Indie Impressions: Citizen Sleeper 2

[00:00:11] Welcome, welcome, one and all, it's another Indie Impressions episode. And it's me, Jake, from the Pre-Order Bonus Podcast. This is a... I'm... Folks, I have been super excited for this episode for two big reasons. The first one is talking about the game, Citizen Sleeper 2. Ever since I finished the first one and I heard that a sequel is coming out, I have just been on the edge of my seat waiting for it. But the second reason is that there's a guest coming out, and I'm super excited to have Evan. Evan's from The Backlog Reviewer.

[00:00:41] That is their YouTube channel. And I'll be honest, I saw you post something about Citizen Sleeper 2 sometime last year. And I was... This was on Blue Sky. And I was just like, oh my gosh, it would be a dream come true to have this person on Indie Impressions. So I'm really excited that we got this going. How are you doing? How are things going for you? Yeah, really good. I'm also really excited to be here and talking about Citizen Sleeper. I'm sort of in the same boat as yourself.

[00:01:11] When I heard there was a sequel coming out and it looked so... I saw the trailer and it was so flash and it seemed like the production was so much flashier than the last time around. And I was also extremely excited to get my hands on it. And I'm delighted to be here because I have, you know, all of my friends and immediate family, I've everyone's heads wrecked talking about this. So I'm glad to be sitting down to talk about it with someone who also wants to talk about it.

[00:01:39] Oh, that... Man, that reminds me. So I finished... And we're going to talk about this in depth in the episode. But I finished Citizen Sleeper 2 and I was playing this on console. I set down my controller and I just sat on the couch for, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes, kind of in silence. And my spouse was in the background and was like, wait, what happened? Did you finish the game? I was like, yeah. I sure did.

[00:02:06] I sure did. I didn't know what to say, you know, at that point. So likewise, I'm excited to sit down. We both have lots, lots of thoughts and things to say here. But before we get into that, really quickly, Evan, I'd love for you to talk about the YouTube channel that you've got going on. And folks, I just want to say, I love this channel. I love your content. There's one video in particular that I'm going to make a pitch for.

[00:02:33] And if anybody else listening is a From Software fan, you like Souls games, one of the best videos I've seen on Elden Ring. It's the sin begets sin about America and who that person is. And one of my favorite things about this video is that it's not a lore video, which provides a lot of freshness to talking about a Souls game. So real quick, Evan, I'd love for you to just talk about the YouTube channel. You don't exclusively do Souls stuff, but that's just one video that really stood out to me.

[00:03:01] Lots of other great things going on there as well. Death Stranding as well. For sure. But tell us about the YouTube channel. So it's sort of a mishmash on there. I don't know if I could pull a through line, but I guess I like to talk about games as texts and in a very high-minded way about themes and that kind of stuff.

[00:03:24] For example, that Elden Ring video, the most recent one, I kind of wanted to do a deep dive on Marika as a character and what her story is about. And that's sort of how I like to look at games on there. You know, doing comparative videos. You mentioned Death Stranding and Outer Wilds was that video and about loneliness and that kind of thing. So think like Timu Jacob Geller.

[00:03:53] That's how I pitched it in the past. There's your through line right there, right? For sure. Hilarious. For sure. Yeah, but folks, check this out. All the links are just in the description. Really big fan. Really big fan of that stuff. What you're doing over there is really cool on YouTube. Which is why when I saw Evan posting about Citizen Sleeper 2 on Blue Sky, I was like, oh my goodness. And I watched those videos.

[00:04:20] I was like, like I said, this would be a dream come true. What if we have them to talk about Citizen Sleeper 2? So here we are. Dreams do come true. We're talking about Citizen Sleeper 2 in this episode. And so just a quick sort of behind the scenes about what this game is. Or just a snapshot of what it is. This was developed by Jump Over the Age. And so this is a sequel. Jump Over the Age also made Citizen Sleeper. But they also made a game that I played called In Other Waters. Which is a really fantastic game.

[00:04:50] Same sort of sci-fi themes. But it's quite different in a lot of ways. This is published by Fellow Traveler. Folks, I don't know what to call this game. I put here in my notes, virtual TTRPG? I mean, I know that Jump Over the Age has talked about... Well, they are making a Citizen Sleeper game for tabletop. So who knows? Anyway, this game came out on January 31st, 2025.

[00:05:18] I played this one on Xbox through Game Pass. It is available on all major platforms. I'm probably also going to buy it for Switch. Because I think I'd like to have this on the go as well. So where did you play the game, Evan? Sure. So I also played on console. I played on PlayStation. And I think it's interesting, just jumping back into what you said about what kind of genre is this.

[00:05:44] Because I think Jump Over the Age, they have done a Citizen Sleeper tabletop role-playing game. I think at the moment it's only available through Lost in Cult. As part of a DesignWorks bundle that they did a while ago. But I know there is an In Other Waters tabletop game as well. So that's very much their sort of thing. But that wasn't at all what I took from it. I kind of came at it as a visual novel, almost. I think that's where it landed for me in terms of execution.

[00:06:14] I don't know. How did you... What was your take on that? I mean, yeah. First of all, I didn't know that In Other Waters had a tabletop. That would be cool. Yeah. Now I'm like, I need to go back. I know very little about it. But it looks cool as hell. It looks cool. I mean, Jump Over the Age is just a masterclass, I feel like, in creating these worlds where many different stories can flourish. Right? And so it kind of makes sense.

[00:06:43] And I think this is to kind of answer your question. This is kind of where I get to the tabletop RPG idea, where I feel like there's just a lot of breadth, maybe, at least in the tabletop games that I've played. And folks, I'm not like... I haven't played like a ton of them. But really creating a world that is where multiple avenues and multiple narrative threads really can make sense all at once. That's kind of why I come back to this.

[00:07:12] I think also, yeah, visual novel makes a lot of sense. Because you're reading a lot in this game. Which obviously is not the only characteristic of a visual novel. But I feel like very character-based. Very, very based on character development. And that's where a lot of the narrative threads really pull from in Citizen Sleeper 2. But yeah, I think just kind of this openness of like this story could play out.

[00:07:38] Like if we were to go back and play Citizen Sleeper 2, you would have a completely different story based on the decisions that you made. That kind of openness is where I came from for that. For sure. You know, I think that makes a lot of sense. It almost feels like a tabletop RPG through the medium of a visual novel. Now that you say it, you know, I kind of see where you're at. And it's funny, I did actually restart it last night.

[00:08:03] And I've, you know, even just in the first couple of hours, I'm already on a totally different sort of vector than my first playthrough. We'll come back to it, you know, discussions of difficulty and that kind of thing. But I started it on the very hard difficulty with the permadeath. And I've made a total mess of things that set me on a totally different path than my first run through. So yeah, it feels like a storytelling space.

[00:08:28] I think is how Gareth Damien Martin is the lead designer has spoken about the potential of that tabletop inspiration, you know? Yeah. You started it on the most difficult... That sounds terrifying to me. I played this... I'm back to it. I played through this on normal and I... We'll talk about this.

[00:08:49] I squeaked through several sections because while it's difficult to fail in this game, per se, like have a reach of fail state, you definitely can get some damage. You could accrue some scratches on the whole of your shit. For sure. You know? For sure. Yeah. Oh, man. Hats off to you. Very... Yeah. The highest difficulty sounds like good luck, man. Yeah. I didn't brave at my first run.

[00:09:19] I went in on normal. I looked at it and I kind of went, nope. Not for me. But I think coming back, you know, it's an interesting way to sort of shake things up a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. All right, folks. We are going to get into it now. We're going to be talking about Citizen Sleeper 2, obviously. This is fresh, right? This is... We're recording this less than two weeks out of launch. And it's kind of funny because we both... I mean, I just had a weekend.

[00:09:47] I was like, folks, see ya. See ya on the other side of this weekend. This weekend's for Citizen Sleeper 2. So all of a sudden... The very same. Same, right? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I devoured it. It was so hard to walk away from. But yeah, we're going to be talking about this. If you're a long-time listener of the Pre-Eater Bonus Podcast, you are very familiar that we love categories in our episodes. And that doesn't change with the Indy Impressions series.

