Citizen Sleeper

Love the theme and setting to this text-based rpg. Wish your choices mattered more and there was more variety to tasks… C+

Excessive text. The writer was too busy trying to show off instead of fitting the script to the game. Also lots of mechanics serve to increase tedium. But still a decent 'progression-box' game. Gets grindy, could have been executed better.

A well-written and distinctive sci-fi story with gameplay that is surprisingly engaging considering it is all menu- and dice-based. You can choose the order you tackle plotlines, which is cool but resulted in me finishing what felt like the core plot/conflict while there was still a ton of other content left. Without that looming threat, I didn't feel particularly driven to follow the remaining story threads, so that back portion of the game wasn't anywhere near as engaging as what led up to it.

I found myself thoroughly engaged throughout this. The gameplay itself is rather basic, but requires just enough thought and offers enough player agency to avoid feeling like going through the motions. The setting, plot and cast do all of the heavy lifting, and I was always eager to learn and see more. A mostly unobtrusive soundtrack sets the atmosphere well when necessary.

Pretty decent game, but the pervasive feeling of "when is it over?" never quite subsided after a little while, so I can't give it more than a marginal pass. The gameplay loop doesn't exactly thrill, and the otherwise well-composed score loops endlessly and randomly and feels less curated than it should. In-game text is RIFE with punctuation errors and comma splices. The narrative is otherwise well written, but my ending was unceremonious and sudden. It lacked impact. I'm not playing the DLC.

The whole "using repetitive timer-based gameplay to tell stories" concept reminds me of Cultist Simulator, and some of the verbal flourishes feel like callbacks to that title. This game is considerably more simplistic than CS and feels less of a chore to play (being turn based helps a lot with that), but the amount of text feels badly bloated. There also seem to be a lot of fake choices. It's an entertaining experience, but it's too simplistic and overly verbose to be considered a good game.