#I really got attached to some characters ;o; (LEM AND MINA ALSO PEAKE)

[miyakuli]

Citizen Sleeper

Wake Up

Citizen Sleeper is a mix of visual novel and role-playing game set in a purely SF world; you play the role of a sleeper, a kind of humanoid robot with a human conscience, who finds themself stranded on a space station called Erlin's Eye. Your first goal will obviously be to survive, but over time and encounters, you may find a real reason to live and, who knows, even a future.

❤ An immersive and detailed SF universe, in terms of its lore, visual and sound atmosphere, as well as the themes addressed, rather typical of this genre (transhumanism, capitalism…) but always intelligently presented. ❤ Speaking of design, the game is fairly minimalist, but it's enough to immerse us in this cyberpunk world, not only in terms of the station and its varied locations, but also thanks to Guillaume Singelin's splendid illustrations, which give us striking characters with their own identity. ❤ In keeping with this idea of immersion, the soundtrack discreetly but effectively accompanies this universe, with its futuristic, melancholy music and ambient sound effects of the space station life. ❤ The rpg aspect is characterized by dice rolls after sleep cycles that allow you to unlock new areas and perform specific tasks. And unlike a certain Disco Elysium (which still sticks in my craw x'D), RNG is very well balanced, as the success of your throw will depend on your physical condition and energy. And even if your dice are low, you'll always have something to do with them (small numbers can be used for hacking actions, for example). The station may not be very big, but it's vast enough in terms of activities, offering several hours of play to discover all its nooks and crannies.

+/- The story is very well written, the narration is neat and coherent, and I really enjoyed the intimate exchanges between the characters....on the other hand, I sincerely regret that there's still no translation planned. I'm used to playing games in the language of Shakespeare, but let's face it, this game won't be accessible to everyone, as it requires a very good command of English (many highly technical SF terms). +/- While the gameplay becomes very addictive over time (I couldn't stop restarting cycles!!), it also becomes rather repetitive, especially towards the end; if you stay on the station until the end to unlock all the storylines, you're going to spend a lot of cycles just doing activities here and there while you wait for the next quests to unlock (because sometimes you have to wait several cycles to move on to the next stage).

✖ The idea of choosing a class at the start of the game is only of interest at first, because after a while you end up unlocking all the abilities and your specialization no longer matters. Also, the classes are quite unbalanced (the operator is clearly the one to take to advance quickly and efficiently). ✖ Mouse handling, especially when walking around the station, is not at all great. So I switched to the controller, which has smoother movements, but which wasn't always easy to select zones and dialogues (plus you can only use the directional pad). ✖ Basic options are lacking for a game with so much dialogue and several endings; autosave is imposed, so you can't save at a specific point in the game if you want to come back later to unlock other things, and there's no skip for text already read or even a visual indication (like colored text, for example).

Citizen Sleeper is a very pleasant discovery, with a well-developed SF universe into which I immersed myself, although not without difficulty due to a high level of English. If a French-language version were to come out, I'd be delighted to relive this story and its encounters, and perhaps appreciate its subtleties even more :)

➡ My personal VN ranking (in french) ➡ My Steam page