[00:10:14] And so we will first be talking about the art direction of Citizen Sleeper 2. Next, we'll be moving on to the narrative, which we could spend hours, I think, here. But we will try to keep this to something that is actually digestible. And then we'll end with game design. And then finally, we'll talk about who we recommend this game for. And folks, typically with episodes,

[00:10:42] we will not go too far into the narrative to try to save some spoilers. However, right between game design and who we recommend this game for, we are going to allow some time for some spoiler talk. So that means endings, everything will be fair game in the entire... everything that was available in Citizen Sleeper 2 that we experienced. That will be... There'll be warnings, flashing signs, there'll be timestamps. So you will be able to skip that.

[00:11:10] And I will say this, and Evan, tell me what you think. I actually highly recommend that you skip the spoiler section if you have not played this game. There's a lot in store there, and it would be great to experience it the first time. Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think narrative is probably where I've got the most to say. And I think it's a really rich narrative, and especially towards the end, it is one of those... It's a little bit like...

[00:11:39] I was reminded of Outer Wilds towards the end, where I don't think you could have the same experience with it the second run-through, or knowing kind of where it goes. Yeah. So for sure, if you're planning on picking it up, I would skip that. Yeah. Okay. So there you have it from two of us. If you haven't played it, skip the spoiler section. If you have played it, do listen in, because I'm sure that your experience was quite different than ours.

[00:12:07] Our experiences were different as well. All right. So let's get into it. We're going to start with the art direction. The art direction in this game, I feel like, and I would love to know your thoughts on this, Evan, I feel like is really carried by the character portraits, like more than anything. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of strange. It almost feels like mixed medium, right? When you see the character portrait, which is actually center of screen, all the text is on the right,

[00:12:37] and then on the left, you have these 3D assets of the different locations that you're in. And so it's actually really, I feel like an unusual setup for how you are looking at a video game. But that character portrait kind of being center stage, they're highly detailed, and the color palettes are just gorgeous. Everybody looks super unique and important in their own way. Yeah, for me, that is just really the highlight of what is happening with art direction.

[00:13:06] I totally agree. The character portraits were actually the first thing that I, I have this big journal that I jot down my notes in when I'm playing through anything. And the very first notes I took were that the character art is just, it's gorgeous. It's so lush and detailed. I think a lot of storytelling actually is done through the character art. You know, how characters' outfits change depending on where they are, depending on what's happened to them in the story. You know, there's multiple different portraits for each character.

[00:13:37] I thought the outfit design was really considered in that way. You know, I mentioned in my notes that I think it has an almost OG Star Wars feel to it and that the outfits feel accumulated and cobbled together. You know, they're not just worn, they're used. You know, if I was to dress as one of these characters, I wouldn't know how to use the things that were, you know, clipped to their belts and slung under their arm and over their shoulder.

[00:14:06] So I think a lot is done with that. I'm curious though as to your thoughts on the, like you said, the kind of low poly 3D assets. Where do you land on those? I was really grateful that there's, I think, a noticeable improvement from Citizen Sleeper 1 to Citizen Sleeper 2 with these sort of low poly space stations. I mean, I felt like in Citizen Sleeper 1 they were just a little too like geometric

[00:14:35] and despite the fact that you had some cool shots I feel like of the cities or the different sections of Erlen's Eye. Yeah, I thought there was a great improvement. I think the sort of animations that were in there looked a lot better but I didn't want to, this is, I don't know. I love this game guys but I didn't want to look and spend all my time kind of looking at the different space stations. I think they served their function which was to ground my imagination

[00:15:04] in a certain locale but they are zoomed out. I mean, you're not really seeing corridors or rooms. You're seeing total locations whether that be just, I don't know, an asteroid or a colony but like really from the outside zoomed out perspective. So, I kind of thought that they were fine. I thought they were an improvement but I spent, I spent my time looking at the character portraits. I think you're totally right there. So much was communicated through

[00:15:33] what people looked like, what they wore and this varied quite a lot and this game has a lot to say for example about class stratification and I felt like those types of details they were all in the characters and very rarely did I actually see them in the environmental, I'm struggling to say, like the different locations that you would see. Yeah, I very much felt the same way. I think they started to feel very samey

[00:16:03] towards the end and I also loved this game. You know, I came away from it feeling very positively about it but I did feel that if I had to nitpick the environment art is probably where I would pick the nits. They not only felt very similar to each other, they all felt sort of constructed of the same stuff, of the same material. But they not only felt very similar to each other but very similar to Ireland's Eye. They know that the fidelity

[00:16:33] is a little bit better and like you say there's a jump in quality there for sure. But it made Ireland's Eye feel a little bit less distinct in retrospect which is a real shame. You know, it felt like the bright market on Ireland's Eye felt like this bustling sort of unique place in the world of Citizen Sleeper but I felt like there were markets like that all over the belt actually. And, you know, Tala's bar felt a little bit

[00:17:02] less special. You know, there's a bar on every space station, you know, which I felt was a little bit of a shame but I do think, you know, like you say, they serve their purpose of grounding your imagination. I felt like they were quite workman-like in how they were implemented. You know, they fit the bill, they did the job. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't detract. That, yeah. And I would agree with that as well. Like, just talking about like what you're looking at screen, right? So the left third, if you will, are these different environments that you're looking at and then the middle,

[00:17:32] right, character portrait in the far, in the right text just like I've already said this but it's interesting because I would love to have seen, I think about this sometimes. I don't know, this is a weird thing just because in my professional life I've worked with a lot of linguists and they use eye trackers a lot and so I was curious just based on how this game is sort of divided up is if I had an eye tracker on, where were my eyes? And I'm thinking about this in retrospect,

[00:18:02] when a new scene pops up, I feel like they would start at the left and look at the environment, they would go to the character portrait and then it would go to the text and then it would return to the character portrait but probably never back to the left side of the screen once I had seen that image. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so they were important, they were interesting, they looked good but yeah, it's, I love this comparison that you bring to like original Star Wars with some of the costumes,

[00:18:32] like what the characters look like. and I am also a little surprised that we didn't see that kind of same of like flair and variety in the different locations and a part of me is like, is that because all of these locations are living in the wreckage in the ruins of Solheim or is that because I don't know, that's just for sure what it was or is it because they're just the locations are just not nearly as important as the other things that you're looking at. What do you think?

[00:19:01] I think it, I think it's interesting that you mention living in the ruins of Solheim because I think that's the tagline for the first game is role playing in the ruins of interplanetary capitalism or something along those lines. Yeah. But, so I do think there's, you know, there is a lore reason that these places all look pretty similar. You know, they are all built by the same interstellar conglomerate. But I think a big, one of the themes that felt really vivid for me in Citizen Sleeper 2

[00:19:30] was how, even though individuals might be very similar, the experiences that they accrue are kind of what set them apart, what differentiate them. And I would have loved to have seen that represented in the environments as well. You know, even though there were two, there's two settlements in Citizen Sleeper 2 that both spring up on the back of solar reflectors. I think they're, they're the first couple that you visit. And I would have loved to have had those

[00:19:59] meaningfully differentiated in some way in the environment art. I would have loved to have seen, you know, because I think, you know, the writing reflects as a different vibe in those two settlements. It's Darkseid and Hexport. Yeah. The writing kind of makes them feel different, but I would have loved to have had the environment art carry some of that as well. I think it's more a missed opportunity than anything else. I don't think it's a negative. It's just not a, it's a lateral move. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're right. And you said that it doesn't detract,

[00:20:28] which I agree, right? We, we are picking, right, the nits a little bit here. But I, I, I love that you bring up Hexport and Darkseid because I was also thinking of Darkseid. It's just so funny because Darkseid, like on paper in isolation, doesn't sound like a really compelling name of a location, but the way that this world is constructed and you know that they're on the back of these, you know, solar reflectors, creates like this really unique feeling history, right?

