Very good atmosphere, the audio and art teams both did a good job when designing this game.

Negatives

* The game really starts to drag it's feet towards the end, especially with the expansions. A game that should've been 8~ hours gets another 3-4 hours tacked on for no reason.

* The gameplay loop gets pretty boring pretty fast.

* The illusion of choice is strong with this game. It starts you out making you think your choices matter but that quickly goes out the window as you go on.

* The RPG elements of the game feel really superficial. Most of the "perks" are either in the camp of being useless or things that should just be standard gameplay features

* The need to "repair" yourself gets old very quickly and isn't a fun resource to manage especially later into the game.

* The canonical final endings all kind of suck. They feel like the writers just got as tired as me with the end of the game and wanted it over and done with.

Overall I enjoyed the game but found myself checked out towards the end. The characters and world are interesting but found myself unable to have any real meaningful interactions with the majority of them. Certain mechanics just aren't fun to play with or around and the loop of the game does eventually become quite tedious. I enjoyed the game but hope the devs can take some of this feedback into consideration with the 2nd game.

100%PC

incredible game. sped through it in less than 24 hours. reminds me a lot of halt and catch fire, especially in the endings of each. can't wait for 2

100%Xbox Series X/S

Beautiful and moving game with no real flaws for what it sets out to achieve.

+ Perfect and consistent soundtrack
+ Role play decisions and mechanics are engaging and feel like real choices
+ Writing is precise and interesting without being florid or pretentious
+ Hand-drawn characters and the 3D station somehow mesh really well together in a rough-reality vs. clinical-technology juxtaposition
+ Any time limits are forgiving, it feels like you're just living a life aboard the station

- DLC was slightly more linear but still great
- Not much endgame or replayability - there are multiple endings, however

90%PlayStation 5

Incrível.
Comecei a jogar sem fazer ideia sobre o que era/como funcionava e é daqueles jogos que tu se perde entre os ciclos e quando vê, já são 03am e tu tá desesperado porque precisa trabalhar amanhã.

A arte do jogo é maravilhosa, a trilha sonora é incrível e todas as histórias são super bem escritas.
A variação do que acontece quando você escolhe diferentes opções nos diálogos também é bem grande e faz diferença no andamento da história.

Acabei demorando um pouquinho pra entender o sistema de energia/condição, mas depois que entende o jogo ficar super fluido.
Vale a pena demais.

90%PC

A well paced, atmospheric visual novel with light tints of RPG. You are thrown out into chaos without much explanation and that build up a great feeling of isolation and being lost, but the characters you find in your journey help you feel how you build a community and manage to live a new life in the Eye. Citizen Sleeper had all that I wished Disco Elyseum had in it's characters and story, a nice balance between exploration, decision making and story segments, while having a simple gameplay and a stress free way of playing. I also like the fact that you can't save scum outcomes as the game comes with a built-in autosave feature, which is great because you can feel the weight of important outcomes.

70%PC

As a non fluent english speaker I find the story difficult to catch up, but that's just me. The gameplay is fine, kinda hard to understand completely at the beginning of the game but you'll find out how to manage the resources. The art style is great and the soundtrack was really good too. I think it's a 7/10 for me.

70%Nintendo Switch

Lem + Mina ending.

90%PC

Weird mix of a visual-novel with adventure and resource management but it works so so well. The melancholic atmosphere makes you feel lonely and like you belong at the same time. The characters are very well thought-out and feel like real people with their own ambitions and history. The gameplay loop, although simple, can really suck you in into the one-more cycle syndrome. Just a gorgeous game. I just wish it didn't end when it did because I couldn't finish all the stories I started but perhaps it makes it even better. Not every story must have an ending.

60%PC

Steam Deck

80%Xbox Series X/S

I really enjoyed this game. Its world is instantly interesting and mysterious and its characters are nuanced. The dice rolls system to determine success for actions whilst not being novel, works very well. Combined with the choice given to the player to complete each cycle doing whatever they wish makes for a very immersive experience The huge number of different actions and people to find is staggering for a game of such small scope. Its a shame then that this was stripped away in the DLC chapters for a narrowed, more linear experience, even if they story was still interesting, the choice felt like it was taken away somewhat.
Main game: 9/10
DLC Chapters: 7/10

70%PC

Citizen Sleeper is a visual novel disguised as a video game. An excellent novel that takes you through the issues of choice, resources, the good in the world, and how relationships are formed, bonded, and lost. I really enjoyed my time with this game, learning how the character Sleeper woke up in a strange world, learning the ins and outs of the different areas and locations, and deciding what choices I should make based on the information presented. The game can be cut into three parts. Choices, Resource Management, and Visual Novel. There are 9 different endings that you can get, all with their own quirks and remarks on how you traveled this foreign world.

