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Indie Citizen Sleeper - Narrative RPG set on a space station by the developer of In Other Waters

HoboForEternity

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
https://www.fellowtraveller.games/citizen-sleeper




https://af.gog.com/game/citizen_sleeper?as=1649904300



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From the developer of In Other Waters, and featuring the stunning character art of Guillaume Singelin, Citizen Sleeper is a narrative RPG set on Erlin’s Eye, a ruined space station that is home to thousands of people trying to survive on the edges of an interstellar capitalist society.

You are a sleeper, a digitised human consciousness in an artificial body, owned by a corporation that wants you back. Thrust amongst the unfamiliar and colourful inhabitants of the Eye, you need to build friendships, earn your keep, and navigate the factions of this strange metropolis, if you hope to survive to see the next cycle.


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An abandoned station on the edge of a system in crisis. Run down, chaotic, unruly, and alive—it was founded by idealists in the shadow of a corporate collapse. Now it is held together by anarchic alliances, ramshackle factions and a shared desire to be free from the gravity of corporate control.

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Every cycle you get up and choose what to do with your time. Toil in the yards, or take a bar shift. Search the markets for rare components or grab some street food. Make or break alliances, uncover truths and escape those that hunt you. Learn to survive and ultimately thrive, one cycle at a time.

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The station plays host to characters from all walks of life, trying to eke out an existence among the stars. Salvagers, engineers, hackers, bartenders, street-food vendors, each has a history which brought them here. You choose which of them you wish to help, and together you will shape your future.

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Hack into the station’s cloud to access decades of digital data, uncover new areas and unlock secrets. This is your unique power, and with it you can change your future. Corporate secrets, rogue AIs and troves of lost data await those willing to dive into the depths of the station’s networks.

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Essen-Arp: to them you are just property, one more asset in a portfolio that stretches across the stars. You are the product of an abusive system, in a universe where humanity’s expansion is marked by exploitation and extraction. Escape the makers of your decaying body, and chart your own path in a richly imagined, deeply relevant sci-fi world which explores ideas of precarity, personhood and freedom.

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Each cycle you roll your dice. Assign them to vast range of actions available on the station. With every action, choose what, and who, matters to you, shaping the lives of those around you, and ultimately the future of the station.

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Clocks track both your actions and the actions of others across the station. From becoming a local at the Overlook Bar to protecting a friend from Yatagan enforcers, clocks allow you to track your own progress and the influence you have on the world around you.

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Follow drives not quests, allowing you to pick and choose the stories and activities that matter to you. As you do, you will shape your character's five skills (Engineer, Interface, Endure, Intuit and Engage), unlocking perks and bonuses that reflect and change how you choose to live in this world.

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Unwanted

Rewrite

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what? its a jap artstyle, that is gay and dumb, ie disgusting and retarded
 

Infinitron

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This guy is pretentious: https://www.pcgamesn.com/citizen-sleeper/cyberpunk-2077-feels-dated

How Citizen Sleeper re-examines a genre and why Cyberpunk 2077 is “dated”
We talk Neuromancer, Blade Runner, and the "nonsense" of pessimistic cyberpunk with the creator of Citizen Sleeper

citizen-sleeper-cyberpunk-game-genre-1-900x506.jpg


Cyberpunk is a relatively new genre. Most will refer to William Gibson’s 1984 novel, Neuromancer, as being a seminal work within cyberpunk, but its roots go back further to sci-fi authors of the ’60s and ’70s like Phillip K Dick, JG Ballard, and Alice B Sheldon (who wrote as James Tiptree Jr). Movie and videogame adaptations followed suit, cementing some of the key visual cues that we all recognise as cyberpunk today.

Cyberpunk 2077 is probably the most famous example in videogames – Gibson himself ended up commenting on the trailer, saying it “strikes me as GTA skinned-over with a generic ’80s retro-future.”

There are, of course, countless other cyberpunk games going all the way back to Konami’s Snatcher in 1988, and more still that are being made right now, like Citizen Sleeper. It’s a narrative RPG set on a lawless interstellar space station at the edge of society, where you play as an escaped corporate-owned consciousness. We spoke to Gareth Damian Martin, the solo developer behind Citizen Sleeper, about what cyberpunk means in contemporary gaming.

“Even in its origins,” Martin says, “cyberpunk was built on so many existing parts of new wave sci-fi, literary noir, and beat generation style – it always feels wrong to chop it out of history and treat it like some unique strand of art and media.”