[00:20:59] A lot of times when, when like places, cities are named, they are named for a specific history, right? For, a lot of times that history is just as simple as like somebody who founded the location, but other times it's a little more compelling than that. And I just feel like with Darkseid, there was a lot of opportunity to have what happens narratively there and what working conditions are like in that location for it to be reflected in the environment as well. There was another location

[00:21:29] which I'm not going to mention because you do learn about it, I would say, in the mid game. So, there was one other location though that I was a little surprised. I was like, oh, I guess this is kind of, this is what it looks like, huh? And yeah, I kind of wish I would have seen a little more there. For sure. No, I think we're pretty much on the same page there. It's, like I say, it doesn't detract but there was an opportunity for it to add and it was an opportunity

[00:21:58] that wasn't taken, I felt, which is such a shame because again, the character art is so lush and I think what you said there about the art reflecting the sort of working conditions, that is something that's communicated through the art with one of the characters specifically who you start with and I don't know how much of a spoiler this is but you do start alongside a character who is sort of your companion and he has a specific portrait on Darkside that kind of reflects

[00:22:28] that that is a, you know, it collects heat this station so he's dressed more lightly there. So again, you know, it is something that the game is conscious of and it is something that the artists were thinking about and I just would have loved it. I wanted more. Yeah, this is, this all, I feel like what I got. Right, the drive for this is just for a thirst for more, right? For sure. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, man, that character, the character portraits,

[00:22:58] the way that they change too, I know that you had mentioned this but that was something that a lot of this game narratively has to do with trust and it felt like that was really wonderfully reflected as character portraits would change over time. But before we get totally into narrative, final things to sort of talk about in art direction, the music and sound design. This is Amos Roddy,

[00:23:28] I believe, that's how that's pronounced but yeah, that's right. Music, beautiful, gorgeous but one thing that really stood out to me is actually just the sound design. There's a lot of just like industrial hums and buzz and crowd chatter that happens in the background and man, for a game that is mostly text where you're not actually moving through the spaces, I really felt like I was planted

[00:23:57] right in the middle of something that was happening. I was just, yeah, I love the sound design. The music, of course, enhanced all like the emotional moments and the kind of dangers that you were weaving in and out of but I really fell in love with the sound design. I felt like this game like really allows for your imagination to just run with what is happening in the moment and what the characters are doing. I'm so curious that you've said that. I also came

[00:24:27] away thinking that the music by the way was just superb. Amos Roddy is such a sicko. Some of those tracks are such bops. There was a couple of them went up on Spotify in the days before the game came out. I think it was Signal Chasers and Sun Catchers or something like that. And they went onto my gym playlist. Yeah. I've been on the treadmill listening to Citizen Sleeper.

[00:24:57] But the audio design, I don't know if maybe I didn't pay the same attention to it as you. I felt it faded into the background a little for me. I would have loved a little bit more. Again, just more distinctness. I would have loved to have felt that the soundscape for the different space stations was a little bit more distinct and had maybe a bit more personality. But again, the way that you're speaking about it, I'm thinking maybe I just need to pay more attention because you seem to have gotten that from it.

[00:25:27] I mean, it was on my mind before going into the game. I've just been thinking about sound design a lot more. I just think that, I don't know, again, weird things I think about while playing games. I'm thinking about using eye trackers to see where people are looking on screen. I was also thinking about assuming that Amos Roddy went out and recorded a bunch of these sounds and then mixed them, where did you get some of these sounds? Some of the

[00:25:57] sounds to me, and this is what stood out to me because I think you're right in that like, the bustling crowd sort of ambient background noise is going to be the same in the different locations throughout the game. But for example, just some of the industrial sounds, ooh, there's one scenario in particular, and it is a bit of a spoiler, so we'll probably come back to this because we both have this in our notes, but there's one in particular where there's a lot of machinery

[00:26:25] noises, and I'm going to try to make hints, so Evan knows I'm talking about, but maybe the listener doesn't. There's a lot of starting up of an old manufacturing location. Okay. I'm with you. No, I'm with you on that one. Okay. That's a fantastic moment, but we'll come back to it. It's excellent. Yeah, we will come back to that one. That particular, I guess, event, I will say, that's where sound design was like, okay, where do these

[00:26:54] sounds come from exactly, and how did he mix them together to make them work here? So that was one moment where the sound design really worked for me, but I do agree that when you go to the bar and there's a bar in every single major location, it's going to be the same background chatter. Yeah. What I will say is that, you know, you're absolutely right about that specific event. That had kind of slipped my mind, but that's excellent. But while I didn't feel that the individual stations

[00:27:24] kind of stood out in that regard, the universe does, the setting does, the setting definitely has a texture, and the audio does play a part in that. You know, if I was to listen to it blindfolded, I could tell you it was Citizen Sleeper, music or no. Yeah. I think, you know, the craftsmanship of the audio design is definitely to be admired. Yeah, I absolutely agree. Yeah, you're blindfolded. Somebody says, hey, what game is this

[00:27:53] from? You're going to be able to pick it out. It is so unique and so tailor-made to the Citizen Sleeper world and game experience. I agree. For sure. All right. Are there any other things about art direction that you'd like to talk about before we get into narrative and just listeners, narrative is probably, I would be shocked if it wasn't the biggest part of this episode because there's so much to discuss, even if we're not talking about, you know, spoilers right now.

[00:28:23] But anything else you want to touch about art direction? Yeah, so I mentioned at the outset that art direction and presentation is probably where I've got the most nitpicks. And I think, as I've said up till now, none of it has been a detractor. None of it was a roadblock. You know, I enjoyed all of it. It was all very, it was all good to great to fantastic, you know, varying shades. What I have consistently, not had a problem with, but what has

[00:28:53] consistently bugged me, I guess, if I jump over the ages games is actually the UI design and not in the presentational sense. It always looks great. And I, you know, I think about it in other waters and how unique that looked. Yeah. The color palette and everything. But I do find it can be, I think Noah Gervais put it in his video on Diablo 2. He mentioned that it was difficult to use. And I do often feel that way about Citizen Sleeper and

[00:29:22] about, in other waters specifically, but playing on console, you know, the shoulder buttons open and close your quests menu and your stats screen. And my instinct is that, you know, to use the circle button then to close them out. But if you open your quests and then open your map and then you can't access the map because you've got your quests open and then you go to press circle and that just closes the map again and you're back to square one. I've kind of found myself chasing my tail trying to manage the UI.

[00:29:52] But again, maybe that's a me problem. I don't know if that's my brain full of rocks or whatever. I just can't seem to get a handle on it. It's a you and me problem because I'm glad you brought this up. The shoulder button menu system, my brain was like logically this makes sense. You press the left shoulder button and you open up your quest menu and then you start, you know, use the D-pad or the thumbstick whatever to see what you've got

[00:30:21] in there and then you close it with the left shoulder button. But yeah, I don't know. I kept going on Xbox controller pressing B to try to get out of these menus or I actually found myself in this bind quite often where I would forget to close the quest menu and then I would try to scroll through the map to get to a different location and I was like, wait, why isn't it moving? I was like, oh, I'm still stuck in my quests or whatever it is. So I had something similar there where

[00:30:50] it's specifically with the quest menu more than other ones and then I actually saw this in a few gaming discords. I've seen other people have this problem. So I'm wondering if you had this too in the tutorial. And so I'll talk about this just kind of it's tutorials, the early part of the game, so I don't consider it to be too big of a spoiler, but it introduces a new mechanic, which is that you can bring companions along with you on different contracts. And this is crucial

[00:31:19] because you have your set of dice, but they will also bring dice. And then we'll talk about mechanics in a bit. So I won't talk too much more beyond that. But what I didn't realize is that I thought I had selected a companion for the first contract in the tutorial. Now one is you can bring up to two companions and for this particular one, one of your companions is locked. So you don't have to bring them and you can't, you know, not have them in there. I thought I had the second companion in, but I didn't.