For me personally I learned what it means to do well for people, or at least try. Seeing how Sleeper was put through the ringer, having people after him, argue with him, and for him to his knees in some cases was emotionally draining in the best kind of way. I would recommend this game to those that do enjoy the visual novel style cause it is more book than game but I did enjoy my time with it.

To the critics, it is more of a visual novel than a game. I was not aware when I got into it but if you are aware going into it I do recommend it. One of the three main mechanics of the game, the resource management does basically go away at the last 3 hours of the game. It also feels like it goes on for just a little too long if you go for the longest ending(s). A similar issue I had with the last game I played was there was not a fantastic way to keep track of where to go. You have a list of missions to do but you need to go find the location with the gold dot on top and realize that is where you need to be. With all that said I did enjoy myself and give this game with the main criticism a 7/10. Improvements could be held onto the gold that is resource management in the first 3 hours, and make it last forever. Possibly cut the game length down a little, and some quality of life improvements for quest tracking.

100%Nintendo Switch

In a time when so many games feel like they were spit out by an uncaring corporate machine, Citizen Sleeper is a breath of fresh air. The gameplay is simple but the mechanics are well designed. The setting and characters are simply sublime. I savored every conversation as I got to know the inhabitants of The Eye. This game makes me want to be a better person, and that alone makes it worth playing.

85%PC

Really great writing, vibes, and atmosphere. The characters were all interesting, and the end had me tearing up.

80%PC

Great story. Really long though. I'm...a slow reader. Somehow I have nearly the longest completion of this on the website! The gameplay loop is easy to get absorbed in, but it ceases to present a challenge after you get some skills upgraded. After some point, it's just going through cycles to read the story.

70%PC

Really enjoyed this game, the dice mechanic is really fun. I only wish it was harder. The dice rolls get cheapened a little bit by how easy it is to pass most rolls after the first couple hours of the game. Still fun regardless, just makes the sequel getting announced more exciting.

70%Xbox Series X/S

I don’t think this was my type of game but it is very well made and certainly worth playing if you like the tabletop style RPGs. One thing to take into consideration is that there is A LOT of reading, which is fine, but not my usual choice of game. I did like that there was a cat you can feed.

90%PC

What a game. The writing is extremely strong, it has great characters and clean art. This game hits you in the feels. Best enjoyed with headphones on to enjoy the depressing OST. Also who's chopping onions?

75%PC

Cool game, sratched some of that survival rpg itch. The visuals however are bland besides the character sprites, environment map is sort of small, but still enjoyable if you're a fan of Disco Elysium type games.

95%PlayStation 5

Excellent jeu narratif avec une ecriture qui frise l'excellence. Belle narration et très bons dialogues. Bien entendu, tout les chemins ne sont pas également profonds, immersifs ou chargés en émotions. Cependant, pris comme un ensemble ils exposent un lieu original rempli de vies. Le gameplay "jeu de rôle" sur table fonctionne à merveille et devient assez addictif. La bande son discrète "d'ambiance" est parfaite pour un jeu qui demande autant de lecture. Graphiquement épuré, la direction artistique des personnages (qu'on doit à Guillaume Singelin, auteur de l'excellent PTSD) apporte de la douceur et de la couleur aux personnages de Citizen Sleeper.
Finalement, mon seul regret est l'absence d'une localisation qui empechera la plus part des gens d'y jouer. Une traduction FR semble compliquée tant il y a de textes et de nuances. Mais si vous avez comme moi une comprehension de l'anglais correct, vous arriverez à bout du jeu en vous aidant d'internet pour les termes techniques.

60%Xbox Series X/S

Story 5/10
Familiar story without much nuance or imagination.

Gameplay 7/10
The gameplay loop is satisfying, rewarding, and feels fair.

Graphics 3/10
Nothing to really comment on.

80%PlayStation 5

Citizen Sleeper was never on my radar in 2022. But after seeing countless best narrative awards given out to it week after week in gaming award shows... I figured id bite. Perfect timing with the full package coming to the PS5 right at the end of March and honestly I am mad that I waited as long as I did. Citizen Sleeper is a tabletop RPG with some of the strongest writing I have experienced in a video game in a long time. It offers players a Sci-Fi world full of mystery with likeable and unlikeable characters. It gives the player a real choice in what goes on around the world. You can Build up character relationships or just sit and take in the sights around the space station. Citizen Sleeper is a must play for fans of strong narrative driven games. It's going to end up as an Indie gem in a few years when people look back.

