Introduction
Citizen Sleeper is a role-playing adventure developed by Jump Over The Age and published by Fellow Traveler. This game released on the Nintendo Switch on May 5, 2022. On behalf of the review panel of the Handheld Gaming Community I would like to thank the publisher for the review code.
Overview
In this game you play a Sleeper. A Sleeper is a person who sells their physical body to a corporation, and they digitize your brain and put you into a mechanical body. (Not a very reliable body either.) You have escaped to a space station looking to find a new start.
Gameplay
You are playing as the Sleeper and you can choose one of three character classes. The first is an Extractor. An Extractor specializes in resource extraction. The second class you can choose is an Operator. The Operators specialize in operating drones to complete tasks. The Machinist is the last class you can pick. They specialize in fixing the systems used in extracting resources.
Dragos, who heads up the space station, introduces your character to the primary gameplay mechanism. The primary gameplay mechanism is the action dice role. At the start of every cycle you get a number of action dice. The number on the action dice determines your chances of success with a task. Each task has a difficulty level, and you must determine which of your dice rolls to use on the given task.
A Sleeper’s body is called a Frame. It is made to start degrading if isn’t serviced by their doctors. The other thing you struggle with is finding a doctor on the station who can supply these shots. This was a challenge as I was learning the gameplay. Your first objective should be to find the doctor. If you don’t find a doctor, your Frame will start to break. If your Frame breaks, you will lose the ability to use certain skills. You will get fewer dice every cycle.
Drives are the tool that Citizen Sleeper uses to progress the story. Think of Drives as quests. Every time you complete a Drive you get upgrade points you can use to develop your character.
Graphics/Performance
Citizen Sleeper reminds me of games like Persona 3 Portable where you have markers on the environment where you can move your cursor and interact with. There aren’t really any flashy graphics in this game. The game has lots of high-quality character models, and supplements what it lacks in shiny graphics with a very good story.
Story
In any game that isn’t graphically dependent, you must have a solid story. I can say with no reservations that Citizen Sleeper achieves this easily. The story is well written, and immerses you with all of the lore and details. It takes static character illustrations and brings them to life. I feel like I am back in college playing a tabletop role playing game with a human guiding the story.
Sound
If possible you should listen to the sound in this game on headphones. The background music immerses you in the world the game is building. I don’t think that this is a game you want to put on mute and have going on the background. The sound shouldn’t be ignored. It adds a lot to the game.
Value
Citizen Sleeper is currently selling on the Nintendo eShop for $19.99. I believe that this game is very much worth your $20. Between the art style, the music, and detailed story I can definitely see the player getting several hours out of this game and loving every minute. The game goes on sale often. However, if you have twenty dollars, I would suggest grabbing this game right away!
Conclusion
This game, Citizen Sleeper is a very good game, and will capture you with its art style, great sound design, and deep story. I found myself captivated by these features of the game. You can buy Citizen Sleeper on the Nintendo eShop for $19.99. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Citizen Sleeper. On behalf of the Handheld Gaming Community I would like to thank the publishers for the review code.