[00:31:54] From the get-go of the game. And I was like, oh boy, I did something wrong here. What did I do wrong exactly? And I don't know if that's because like the buttons, the virtual buttons will switch from white to yellow. And I don't know if I just didn't see the color change or if I just wasn't paying attention to enough, but that was a problem that I had as well too. Sometimes I had to double or triple check that I had something selected that I want to use. Oh no, absolutely. I did the same thing more than

[00:32:24] I was lucky enough not to have left anyone behind. That's rough. But that happened to you. I do not recommend doing a contract with less than the maximum amount of people. But yeah, that sounds like not a fun time, but I found I consistently had to think about navigating the menus more than I felt like I should. And I feel like that's often been the case with Jump Over the Edge and specifically in other waters. I played that on Switch and that's

[00:32:54] I thought the touchscreen would sort of make that an ideal medium for that, but it's really not the case. It's really awkward and really finicky and it is better in Citizen Sleeper 2 and it's better in Citizen Sleeper 2 than it was in the first game. But it just required more brain power. And like you said, it is logical. I found myself going through that exact same thought process. I open it with this button, I also need to close it with this button, but consistently. Because I think as well, the menu itself is small and it's

[00:33:23] in the corner, you move your eyes away from it. Your eye tracker would show that you're then looking back at the 3D map to scroll up and down and navigate to the objective that you've chosen. But you have to remember to close this menu and it was something that I found consistently I didn't remember to do. Okay. So there are multiple people like us who had this problem. I think you're right though. I think part of it was because

[00:33:53] the menu wouldn't take you to an entirely new screen. You're still looking at all the information, which I understand that choice because you need to process a whole lot of information that you're looking at. This game is very information heavy. And so having the menu just open right there in the corner works. It makes sense. But yeah, suddenly trying to close it out and then or in my case forget to close it out and then you're

[00:34:22] like, crap, I can't cycle through these things. What did I not do? Is the game broken? You know, no, the game's not broken. My brain is broken because I can't figure this out. No, I'm glad I'm not alone there. It's nice to be in the same boat. It's funny though. It is funny. All right, folks, let's move on to narrative. What I'd like us to start with is talk just really briefly about how the

[00:34:52] game begins in the tutorial to kind of set up what the narrative arc is for Citizen Sleeper 2. And then the bulk of this section will talk a lot about major themes, kind of pulling somewhat vaguely from the game different instances of how those themes play out. And that's kind of how this will go. Just to reiterate for listeners about spoilers, there will be a spoiler section. There will be alarm bells. There will be warnings when that stuff's about to happen. So don't

[00:35:22] worry about it. We'll be a little more vague as we talk about things right now. But yeah, the narrative arc, this is a really, I don't know, I was really shocked actually that the game started this way. It starts with a well-worn trope, but I don't think it was necessarily bad here. But you wake up, you know, wake up, sleeper. You are a sleeper. This isn't clearly explained right from the get-go, but essentially you're

[00:35:52] like an emulated human consciousness in a robot, like in a synthetic body. And you start the game having your system rebooted, and the reboot was kind of half baked, and so you're really disoriented. And so I think this is a fine way to introduce a player into the world, because whenever you have an amnesiac protagonist, it gives them reason to ask a lot of questions, and all these answers are really less

[00:36:21] for the protagonist and more for the player. So I get it as an onboarding narrative design choice, but I don't know, it's really quite different than how Citizen Sleeper 1 begins. It's a different sense of urgency that comes into play. I know you had written notes on this, so I want to pass the ball to you. What did you think about that opening? And I'm talking about the first two minutes of the game here. No, for sure. I think it's

[00:36:50] really interesting. So Amnesiac protagonist, it is a cliche, and it is a trope, but I think it's a cliche for a reason. I think it's really effective. But I don't think that Citizen Sleeper 2 is necessarily doing it to introduce a new player to the world, in that the information density is really high. Everything comes at you sort of thick and fast, especially in the opening. You know, you get a brief

[00:37:20] three-line run through of, you know, I'm a sleeper, I'm an emulated consciousness, whatever. It's very short and sharp. I think it goes a long way, though, to sort of ground some of the themes of the game. You know, it winds up, the game winds up being in a lot of ways, being about identity and the precarity of identity. And I think that's really foregrounded by the amnesia protagonist because and I don't think this is a spoiler, this is

[00:37:50] first 60 seconds kind of material. Yeah. You, you know, you wake up from your reboot and you're very disorientated, but you wake up next to a friend who's, I went back and forth on how to pronounce his name, whether it's seraphine or seraphine or I said seraphine because at one point somebody refers to seraphine as fin. So he's right. Yes, that's my best guess.

[00:38:21] So you, you wake up next to seraphine and you wake up, and I think that's sort of meaningful because you wake up next to someone who misses the old you, who misses the person that you've forgotten that you were. And I think that's a really interesting way of starting out the narrative. So I think it's a really, it's a novel spin on an old trope, I think. And like you said, the sense of urgency is very different to the first game. It almost starts out, I think,

[00:38:49] at a point in your character's arc, like where you would have been halfway through or towards the end of the first game. You know, you're surmounting a problem that is very much a first half of Citizen Sleeper 1 problem. Yeah. Yeah. You make a really good point there. Yeah, because you do start with somebody. And I think you're right. Now I'm reevaluating. This is good because this game is so thematically heavy.

[00:39:19] And like you said, identity and the precarity of identity is a huge part of Citizen Sleeper 2. It's a big part of Citizen Sleeper, the first game. But I feel like more so here in this sort of introduction with waking up, not remembering exactly who you were, who the person next to you is. There's a lot here about memory. And there's a lot here about one of my favorite topics, which is how people choose to present history, right? You know, Seraphine has an opportunity here, you know, somebody

[00:39:49] that they've worked with closely for a really long time suddenly doesn't remember who they are, like in any capacity. Seraphine is actually in a position of a lot of power. How do I want to sort of present the history of this person? It's a moment that is highly susceptible to manipulation. And yeah, there's a lot. This game talks about how just like power is really permeated. it's in every aspect of sort of these relationships and how they're

[00:40:19] built and whether that be systemic or whether that be between one person or another and especially a lot about labor relationships, bosses towards workers and laborers. And so, yeah, dang, you're right. I think narratively you start with all sorts of precarity, right? And that I feel like is probably one of the biggest themes of the game. It's baked into the game design, you know, and it's with all the different characters that you know, on the belt, which is, you know, essentially the

[00:40:48] location where all of these events take place. Yeah, so I do like that. I think that's a good way to kind of think about why does, why start with sort of this amnesiac protagonist. And like you said, and this, this is spoilers for Citizen Sleeper 1, which hopefully you've played by now, but the main drive in Citizen Sleeper 1 is that you are escaping a bounding hunter and that you are dependent on stabilizers to maintain sort of the connection between the emulated

[00:41:17] human consciousness and your synthetic body. And that is a huge drive and it really gets you, you know, makes you wake up and sit on the edge of your couch or the edge of your computer chair and be like, crap, we need to figure this out now. But in Citizen Sleeper 2, you wake up and you're thinking, I don't know, the urgency felt really different for me in the sequel. Yeah, I think that that comes kind of from a change of focus in Citizen Sleeper 2 as well. I think, I felt the first game was very much about Erland's Eye, it was very much about

[00:41:47] the place. Yeah. Whereas the second game was very much about you, about your character, about your sleeper. It was their story as they moved through the belt. Whereas the first game, you know, it was your sleeper sort of making a home. So, you know, overcoming the need for a stabilizer was a part of making Erland's Eye safe and making it home. You know, the bounty hunter there in the first game, and this is sort of a minor mid-game spoiler for Citizen

[00:42:17] Sleeper 1. But he does, he makes his way to the Eye and if you play your cards right, he sort of winds up as a drunk in one of the bars in the market district. So he sort of fails to make this place his home, whereas you then surpass him, you know, you build yourself a home and you make contacts on the Eye. So I thought that was interesting. I think, like you're saying, the urgency kind of stems from that because it is more immediate. It is more about situational

[00:42:47] moment-to-moment precarity in the second game. Yeah, because the tutorial of the second game, I mean, Seraphine is really driving the narrative here and it says, we got to get out because we're actually being chased. And so kind of returning to this question of like, there's this really, there's this moment where the main character, you, the protagonist sleeper, are highly susceptible to just manipulation or whatever people want to tell you is the truth.