Rating: 8/10 "Superb"

65%PC

Ah, the poor man's Disco Elysium!

A sullen futuristic story with some central mysteries surrounding who you are, how you got to this space station, and what the hell you're going to do about it. Well written. Intelligent sci-fi dialogue about sentience and humanity's irrational need to seek out greater meanings of stuff.

The gameplay is a dice-based task management sim. Quite simplistic and fully explained in the tutorial. Starts fun; gets stale. They could have done so much more with it.

The difficulty curve is backwards. At about the halfway mark you'll start maxing out your stats, then the dice formula becomes easy and beating the game turns into a foregone conclusion. All major sources of tension -- both gameplay and story -- are resolved too early. There's also a whole lot of WAITING -- you gradually complete objectives over a series of days ("cycles"), then wait more days to be handed follow-up objectives. What starts out tense and mysterious becomes routine and boring. The climax was clearly in the middle, unlike Disco Elysium.

90%PC

When it comes to narrative games such as Citizen Sleeper, my interest can vary vastly. Something like Disco Elysium can suck me in and before long I'm fully immersed in its story, characters, lore, and point and click adventure elements. Other "visual novel" style games have bored me with their static text for hours at a time. Citizen Sleeper takes very few gameplay elements and combines with a narrative and atmosphere comparable to the best in the genre. As an indie mostly made by one person, Citizen Sleeper is a marvel.

The dice and time management mechanics are utilized very well here resulting in just enough stress to draw you into this world. At first, just figuring out how to survive is enough to hook the player before they get more in synch with the ebb and flow of meeting characters and pursuing their storylines. Some of those storylines, by the way, are absolutely incredible. The father-daughter refugees, the mercenary, and the AI trapped in a forgotten vending machine were my favorites with the family dynamics of the first nearly bringing me to tears as it drew to a close. This is Sleeper's greatest strength. When the characters and the role-playing coalesce, this game becomes a unique and immersive experience without a point of comparison I am aware of.

Overall, Citizen Sleeper is more of a read than a game but those gameplay elements are enough to keep you digitally "turning the page" to see what will happen next to this intriguing set of characters. I do think the post-launch additions have been good but not quite as compelling as the main game. Whether this is because they were originally cut content that is now being added or because the dev put more time and energy into the main game's story, I cannot be sure. Nevertheless, this is the type of game you will crave more of if you enjoy it, so I'm happily anticipating the final story chapter's release.

UPDATE:
I've now finished the final chapter of the dlc and can say that the ending was an emotional high point in line with the main story. I chose to stay and the final set of text is among my favorite in a video game. Citizen Sleeper is an immersive narrative that asks big questions and let's the player work through them themselves. Few video games can do that in such an effective way. Long story short, I love this game.

9.5/10

70%PC

Meh. Too big, stays longer than its welcome.

80%PC

TL;DR: VA-11 -Beautiful Girls + Better "Sci-fi" Elements + Relatively Deeper Themes = Citizen Sleeper.

The gameplay of assigning AP to decide what to do each day using dice is a well-designed feature, and the 10-hour playtime is just right. However, the DLC has a higher range of values than before, and there was no prompt before it started, so I may not have achieved the best ending for the DLC Chapter 1, but it seems to have no impact on the overall story (it may have affected part of the ending, but I'm not sure).

The characters in the story are mostly portrayed in a positive light, although the environment is theoretically dirty and chaotic, the protagonist mostly encounters people with good intentions. So, the general direction of the story in the middle and later stages can be guessed, and the ending is not likely to be too bad.

Ankhita's story lacks some details, and I feel that this is the most worthy part of the whole story to be developed. When it comes to the political stance of the characters in Commune and the DLC, the author's approach of making everyone a good person does not work. And those flexible/fun antagonists, the author cannot write or develop them, which makes the whole story look quite small and sentimental, like a small bathtub in an ordinary hotel.

As for the DLC, as a postscript chapter, it is not bad, but it is not great either. The author tried to make the writing more complex, but unfortunately, the self-restriction of writing multiple factions made the overall structure a bit too rigid, and there was no obvious feeling for the big event that was meant to be developed. Actually, if the author had spent more time developing it like in the mid-game battles, it might have been better, but it seems that the length was too rushed, and the author did not choose to write specific scenes or take everyone out for a walk.