“At the same time, I think there’s a contradiction here, because cyberpunk, when used as a descriptor within games, feels painfully reductive. This is because, as with many aesthetically striking styles, cyberpunk visuals have been cannibalised and reused so many times as to become an incredibly basic list of elements. A neon-lit, rainy megacity, techno-orientalism, implants, corporate control. We are all so familiar with these elements that we can recognise them instantly, and within moments the ‘cyberpunk’ descriptor will be applied.

“In games in particular,” Martin explains, “because we are talking about a very aesthetic medium, cyberpunk manifests visually, and in particular draws extensively from Blade Runner – just look at the recently announced Vigilance 2099.

“I think it is very telling that Blade Runner is the major influence, because actually that film strips away most of the more philosophical and literary cyberpunk elements of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. He replaced them with some hokey gumshoe detective elements and a carefully honed aesthetic that smashed together film-noir moodiness and a new strand of orientalism and fascination with cities like Shanghai and Tokyo. This incredibly successful aesthetic, which owes a huge amount to the designer Syd Mead, eclipsed any themes the film might have had and cemented its place as an eternal sci-fi touchstone.”


It’s important to note that Martin isn’t enamoured with the genre, nor do they necessarily want their game to be viewed as part of it. They do, however, appreciate the work of Gibson.

“When I was first working on Citizen Sleeper I was rereading William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy,” Martin says. “I started feeling that I wanted to make something that drew on so many of the things I liked about these books, without making something explicitly cyberpunk. Could I make something inspired by Gibson that didn’t pay lip service to the genre he helped create? For me Gibson’s books are filled with strong qualities: the razor-sharp and intimate prose, the focus on those on the edge of society, the terrifying power of capital, decaying megastructures that house burgeoning subcultures. I think all of these make Gibson’s early work very relevant and exciting to read even now.”

But Martin also believes there are plenty of unexplored ideas in the genre at large, which they hope to delve into in Citizen Sleeper. “In Gibson’s Sprawl books, hackers are more like mediums, who can contact the intangible forces that influence the physical world. I always found this to be a more exciting vision of cyberspace, and so in Citizen Sleeper I have also tried to engage with these ideas a little more, placing the player as a medium between the physical and intangible – not as a hacker sat behind a computer, but a being that can, simply by closing their eyes, slip into a dream which sits behind the physical reality of their environment.”



“Because of this I think of Citizen Sleeper as being in communication with science fiction as a wider genre,” Martin says, listing Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell as other key influences. Despite admiring Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy, Martin has some reservations. “From the vantage point of 2021, I think Gibson’s remix of the hardboiled noir fiction in these books is successful, but it comes with a lot of conservative baggage that no longer feels relevant. For example, his interest in Japan as a rising power feels aligned with a burgeoning cocktail of fascination and xenophobia that was common in pop culture of the 1980s.”

So what does Martin make of gaming’s most famous cyberpunk game? “In reality, much of what is bad about Cyberpunk 2077 has little to do with the genre. CD Projekt Red’s corporate practices, its eagerness to foster toxicity within its communities, the hype machine – it’s all created this miasma around the genre which will take a long time to dispel.”

Martin also feels that “Cyberpunk 2077 is fairly unambitious. It carries forward most of its ideas from its source material, the TTRPG Cyberpunk 2020. That game was a power-fantasy pastiche of cyberpunk imagery and ideas, which hasn’t aged well, so 2077 is also a genre pastiche that feels incredibly dated and out of touch.”



One of Martin’s main hopes for Citizen Sleeper is to challenge the pessimistic worldview that pervades the genre. “One of the accusations I always see levelled at cyberpunk or similarly dystopian sci-fi is that it’s supposed to be a warning, not a fantasy. We’re meant to read these works thinking, ‘what a shitty place to live, I hope the world doesn’t end up like this.’ To me this is nonsense. To talk about Gibson again, it’s clear he was writing about a world that he was fascinated and enticed by.

“I have already seen my work being accused of being bleak, of seeing the future pessimistically. But actually I see my work as being about hope, about finding a place, a reason to go on, about the importance of forming communities and bonds.”

Citizen Sleeper is set to release on PC in 2022. You can check out the Steam page here.
 

Gradenmayer

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I agree with his point of people wrongly locking Cyberpunk genre into rainy cities, where day is not a thing. But then this retard unironically says that cyberpunk should not be low-life/distopian/warning for society. If you don't have those you just have utopia or regular sci-fiction, not Cyberpunk. Reading at least a wiki entry for the genre of your own game is too hard, I guess.
 
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Humbaba

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There is so much to fucking unpack here holy shit.