[00:43:17] Seraphine, it thankfully is honest, is like, okay, we try to reboot you because we're escaping, you know, our super oppressive boss because of this work that we do at this location, Hexport. He's like trying to explain as much as possible. You're right, it is information density, he's just throwing all this stuff at you. And so you have to scramble, you have a stolen ship and you have to scramble to sort of get the heck out of Hexport before your boss catches up to you because they know that

[00:43:47] you're gone. And so yeah, the urgency I feel like is super like in the tutorial, the urgency is really, really, really high. And then I feel like eventually when you do leave Hexport, that for me, that moment was a real strange of openness that kind of came to a game that like you were pointing out with Citizen Sleeper 1. Citizen Sleeper 1 is about like, or one of the things it's about is finding a home on Erlen's eye and what it takes to do that. And just like a

[00:44:16] quick sidebar, the first ending I got for Citizen Sleeper 1 was actually the joining the farmers. For sure. Yeah, so, which is, you know, the commune. Thank you. I was blanking on it. But here, yeah, that is not really an option. It's like, no, we leave Hexport and we'll just have to see kind of what comes.

[00:44:45] We get out of Dodge. Yeah. We play it by ear. Yeah, no, I think, I think Citizen Sleeper 1 found its sense of home in place in Erlen's eye. I don't think there were many endings where you actually left the eye. I think it was maybe half and half. But I think Citizen Sleeper 2 finds that sense of home in people instead. You know, it's in the crowded bunk of your stolen ship is where you get that sort of the comfort comes in.

[00:45:16] Yeah. Yeah, I think you're spot on there. Yeah, the game just feels quite different in that regard. And something that I thought was really interesting is in, you know, sleepers are considered really unusual and not exactly super common because they're created by the S&R Corporation and that corporation tends to have a relatively tight hold on sleepers. And here I'm kind of moving us into the broader narrative about labor relationships.

[00:45:46] But there's way more than that in this game. There's a lot about identity. There's a lot about gender. I played this game and I was like, I don't know. I think at the end I was like 85% of this game is about gender and identity, you know, which I loved. I loved getting into sort of those aspects of the game. But anyway, as a sleeper, you are always viewed as other. And something that I loved about this game is how uncomfortable

[00:46:16] it made me, the player, feel about how people always looked at me. And they didn't have to say anything. But they looked at me and they saw all of the power dynamics of labor, of what it means to be one type of consciousness in a different type of body, which to me spoke a lot to what it's saying about gender. And there's this sense of uneasiness in body

[00:46:46] that I felt like was so much more powerful than in Citizen Sleeper 1. And so I've kind of opened a can do you think were probably the biggest major narrative themes that you took from once you left the tutorial? What were the biggest ones for you? I think it's funny because labor actually isn't one that I thought a huge amount about as I was playing through it. But now that you mention it,

[00:47:16] it's so obvious. And I think I wrote in my notes that I was really curious to hear what someone without blue hair and pronouns thought about this game because gender was something that spoke to me a lot. I think the way that gender is written about is really poignant and raw oftentimes. It's written about both allegorically and literally. There are non-binary characters in this. For

[00:47:46] listeners who might not know, Gareth Damien Martin, the lead designer, is non-binary themselves. So it's non-binary art by non-binary people. Non-binary non-binary. But yeah, so I think identity and gender obviously spoke to me a huge amount. Yeah, I'm curious about labour because it's not an aspect of the game

[00:48:16] that I really thought about barring that there is one section where it's very difficult not mentioned it's more explicit this time around. I don't think Sleeper from Citizen Sleeper 1 was explicitly non-binary. I don't recall them being gendered anyway very often whereas I think Seraphine within the first thing he

[00:48:45] says is they are free in reference to your character. So you're playing as an explicitly non-binary character which is really cool. And like you said there's a divorce between the consciousness that's housed within this sort of mechanical frame and the frame itself. It's a mind that is not congruent with the body. And it's interesting because I think something that I've often tried to articulate is what does a non-binary

[00:49:15] body look like? It's not naturally occurring is probably the wrong way to put it. But it's something that I've struggled to articulate for myself. The way the sleeper thinks of the alienness of their body is very poignant. And it does instill a sense of unease which I thought was sort of heavy at times. Oh yeah.

[00:49:45] There were times there's one character. Sorry this is mid game so I'm going to talk about it vaguely but it's also like mid game leading into some of the final quests or the missions that start in late game. I'm just going to say this again. So Evan and people who have played get it but people who haven't maybe won't understand. Seraphine's drinking buddy. Oh yes. This was a character that

[00:50:15] I grew to hate in maybe 30 seconds and in part it comes down to this moment where the way that this person treats sleeper with this sort of the wink is playful on the surface but underneath feels malicious the way that they talk about the sleeper as a as a non-person it was so

[00:50:44] grating to me to be in that position and then you know I'm a cisgender person and then to feel that moment and to recognize that like wait I'm playing as a non-binary person and this person this other person is making all these microaggressions towards me and it was so irritating and I was like how does sleeper not slug this person in the face right now I was like give me the dice roll for slug this dude in the face because I

[00:51:13] cannot stand how this person is treating me and so but that was I felt all this fury and then I just felt like oh my goodness I felt this deep moment of empathy where I was like there are people who are putting up with these types of microaggressions every day of their lives and I simply would not have the patience to keep my fist in my pocket you know this is a very cisgender

[00:51:43] you know heterosexual male thing to say respond with violence but like that that was that was one moment in particular where my heart just you know it just suddenly gained it got so heavy because I thought this is so burdensome to feel microaggressions being thrown at me left and right and it's interesting because up until that point in the game for me in citizen sleeper 2 there are plenty of microaggressions that are leveled against the player

[00:52:12] that are leveled against the sleeper because they're a sleeper and I felt like up until that moment they were they kind of floated between metaphorical and literal like in terms of how you know non-normative genders are treated but that moment it felt way too like literal it felt I think I think it does a really the writing does a really interesting thing where when you

[00:52:42] meet a new character any new character for the first time and this includes crew it includes antagonists those who are ambivalent to your character there is always or almost always an opening paragraph where sleeper describes the way that this person they're meeting is looking at them and I feel like they're always conscious of their difference of you know their different body

[00:53:12] of the different way that they're perceived but I really love and I think it sort of reconciles in a lot of ways some of the discomfort I really love that sleeper never apologizes for their difference they're aware but never apologetic they you know you've got the opportunity to sort of rankle at people who you know speak down to you in this game but you never have the opportunity to thank someone who treats you with you know

[00:53:42] just basic humanity which I thought was really nice it feels very grounded and very real and that it doesn't sugarcoat the sense of otherness it doesn't pretend that there is no sense of otherness I think the game does manage to talk about gender in a really casual way especially with some of the other non-binary characters I think there's some really fantastic conversations between some of your crew and sleeper about gender and about identity that sort of dance around these topics with a great deal of nuance and tact

[00:54:12] but it's very adamant as well and I think there's a character further in who is who reveals that he's a refugee and he sort of puts it in a really excellent succinct way where I think he says something like when you reveal that you're a refugee people expect hurt from you they expect vulnerability and instead I prefer to meet them with strong demands or something like that

[00:54:42] it's sort of a theme that runs through where the characters that the game views in a positive light refuse to sort of apologize or acquiesce because of their otherness or because of the ways that they're marginalized and I think you know a lot of the a lot of the reviews of this game tossed around the word optimistic and I think that really hits the nail on the head you know it's unflinching but ultimately optimistic which is really refreshing yeah I think that's a beautiful way of putting

[00:55:11] it because there is and I had saved some of these comments for we're talking about the game design but yeah as much as some characters this one in particular I would find really irritating or grating and not that means that they were well written right they're getting this emotional response out of me but yeah there is a sense of optimism where it's like you know what though if you have and I've I kind of would wrap it up this way there's optimism and solidarity like when you can find

[00:55:41] like-minded individuals and when you can come together and kind of pull your resources together with trust and with solidarity that you can overcome so many different you know things that are thrown at you whether that be like on an individual level whether that be in a systemic level that there's plenty of opportunity in solidarity for success and for actually improving one's

[00:56:11] circumstances and that I felt like was repeated a lot with a bunch of the different characters and so for me that's where I found a lot of the optimism in this game I mean you are pretty low I would say when it comes to class structure in this game and most people that you meet throughout this game you don't ever become buddy buddies really at least in my experience with anybody who is pulling all the strings with anybody who's got money or influence

[00:56:40] it's you and it's the everyman that you're with right that when you come together and when you put together your skills specifically like when you go out to do contracts or whatever it is that's where the success comes from it comes from not having to shoulder it alone and this actually I'm actually paraphrasing a conversation that you have relatively early on with somebody else who asks you and I thought this conversation was fascinating because this is a human