Because I saw many people last year who ranked this as their top indie game of the year, I specifically played it with some bias. In the category of visual novels in independent games, this work can be considered T0.5~1, and I recommend friends with English reading ability to try it out. Spending 1-3 days soaking in the beautiful sci-fi story may at least provide some spiritual healing.

100%PC

Great game!
I loved the music, the feeling of presence, and the narrative tension I felt at precisely the right moments.

When replaying the game I initially planned to try harmful options, but fell in love with the character again, because they were such an underdog, so it turned into a speedrun to an ending I liked

On replays, some of the magic was gone - I couldn't manage to kill my character or get any negative game over that I was so afraid of on my first playthrough. Mistakes are punished, but not severely.

100%PC

Writing in video games is a finite amount of content. There is always an end to a quest line, a limit to the amount of dialogue one character has, and an acceptance of the fact that there must be a conclusion to any interaction or story. Citizen Sleeper is a game that makes you comfortable with that ending and with the choices you make along the way. Though its world is detached from our own by ways of an inner-space colony reeling from a structural and societal collapse, it hits close to home.

Citizen Sleeper is a mix between visual novel, life simulation, strategy, and a light RPG. Every day, called "cycles" spent on the ring-shaped ship you call home, you are given a set of rolled dice. These dice, labeled from 1-6 determine the outcomes of any actions you can take during the day. Some days you will roll mostly 4-6, and others you will barely scrape by with 1s and 2s. Depending on your condition, you get a set amount of these dice to spend how you see fit on actions around the ship. Every "action" is tied to a person or job on the space station, from helping tear down scrap in the yard, to snooping in some dangerous areas, to even putting time into building up your own home. There are a plethora of options right from go, and it gives you a great sense of purpose and choice in determining which tasks to prioritize. While this may not be for everyone, I appreciated how the game found efficient places to use even the bad rolls in helpful places.

The game also uses a set of wheels to visualize how close you are to completing (or failing) a task. As you push through cycles, certain meters will have consequences, and balancing the tasks to keep all your eggs in one basket is a stressful, but welcome element to the game's strategy, and ultimately pulls you into feeling like a second-class citizen just trying to keep your head above water. The game frontloads a lot of information on you, from its aforementioned dice rolls and deteriorating body and energy meters, to the simple skill tree that grants new abilities as you complete requests. However, once you get the hang of maintaining your body, money, and work, Citizen Sleeper becomes an addictive loop that is difficult to put down.

Many of the tasks you can complete around the Eye are for the game's diverse cast, which range from a doctor trying to unseat her captives to a father and daughter attempting to escape their poverty. You sympathize with many of these people, the victims of a class-based society, as you work to give them not only hope, but a friend. Like all of the writing in the game, the dialogue of these stray souls are pensive, cautious, and fully realized. Even your responses, while short, allow you build a relationship with the various Citizens, as well as a personality for yourself. It's worth it to see every story this game throws at you, and you can find new characters in the most unexpected places. There are multiple endings depending on clear, binary choices you make throughout the game, but I was able to see a few thanks to some endings pulling you right back into the station. I loved the way my story ended, but I wish there was a manual save option so I didn't have to play through much of the same content again just to see the other side of my decisions. That said, despite only a few impactful decisions, I was impressed at the freedom of the narrative, as there is no one critical path; further emphasizing the game's desire to let the player see what they want to see.

The entire runtime of Citizen Sleeper takes place on the circular station. Accompanied by a soft, ambient score of synthwave, you interface with the various areas and slowly expand the territory you can explore. Sorting through all your tasks works well enough, but I wish you could move from each of the sections of the station a little easier, and that the game's quest tracker was a little more helpful. If the icons were able to be accessed from a menu or straight from the quest log itself, it would save a lot of wasted moments manually checking each objective. On the other hand, I did like seeing the station evolve over time, and wish I could've seen more interiors or locations from around the lives of the NPCs.

Citizen Sleeper's main hook is living in its world for a few hours. It's not the most mechanically deep or gameplay heavy experience, but its literature is fascinating, diving into its dystopic ideas with an emotional and intimate approach. If you are a fan of forging your own path and taking the leap into the unknown, you may just want to stowaway for a few hours and give this one a shot.

Edit: I'm adding this section after all 3 DLC episodes released and WOW. After an already fantastic game, returning to the world of the Eye was not only seamless, but despite several possible endings built in the base game, the DLC gives the finality to the game that I didn't know I needed.

70%Xbox Series X/S

The RPG mechanisms are really intuitive and satisfying. The text-heavy story sometimes got in the way, but it was an engaging ride. Really excellent visuals and vibe.

100%PC

Sweet story with multiple "good" endings.