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Citizen Sleeper is an interplanetary RPG that draws more than a little of its inspiration from these classic games. By borrowing mechanics and tropes, giving them a unique spin, and placing them in the context of the game’s own exciting world, Citizen Sleeper takes some of the best and most recognizable elements of these games and gives them new life. Here are some of the biggest similarities that the game shares with TTRPGs.
7 Branching Storylines
Perhaps the greatest hallmark of tabletop RPGs is player choice. Being dropped into a world and allowed to make decisions that affect the story is one of the greatest parts of these gaming experiences. Who to ally with, who to battle, what weapons to choose, and where to go are only a few of the important decisions players will make.
Citizen Sleeper includes plenty of places to go and people to meet, and it puts a great deal of control over those decisions in the player’s hands. Repeated interactions with a given character will shift the story, encouraging repeated playthroughs, since making different choices will reward the player with different results, as they interact with the game’s well-written characters, just as it would be in a TTRPG.
6 Maintaining Health
Health and injury are basic tabletop RPG mechanics that have spread throughout gaming and now appear in virtually every genre. If the character’s condition is allowed to deteriorate, they will face a variety of consequences, from debuffs in combat to undesirable options when interacting with NPCs. As a result, keeping one’s character well cared for is a top priority, regardless of the game.
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In Citizen Sleeper, the character’s condition must be maintained or fewer dice will be available, making tasks much harder. Even worse, if the character’s condition falls to zero, they will die. Maintaining the character’s condition requires regular stabilizer dosages. The character will have a variety of needs throughout the game, but none of them are more basic or essential than keeping the character alive.
5 Energy Exhaustion
Tabletop RPGs simulate the need to keep oneself energized in a variety of ways. Sleeping and eating are two of the most common. Barbarians, spies, wizards, and starship pilots all need to stay well-fed and well-rested, otherwise, they risk their energy bottoming out at the worst time, losing actions, or even falling unconscious in the middle of a battle or desperate getaway.
The character’s energy stocks drop by two every cycle, and losing all energy stocks results in the character’s condition taking a nosedive. In short, eating is essential if the player wants to keep everything else from going to pieces. Many tabletop RPGs allow players to choose unique perks that buff them against the effects of energy loss, and the same is true in Citizen Sleeper, in which the player can earn the Photosynthetic Skin perk to gain energy while passively sunbathing.
4 Class Skills
The class system is one of the most iconic features of tabletop RPGs and has been since these games were first created. Dividing characters into unique roles with different strengths and weaknesses serves several purposes: in groups it allows every player to contribute something unique to the function of the team, and it gives every player an easy way to understand their character and roleplay them more readily.
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The three classes of Citizen Sleeper serve this same function, granting the player different skills and perks to help them navigate and overcome the dangers of the world and add or subtract dice for certain tasks. Extractors, Machinists, and Operators all change the way the player approaches challenges, encouraging the player to lean into the strength of their build and capitalize on what makes each of the classes unique.
3 Exploration Is Vital
A pirate ship rests at the bottom of the cove, a glimmer of treasure within its barnacle-encrusted hull. A haunted fortress stands on a hill, untold secrets lurking within its dungeons. A contaminated lab continues to leak dangerous gases, but somewhere within the fumes lies a datapad with information that could save countless lives.
If there’s one thing that tabletop RPGs excel at, it’s giving players plenty of reasons to go poking around in every nook and cranny of their worlds. In video games, the trend is no different, and players are accustomed to barging into random NPCs bedrooms and rummaging through their desks in the hopes of finding a new item or a few coins.Citizen Sleeper rewards the player for exploring, unlocking new locations with new tasks attached to them. Some areas and activities are more dangerous than others, so the player should beware, but having a look around is still a good idea.
2 Specialize To Thrive
In most tabletop games, there’s nothing stopping players from being a jack-of-all-trades, dabbling in a variety of skills and abilities often associated with other classes, though mastering none of them. Even in games that allow such builds, the player and their allies are often better served by player specialization, with each character choosing the things they want to be best at and prioritizing them.
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Citizen Sleeper’s classes give the player options, but it’s good not to pursue everything at once, as trying to spread specializations across every available skill means the player won’t be able to reach higher-level perks, making the game harder than it needs to be towards the end. Instead, the player is better served by specializing in one or two things that their class is best at.
1 Dice
The clatter of dice across a tabletop is one of the most common and resonant features of TTRPGs. It’s a sound that stirs something in gamers because of what it represents: opportunity as well as risk, hope as well as fear. Maybe luck will be with the player. Maybe RNG will see to it that all the player’s hard work comes to nothing.
Dice serve a simple but compelling role in Citizen Sleeper. The character equips between one and five dice each cycle (the amount being determined by the character’s condition), and these dice are used to complete actions. The more dice, the higher the probability of success and the lower the odds of something going badly. Chance is a significant factor in the game, just as it is in TTRPGs. Even a good plan and lots of skill can be undone by a cruel fall of the dice.
Citizen Sleeper is available for Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PC.
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