[00:57:10] and they're talking to you the sleeper and you you a sleeper find yourself to be like the captain of a crew and this person who has a lot of experience with leadership asks you questions about leadership and how you choose to lead a group which I found to be really fascinating because it was like okay this person is looking at sleeper for their merit and their abilities and not for their personhood

[00:57:41] and they're choosing to exercise humility to gain knowledge from somebody who has shown more expertise in leadership and that was another moment for me where I was like oh man where is the humanity you know the humanities in just looking at somebody and recognizing with humility who they are what they bring to the table and then just you know I feel like just trying to learn from somebody like having the humility to learn from somebody rather than

[00:58:10] just looking at them and thinking oh well that person's a sleeper I don't think they have much to offer when in reality the sleeper has so much to offer so many people across the belt for sure that's a really lovely way of putting it and I think it's something that sleeper almost has to learn to accept to an extent I feel you know there's a line that comes or for me came about a third of the way into the game and it comes after sort of

[00:58:40] a revelatory moment for sleeper where they say no one gets to choose their body everyone has to deal with the entropy of their flesh which is great it's so metal but it does sort of speak to that you know solidarity like we're all in the same boat and you know if we all pitch in we might get some stuff done we might get this contract done or we might you know end this I don't want to spoil anything we might get through

[00:59:10] this adversity and I think that's another sort of big thing that the game talks about is how people move through and are shaped by adversity and how communities move through and are shaped by adversity you know there's like Hexport where you start out or Darkside excuse me where you start out is a community that's grown on the back of this industrial architecture you know this solar collector or whatever

[00:59:39] and I think a lot of the game's characters I like that you know they grow in these hostile places on asteroids and derelict space stations and they figure out a way to live anyway yeah I like that quite a lot oh yeah this game is not afraid to show its scars right whether that be characters or communities these people have been through things they continue to grow and they continue to change change and another sense of

[01:00:09] optimism for me was they continue to seek improvement right they continue to look for betterment of their lives and there's a lot of characters here who are just simply unselfish and I felt like one of the first characters you meet and this is really early in the game but I am going to avoid it for reasons but one of the first people that you can recruit to join your crew was just for me

[01:00:38] a beautiful example of an unselfish person and that to me was like wow because you are unselfish to sleeper all the time we're actually able to accomplish quite a lot together and I just kind of love that sort of selflessness and this is something you know this is just kind of the reality of like a long-term stable relationship is when your desire is your

[01:01:08] partner's success and that is a shared desire your partner's desire is your success as well that's when a relationship can really flourish and you become more powerful than just two people and I just love how in citizen sleeper 2 there are many moments I feel like with specific characters as you get to know them as you kind of do quests for them where that reality is really showcased and that to me is just another sense of optimism

[01:01:38] like in people you can find a lot of power for good for sure I really like what you said there about there being a lot of characters who continue to work to sort of better their circumstances because I think there are a lot of characters who sort of get through these tough adverse situations by sort of hardening you know there are a lot of malicious manipulator sort of archetype characters in this game you know the main sort of antagonist

[01:02:08] springs to mind who I'm sure we'll probably talk about in more detail in a little bit but I feel like the story sort of lionizes the human survivors of adversity like the people who shelter their humanity and who don't sort of harden their hearts to get through it I think there's a lot of characters who sort of continue to give of themselves to ameliorate the circumstances that made it necessary for them to shelter their humanity in the first place and that's who the game sort of has

[01:02:38] a most empathetic eye for that's sort of who it lionizes I guess which I think is really lovely and again it is that sort of idea of optimism again you know even though the circumstances are often tough and harsh and the world doesn't feel sugarcoated at all it feels nasty at times and there are places and you know moments in this game where the areas you're in

[01:03:07] feel dead you know there's nothing there but then you manage to pull a success or you pull the seeds of something better or something beautiful from it anyway so it's like a recurring motif or a recurring sort of feeling that came up for me again and again as I moved through the narrative I thought it was so lovely and so sort of uncharacteristic you know we're in a funny time in the world right now so it's nice to move through a story where the

[01:03:37] characters are also in sort of a tough time and I felt like Citizen Sleeper 2 was felt more post apocalyptic or post collapse than the first game did maybe as a result of it being spread across this sort of scattered array of space stations and asteroids and stuff but you know there was so it focused on the humanity that survived through that collapse you know no matter how grim the post

[01:04:09] there were there were still these little pockets of life and pockets of beauty and connection yeah I love that that reminds me I taught a class about a year ago it was on apocalyptic literature and so just briefly so this doesn't turn into a lecture I'll say what's fascinating about post-apocalyptic literature is we use this term and it sounds amazing who doesn't love the word apocalypse or apocalyptic

[01:04:39] but those words are supposed to mean the very end yet we have stories that take place after the very end right and so one of the questions that I posed with my students as we were going through this literature is who who was it the end for if rather than thinking that it was the end all be all of everything if we're talking about stories in the post-apocalypse and take any one of them that you would think about whether that be just like a classic zombie movie

[01:05:09] or whatever right like who was the apocalypse for was it for this type of people was it for this group of people was it for these and what does that mean and I feel like that's where we started a lot of our conversations and so I'm glad that you brought this up with we are living in like a post-collapse society in Citizen Sleeper 2 everybody's making reference to the Solheim collapse right and everybody's making reference to this intergalactic company corporate battle

[01:05:38] these two massive entities these kind of faceless corporations that all they want to do is you know suck you dry of every single penny of every single ounce of energy that you have right yet there is persistence there is resistance and there is life that exists outside of that and so it's like who was the collapse for who was the apocalypse for right and then if you are

[01:06:08] somebody who survives that maybe you don't have to live by the rules of the apocalypse if you're still kicking after the apocalypse occurs does that make sense yeah I love that and something sort of odd that ties into that a little bit is there's a weird sort of recurring fascination that these games have with fungus I don't know if this is something you spotted when you were playing through yes like there's a huge a huge

[01:06:37] inordinate amount of the first game is about gathering fungus and growing mushrooms like there are I think there are three or four characters whose stories explicitly tie into the farming of fungus yes and they come back in this game they can grow in places that you wouldn't expect and something that I kind of jotted down in my notes was that Citizen Sleeper 2 talks about humanity like we are the most beautiful slime mold in the universe you know we just grow in

[01:07:07] every crack and crevice it's sort of irrepressible you know and I think that ties into what you're saying a little bit it might have been the apocalypse or the collapse or the end for Solheim or for the capital I guess of interstellar capital the ruins of interstellar capital is that tagline from the first game so that the end might have been for them but it is not for us lowly slime molds who are content to grow on the backs of their solar

[01:07:37] collectors and their derelict space stations you know it's lovely yeah I love the way that you phrased that that was perfect I mean it's true there's beauty but at the same time it's slime mold right and who says slime mold can't be beautiful it's all life it's all life yeah I like that folks that's us talking very vaguely about the narrative and I think I speak for both of us when I

[01:08:07] say honestly you should just play the game but any last things you want to get in before we talk about game design and then move to spoilers oh gosh I mean there's so much I know there is so much I think we've been pretty

[01:08:42] so I wrote a little bit about Norco and it sort of started life as an experimental geography project is how the devs put it that was written based off interviews with people in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina and I often felt playing Norco that you could kind of tell the bits you could almost feel the interviewee through the screen at times you know the writing would sort of take on this very vivid cast and in the parts of

[01:09:11] Citizen Sleeper where characters are talking about identity and gender I got that same sort of vibe it feels very experiential a lot of the writing in a way that grounds it and gives it a sort of a unique texture and tone and it's anything else I've played in that regard is specifically with regards to gender and to identity you know I recently played through the Veil Guard the

[01:09:41] recent Dragon Age game and you so Dragon Age the Veil Guard is I have it I'm looking at it actually right over here it's on my backlog but something that I really

[01:10:11] appreciate about and I think it's good to the other you have citizen sleeper that player choice right the