Let's start with the fact that he has a problem with the cyberpunk genre being defined by certain characteristics. Newsflash asshole, genres are nothing but collections of characteristics and you can't strip away too many until you end up with another genre entirely. I know you commie types are big on postmodernism, so if you can talk yourself into believing that a man with a dick and balls can still be considered a woman then I understand how one might take issue with a certain genre showing certain facets.

Cyberpunk 2077 is not the most famous example of cyberpunk, just the most recent one. If you wanna talk about tabletop, Shadowrun is probably it.

He talks about supposedly unexplored ideas and then in the same breath proceeds to reference previous literature. The irony is lost on this dweeb. What he meant to say is that there are works of fiction that are not yet copied as much by the videogame industry. Also claiming that cyberpunk imagery has not aged well is a nuclear fucking take.

And then this absolute idiot denies the fact that cyberpunk is by nature dystopian and supposed to warn of a bleak future that right now seems more likely than ever. This guy is literally this

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Game's gonna be trash.
 
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Denim Destroyer

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Genres, while not necessarily beholden to them, are defined by their tropes with cyberpunk being no exception. The entire genre either it be in books, anime, or videogames all depict societies were technology has advanced past real life while the average quality of life hasn't. If you remove that aspect then it turns into Star Trek or the utopian societies you would see in the books by Arthur C. Clarke.

I never heard of this game until this thread popped up for me and this appears to be one of those heavy narrative focused adventure games that are labeled as RPGs in order to chase after the success of Disco Elysium. The rather generic sci-fi look in addition to the developer apparently not understanding what the cyberpunk genre is about tells me everything I need to know, he does not have a lot of confidence in the final product so neither will I.
 

Sykar

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You are aware that is one of the parts that make Cyberpunk Cyberpunk, right?
...and?
you can't throw a rock without hitting another shitty "lol capitalism suxx" video game, it's overplayed.

Not really an argument. Fantasy is far more overplayed and yet we get dozens of fantasy cRPGS every damn year.

You are aware that is one of the parts that make Cyberpunk Cyberpunk, right?

If I wanted to see what cyberpunk looks like I'd look out the window, not consume this pseudo-intellectual garbage.

Far too early to tell whether it is or not.
 

cyborgboy95

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https://www.destructoid.com/citizen-sleeper-preview-impressions/

Citizen Sleeper is about finding community in the coldest reaches of space

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Citizen Sleeper is shaping up to be a fascinating exploration of luck and life in the outer rim

Here it is again: the void. Games have found countless reasons to thrust players out into the unknowable expanse of space, and Citizen Sleeper embraces that emptiness. My demo opens in a haze, with my player character trying to piece together fragments of memory and time as they come to.

Citizen Sleeper is an upcoming indie adventure game from Jump Over The Age, the developer behind the underwater exploration adventure In Other Waters. Trading one abyss for another, Citizen Sleeper heads into space, where you take on the role of a runaway sleeper—someone who has digitized their self and been put in an artificial body. On the run from a corporation that wants its property back, you find yourself on Erlin’s Eye, a ring-shaped station on the edge of the system.

Back in my demo, I’m woken up by a friendly mechanic. He’s helpful. But it’s not long before I have to work. I’m on a search for survival, and money can protect my gradually depreciating meters as I try to find some stability. Odd jobs will be crucial.





It’s here where I can start to roll die for each day and place those die rolls into various activities. High rolls mean either a successful or neutral outcome, while low rolls mean neutral or negative results. It’s a system that reminds me of tabletop gaming, something that developer Gareth Damian Martin tells me was a big inspiration.

The Eye is filled with activities, characters, and storylines to explore. Helping a stranger out near the docks might lead to a lucrative odd job, and becoming a bar patron could lead to making friends with the local bartender. Maybe you could get a steady gig out of it. Or maybe you’d rather spend your time working away at the shipyard, helping the mechanic who woke you up so he doesn’t lose his business. Similar to the way that tabletop RPG Blades in the Dark has downtime factored in, Citizen Sleeper asks players where they want to go and what they’re interested in, and Martin’s virtual DMing can lead them in various directions.

“I do think a lot of the development, when it comes to Citizen Sleeper, is kind of pre-DMing,” Martin tells me. “It’s like DMing from an incredibly long distance in time and space, like people are playing in a different country, in a different year. But in a way, the relationship is still kind of the same. I’m still trying to tempt people with hooks. I’m still trying to surprise people by having narrative come in at kind of unexpected moments.”

