Citizen Sleeper Reviews
It's not often that a game grabs me in quite the way Citizen Sleeper has. By stripping a video game adventure to its barest components and then manipulating those components to create just the right balance of hope and despair it successfully conveys the drama and danger of its small slice of sci-fi storytelling. Top-notch writing, impeccable narrative design and inviting tabletop mechanics accompanied by gorgeous art and music serve only to elevate it even more. Play this bloody game.
Citizen Sleeper intelligently and elegantly explores its cyberpunk themes and the growing potential of tabletop-inspired digital RPGs.
From its interesting design ideas to its rich world-building, Jump Over The Age's Citizen Sleeper is one of 2022's best surprises.
With its well-executed TTRPG-inspired mechanic and an intricate narrative that fleshes out its universe, Citizen Sleeper brings a fresh outlook on the cyberpunk genre in video games.
Citizen Sleeper crafts a gorgeously written and thoughtfully conceptualized Cyberpunk world using RPG mechanics inspired by the best in tabletop gaming.
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.
undefined.Citizen Sleeper allows for multiple playthroughs, and even when looking through screenshots during my review there are characters and locations I never once encountered within my first playthrough. Because of the heavy story-driven nature of Citizen Sleeper, your enjoyment will be contingent on your appreciation of the sci-fi genre as well as how much brain space is occupied by thoughts of Turing Tests. While that itself will denote that Citizen Sleeper isn't for everyone, for those that have even a slight interest in the genre, you don't want to sleep on this one.
Much like In Other Waters, this is a game you simply need to sit down and play in order to fully appreciate, as no screenshot or explanation will fully do it justice, and having it release on Game Pass is just the ticket to entice interested parties to try their hand. We urge you to dive in here, as this is a game of real style and substance with multiple endings to mop up as you peel back layers and dig deeper into Eldin's Eye and its inhabitants. Citizen Sleeper is a unique and thought-provoking adventure that's truly taken us by surprise.
Citizen Sleeper is a story of hope, desperation and redemption. Although it suffers from some gameplay issues, it's still one of the most unique games you could play.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Half literature, half RPG, Citizen Sleeper successfully unites its many facets to create inventive and thoughtful science fiction. Deep human issues are addressed in several sweet and melancholy subplots that weave together to form a life that is up to you to manage however you can. The paths do not lead to opposite roads, but it is up to whoever holds the controller to decide which trails to follow and which stories will have their attention and their dice rolls to build their uncertain daily life. Keep in mind that reading English well is essential for everything Citizen Sleeper has to offer.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The stories in Citizen Sleeper are worth hearing, but the fairly sparse and restrictive mechanics underpinning the game begin to buckle under the demands of that storytelling. More complications resulting from task categories may have expanded the possibilities here, but despite this, Citizen Sleeper remains a great cyberpunk diorama, and it’s well worth uncovering all its little details.
Citizen Sleeper has captured my imagination in a way that few video games do. Thoughts of characters met and what could have been have percolated through my mind since finishing a playthrough after roughly five hours, which I did with an urgency not typical of me. If you're looking for something different, something that feels both fresh and timely and often beautiful and sometimes horrifying with its implications, Citizen Sleeper is all of those things and more.
Citizen Sleeper is a very compelling experience, with an enticing story supported by some solid strategy gameplay and barebones but still competent RPG mechanics. If you’re open to a Disco Elysium-esque visual novel that’s a bit lighter in tone (despite the dystopian setting) and emphasizes resource management more, it’s safe to say you’ll enjoy this.
A rich narrative adventure with light role-playing elements, Citizen Sleeper has some of the most evocative, well-written dialogue of any sci-fi setting in recent memory. Its world feels tangible, full of ideas and concepts that are easy to grasp but have deep and complicated implications.
Citizen Sleeper can be some great solo fun for those who have played a similar Powered by the Apocalypse game. But, the game doesn’t offer enough to entice newcomers with no experience. Even then, it can be a little difficult to resist just cheating the system by min-maxing on certain skills.
Science fiction with themes of capitalism, identity, and oddly enough, mostly cozy characters in an environment that is not. Jump Over the Age's second title launches a unique experience with board game touches, focusing on relationships with other characters and a sense of belonging with a narrative so direct that it touches the heart in more than one of its multiple plots.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The plot is the shining star of this game as you interact with a plethora of characters all developed with incredible backstories and details. The characters have their own unique personalities and charms, all laid out by expert futuristic writing. It is so beautifully pulled together through many twisting tangents that this space pirate-like community is very reminiscent of the cult class tales of ‘Cowboy Bebop’. Each cycle brings new and exciting revelations in the story.
The new game from Jump Over the Age is, just like NORCO and Disco Elysium, one of the best-written games in recent years, being a must-play for those who appreciate well-polished text, just as those previously mentioned, mature, thought-provoking sci-fi plot and tabletop RPG mechanics.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
While the game mechanics starts to lose its pacing at the very end, Citizen Sleeper offers a great story rich experience for fans of narrative heavy games and the sci-fi genre.
Citizen Sleeper is a sensible and well-written science fiction work with very relevant discussions. It's a masterpiece that every player interested in a good story should experience.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review