[01:10:40] sleeper is non binary and you play as a non binary person throughout this game and I just I think both options have their merit right in terms of what they are allowed to I don't know if allowed is the word what they are designed I think is a better word I'm thinking of what they kind of designed for that experience to be and I think citizen sleeper 2 I really really appreciated that I had to play

[01:11:10] as a non binary person for that experience and that story right because I just feel like if for example citizen sleeper 2 had like a character creator at the beginning which really you can pick a class and that's about it right but you don't pick anything else about your character don't get me wrong I think citizen sleeper 2 still would have been an incredible game but it just had me go through a very specific experience that I just don't live day to

[01:11:54] equally I looking forward to having a game that has a ton of options in it I

[01:12:25] authored to be a non binary story in a lot of ways found family plays a big part in it and I'm sure we'll get into that maybe in the more spoiler areas but then halfway down that spectrum you've got the veil guard where it's very earnest it's got a lot of options it affords a great spectrum of stories and I for that

[01:12:55] or to make that part of the narrative in any way which is fine it's good that the option is there I'd rather it be it's

[01:13:25] nice that we have both I'm glad that both exist I'm really glad that Citizen Sleeper 2 exists yeah I absolutely agree with you this is something Arco was my game of the year for 2024 and part of the reason why I love Arco and

[01:13:55] Latin American history and culture broadly to how that type of story gets told right and what I love about Arco is that it's an anthology you rotate protagonists and there's a lot of different reasons for that and I'm specifically talking about this vaguely if you're listening highly recommend you play Arco but what I loved about Arco is that if that story were broader if you got to do a character creator for each of the characters that you go through you're going to lose a whole lot about what makes that game

[01:14:25] so importantly Latin American as it's talking about things like settler colonization as it's talking about capitalism as it's talking about racism like that stuff could still be there but it's definitely going to be watered down right and I agree with you I think in Citizen Sleeper 2 same thing right like the story really does well with this intentional authoring because it allows the

[01:15:08] it it it it a different experience and the points that are sharp are just simply going to be different ones and having this is what I love about games and what I love about art and media broadly is that when you have this massive absolutely massive charcuterie board right of different types of games from different types of people man you just get some of the flavors that you couldn't have dreamed of before that you fall

[01:15:58] into the industry as a solo dev especially right now but oh my god as a player of video games what a time to be alive you got no reason to complain really yeah exactly exactly yeah all right we're waxing a little poetic here but I think it very much fits for sake of time we're going to talk a little bit about game design and then we've got stuff that we got to get out for spoilers so I'm going to move us along here

[01:16:28] game design what I'm going to say is we had talked about optimism in this game I would essentially what happens in citizen sleeper 2

[01:16:57] is you will have a set of dice and you need to roll them for different checks to get through different scenarios the big scenarios are called contracts where you need to stock up on supplies which essentially allows you to have more turns to roll dice to fulfill just specific requirements right maybe you need to get I don't know eight positive rolls in order to and so it all comes down to the dice

[01:17:27] and the way that citizen sleeper 2 is quite different than citizen sleeper 1 is that your dice depending on your stress as a character your stress as a sleeper but also with your crewmates your dice can break and they can glitch and they can be permanently glitched and so your dice can get real bad and the odds can get stacked against you pretty quickly I like I royally screwed myself up I got a

[01:17:56] permanent glitch from the tutorial that I carried with me throughout the entire game and just to explain when you roll dice these are six sided die and essentially if you roll a one or a two there's a 50% chance of a negative or neutral outcome if you roll a three or four there's 25% chance of a negative or positive outcome and then 50% for a neutral outcome if you roll a five it's

[01:18:26] 50% neutral 50% positive and if you roll a six it's 100% positive and if you have a glitch die it's 20% positive or 80% negative outcome so I just threw out a bunch of numbers at you but basically if you have a glitch die you have a dead die it's it's really hard to it's rough it's bad I don't recommend it

[01:19:17] I and I read this and I thought to myself why did I not do this I just simply didn't think hey I've only spent an hour in the game I should restart it but instead I was like now I'll just have

[01:19:49] I I this is crazy yeah I don't know I would just be afraid like if I started on very difficult I'd be like I'm going to end the it

[01:20:19] it I think it's really interesting I think the contracts are a very sensical addition because they weren't a part of the first game and I felt that the sort of texture or the pacing of the first game you kind on

[01:20:49] this today and you sort of monkey barred from that then to the dialogue sections where you might go several in-game days without speaking to another character in the first game and then you progress a timer you get to read the next bit of the story which is why I went visual novel it feels like I am moving from story to story but I think the contracts and some of the other editions as well the contracts provide connective tissue

[01:21:19] it's a third mode of gameplay that you know it still uses the same verbs you're still progressing timers you're still rolling dice you're still playing the chances of you know if you've got a three you know am I going to risk it and am I going to risk this negative outcome it's still the same thought processes so it's sort of a middle ground between the strictly authored written sections and the day to day

[01:21:49] subsistence so I thought it was a really it almost felt obvious you know I feel like I could go back and was a sleeper and everybody kind of looks down on you or thinks that you suddenly

[01:22:19] become the captain of a crew it's like who you can pick one of three classes operator extractor machinist and

[01:22:49] some of them will start with like a plus to a specific type of role so if you're checking for engineering and you're the machinist and that's the example because I played as a machinist if you roll a three it becomes a four you get a plus one to it now there are some categories for example in the machinist I believe it's the endure where you actually cannot even level up that ability it is just blocked out from you and it is pretty much it's always

[01:23:18] minus one or two I think kind of depending on the scenario and so there is need you can put those skill points into some of those abilities and so I actually ended the game with plus two engineering so if engineering came along like if I was rolling a bunch of twos my minimum roll was

[01:23:48] going to be a four that was awesome but the other mechanic I negative outcomes stress can accumulate and I had never figured out this mechanic a hundred percent but I think what happens is if it's like categorized by a bunch of red dots that align under the numbers one through six with gaps between

[01:24:18] them and subsequent rolls is that did I understand that mechanic correctly yeah exactly so the there's a sort of a stress bar that that's you know signified by these little chits at the top of the screen and you know every I think it's every two points of stress there is a

[01:24:48] one of your dice is represented yeah so after two chits of stress light up if you roll a one if your randomized dice at the start of your turn if any of those roll a one it will take a point of damage each of your dice has its own separate health bar it's bars and bars and bars yes but it's all very clearly visually laid out and that's you know I feel bad sort of ragging on the UI because it's very readable it's always very clear you know or

[01:25:25] so you're always very aware of the precariousness of your situation and I think it's fun it's a fun mechanic it's really mean and I liked it a lot I felt a little bit as though the narrative of Citizen Sleeper 2 could have stood to twist the knife a little bit more but I feel like the mechanics were just tuned exactly right I think they were exactly as mean as they should have been I didn't ever die I didn't ever hit

[01:25:55] a fail state completely but I did as you said earlier on I skated through by the skin of my teeth a couple of these contracts they get very tense and you don't know what the requirements are going with your crew mates they have different stress meters and they have different skills

[01:26:24] and going into these contracts you really don't know what skills you're going to need and so it's a little bit of chance it's like which crew mates do I bring along for these contracts they have these skills and oftentimes I just want to cover my bases I got these skills these crew mates have these ones let's mix and match and sometimes you'd go into a contract and I was like holy cow this one person's dice rolls aren't going to do anything they're only going to get

[01:26:54] minus two to whatever the rolls are so they're in my opinion I can't use their dice unless they're rolling sixes or fives because I'm not I can't I have like this is one of those things where like you say it's very readable information and once you get deep into citizen sleeper two you are processing so much information and part of it would be like well if I roll a three here and I use this person's dice and but they have you know three

[01:27:24] ticks of stress out of five and I might lose this and I only have two more days worth of supplies and that's two more dice refreshes and if I don't get these rolls here and then suddenly you're just like going through this information these lists of like possibilities and outcomes and where do I slot the dice that I roll or there was one late game contract that had a lot of different slots and this was like for your crewmates they have you know personal

[01:27:54] narrative quest lines and this was I think the last one for one of my crewmates and I was like well there are three different nodes that I can check and I need to slot dice into each of these and so I remember I was stuck I was like okay this person rolled a four I almost done with this node but they're going to get a minus two do I risk that do I really risk