Dice are one part of the narrative toolset, creating a constant weighing of risk vs. reward. Some days, I would have to consider where to spend my best die; a six is a guaranteed positive outcome, which is great for making progress on certain tasks or getting some surefire cash. Yet a six might also work better for my hacking, where I need specific die rolls to unlock information gates and acquire data. Or maybe I can burn a rolled-one in a frivolous task, or risk it for a potential net-neutral outcome.

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All the while, hunger is going down, and my state of being is depreciating. One of the earliest problems to deal with is that sleepers need special drugs to maintain themselves, as organic souls inside inorganic bodies, and those are controlled by the corporations. An early quest that was paramount to just getting through each day had me making a deal with a back-alley doctor who could get me the meds I needed. And the meds, to be clear, had some side effects. But they stopped my meters from slowly bleeding out. That was worth it.

It’s not all staving off hunger and death, though. One of my favorite systems is the clocks Martin uses to keep players moving forward. Tasks will have radial clocks that tick up over time, leading to new story bits. At first, they might seem like simple progression meters. But really, they felt to me like rewards for time spent in a place.

I mentioned the bar story before, but essentially if you hang around a certain bar long enough and become a ‘regular,’ you’ll have a story event pop up. After a run-in with some locals who don’t take kindly to your kind, the bartender backs you up and you can start forming a bond with them. I went from barfly to bar staff, eventually earning myself a new place to crash as time went on. We’re used to being rewarded in games for doing things, but exposing the system in a radial clock makes those actions a little more alluring and interesting.

“I think by exposing a process so that players know, ‘If I do this action, something is getting closer to happening,’ is really interesting,” Martin says. “It’s a really good hook.”

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Drawing comparisons to Destiny quests like the Thorn, Martin tells me how the banal can become interesting in storytelling. How even though you’re doing very straightforward tasks and menial jobs, a progress bar framed in the right way can feel effective and powerful. And it’s something I felt throughout my several playthroughs of Citizen Sleeper‘s demo.

On some days, I would have the cash to afford to eat at the nice food stall with the friendly chef, rather than just get something basic from the machines. Some mornings I’d wake up with fives and sixes, bright-eyed and ready to greet the day. And in one run, with a doomsday clock counting down to the last digit I needed, I rolled low and couldn’t make the cut.

“It also comes directly from my own experience, again, of just what it’s like to work in shitty jobs. What it’s like to be in a difficult position,” Martin says. “It’s like, some days you wake up and you’ve rolled all ones, right? Like, that’s what it feels like, you know. It doesn’t matter what you do that day.”

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Still, it’s not necessarily a survival game. Really, to me, Citizen Sleeper feels like a living game. I know that sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s about life in a community. Erlin’s Eye is home to outcasts and wayward souls, with plenty of scoundrels and con artists running about. But there’s a united feeling in wanting to escape life under the corporate thumb.

And in this community, family can be found. And it can be built, through effort. Repeated attempts, failures and successes, and steadfast visits can stave off the eroding timers and, maybe eventually, your gradual degradation. The choices aren’t dire, and there are no world-ending catastrophes to uncover—at least, not in my demo there weren’t. It was just deciding where my time should go.

“It’s like you either turn up every day to help somebody out, or you don’t,” Martin tells me. “And if you don’t turn up every day, then that’s going to have an impact.”

Coupled with the absolutely brilliant character art of Guillaume Singelin and an exquisite interface (complete with click-and-drag spinnable ring), Citizen Sleeper has a lot going for it already. It’s got good vibes, yes. It has a look and feel to it that feeds deep into its depiction of the Eye as a home for wayward spacefarers. And its meters hanging overhead communicate the constantly looming terror of corporate reprisal so, so well.

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And still, I want to return to Erlin’s Eye just to hang out. Just to fill a stool at my favorite bar again. To make some small talk with the local street food vendor, and learn more about the kind doctor whose less-than-savory methods saved my soul from its artificial shell. And maybe eventually uncover more of the Eye’s secrets along the way, too.

Even within the demo, there were beats I left uncovered. Threads I didn’t chase, even though I saw a few different variations of its ending. Maybe I didn’t get to them yet, or really, I didn’t want to exhaust all options just yet. There’s a lot of joy in uncovering the secrets of Citizen Sleeper, through work, rest, and relaxation. I’ll leave a few for launch day.

 

V_K

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This sounds interesting on paper, but so did his other game - In Other Waters - which I ended up dropping after a couple of hours because of sheer boredom.
 

Nifft Batuff

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Other Waters was interesting as a concept game.
 

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