[01:28:38] thinking in this game but you could almost hear me thinking from across the room like the gears were really going 100 miles an hour yeah but it was so addicting in the gamer sense of these stats and numbers and decision making just really gave me a ton of dopamine oh big time it made me feel a little bit like I don't know have you seen the TV show the bear I

[01:29:08] watched the first episode and I was like it was too stressful for me I had to set it aside there's a I think it's the third episode they try and open the restaurant up on Deliveroo or whatever the equivalent is Postmates or whatever and they get like 200 orders in the space of about 15 minutes and you know he he's trying to you know everyone's sweating there's this guy and he's trying to you know perfect his donuts in the corner and he's not pitching

[01:29:38] in and you know the you negative but I needed to just pull through for me you know it it sort

[01:30:08] of fostered that sense of community and I think it's funny because I weaknesses by bringing along certain teammates

[01:30:37] on the flip side of that though I did find that I sort of optimized it by the end where I brought the same two or three people with me every time yeah which weaknesses so whenever I went into a contract I was like well you're coming along

[01:31:10] it's like it's definitely you and then who am I picking here yeah I agree the crew it's interesting because I feel like in a lot of this is common in a lot of storytelling that you'll have a protagonist and they'll typically be part of like a trio or balance those relatively well right and when you go on contracts there are three of you total

[01:31:39] but I felt like I had amassed a huge crew by the end of my play time and I was like I don't actually know what your story I haven't done any of your personal story mission because I didn't take you on this sounds awful but measuring people based on their value of what they could contribute to a contract it's kind of like well you're really you're not bringing anything to the table happy drag yeah

[01:32:09] exactly so yeah I would say that yeah mechanically the contract the adrenaline is there like it's super interesting and it does make sense narratively but at the same or I found myself wishing as I went through it that there were other ways that I could actively participate in the relationships with my crew

[01:32:40] outside of their loyalty missions I suppose I think Mass Effect 2 was quoted as an inspiration for this game and talking about it now I do see that but one of the characters towards the end asked me do you want to talk about this or if you need to talk about this come and speak to me and it was right towards the end it was a very fraught sort of time in sleepers story and I thought yeah I would love to come and talk to you about this but there's no way to do

[01:33:10] that outside of bringing them on a contract once you pass a certain threshold in the story there are no longer contracts to bring them on so I wanted to be a more active participant but again it's like a lot of my nitpicks with citizen sleeper it's just that I wanted more more because what's there is great I loved everything that was there I wanted avenues to spend more time with the characters all right yeah I totally agree

[01:33:40] and that's I think that's why this game merits multiple playthroughs just for that because like you said it really well everything there is great but in a single playthrough I don't know there are crewmates that I didn't pick up I actually know that there was one I can't remember their name because I didn't pick them up but I remember reading through some people on discord like their playthrough

[01:34:14] very much designed for you to go back and be like okay well I relied on these people a lot what if I tried these people what if I did their quests right I hate to say this I'm going to make a quick note here so game design we've talked a little bit less about but I mean it's going to come down to dice rolls it's going to who you your warning

[01:34:44] bells whistles lights we are going to be talking about spoilers okay and so check the description and you'll see a time when it's safe to come back but the whole game is fair and it's up and it's out there in the open starting right now let's can we talk about Flint and the hunter because we've alluded to it yes yes I really Flint

[01:35:13] as a character I think Flint actually delivers the thesis statement of the whole game or it's delivered in a conversation with Flint and Flint is another sleeper Flint is the only other sleeper that you interact with throughout the whole game and they're sort of ragged and they've made their home on this hidden community on the back of an asteroid they're living in the back waters of the belt and Flint says something to the

[01:35:43] effect of we are all machines and stories because you and Flint are both the same model of sleeper you're both identical machines but the way that you've sort of you know moved through the belt and grown and met people is worn on your skin you know Flint is missing an arm when you meet them first and Flint's sort of conflict is that they're being tracked still by the SNR company who

[01:36:13] manufactures the sleepers while you are not and that's sort of the first major difference between you and I think you you're very excited to talk about the set piece where you shake the hunter once and for all I I loved Flint and Flint comes relatively late in the story because Olivera which is the last station for south I mean it's not really south because it's space downward I guess

[01:36:43] in the belt so you meet them quite late but Flint's story is basically citizen sleeper one story and but what if what if the sleeper from citizen sleeper one had access to somebody a sleeper who's already been through that and so I found Flint in the sleeper story to be one of the most human and one of the most grounding Flint

[01:37:13] is very aware of the fact that they are a refugee and that their presence is putting this colony in danger because they are tracking and they see that this bounty hunter is getting closer to this unknown unmarked territory where all these refugees are hiding and so Flint is grappling with like well what do I do

[01:37:50] do I need to have to hunt flint and your goal is to stop the hunter and the goal is to rig the entire factory with explosives and just blast them basically yeah and the reason why I love this story one is to me it was a bunch of callbacks to citizen sleeper one flint is still dependent on stabilizer and they're running out and so

[01:38:20] they need a permanent solution rather than just running away and throughout this point of the game you have been running away from Lane your former boss who wants your body right and this game is fascinating in the way that talks about who has the rights to body this is why for me this is a really interesting game about labor because all these bosses demand the body and the bodily autonomy other laborers

[01:38:50] that's great yeah and so you're in a position to help though and this is why I love this because you do because you can you know and this to me was one of the moments of like all right let's rescue Flint let's rescue somebody else you know who is living a similar life who needs it so I don't know to me I was like put on my Indiana Jones hat I was there

[01:39:19] ready to do it it was really cool I think it's maybe one of the more bombastic contracts because it's you know it operates through the framework of a contract where you're filling these timers with your positive dice rolls Flint is part of your crew for this specific contract and

[01:39:49] you need don't want them to know it's a trap so it all just feels very fraught and I think you've only got three turns to get everything set up the timing is really tight and I managed to get it done so I it being kind of a callback to the first

[01:40:19] game but you're so right it so is you know I mentioned earlier that you as a character sort of start off towards the end I love that mission I

[01:40:49] managed to get everything else set up but throughout that mission there actually and this doesn't happen too often narratively but there are skill checks and it's like do you the hunter takes a shot at flint but misses but because they're in a zero gravity situation they lose the gun the gun falls from their hands for whatever reason and so it's like do you reach out for the gun and there was an option there and I was like my

[01:41:18] physical ability is really bad but let's give it a try it's more ways than one right it was a feel-good moment and I think it needed that because you're kind of hitting at that point in the story setback after setback you're trying to shake lane but even though

[01:41:48] you're putting distance between the two of you he's still very much a presence he's sort of he has done something to your mechanical body that allows him to take remote control of you and that is becoming easier and easier for him as the narrative progresses so you as a character are kind of facing setback after setback so being able to take someone who's in your in a similar situation to you and just get them a win it feels great yeah

[01:42:18] it's such a high so but thankfully that didn't happen Flint asks to join the crew and so I had Flint join the crew and I wanted to talk about this because I feel like having Flint on your crew as you go to the very end of the game was oh my god

[01:42:56] I you know he's trying to keep a bunch of unrest at bay because there's about to be this like uprising about who has access to dark side and it's this big political thing and there's a lot that goes on there that we won't have time to discuss but essentially you have this confrontation with Lane and after that confrontation you have the ability to perform a reboot again on your system but this time it won't

[01:43:26] be interrupted and you are talking with Flint and you offer you and the crew you kind of Flint the same deal like you can get this reboot and I can't remember exactly why he needed it I'll be honest it's to kick the stabilizer dependency oh yeah there it was obvious right to kick the stabilizer dependency but there's this moment that I found to be one of the most tender in the entire game now Flint is a relatively stoic person and

[01:43:56] when you both go into the where you're going to get the reboot you're both laying down and there you have the option to take Flint's hand and now Flint is looking straight forward really stressed out of their mind and there's this bit of writing in there and I'm paraphrasing but you essentially I selected to do so you reach over and you grab Flint's hand and while Flint doesn't move their gaze you feel their fingers tightening around yours and I thought

[01:44:26] going through something so scary but knowing you don't have to do it alone I'm like getting emotional right now thinking about this it's a lot it crushed me in the best way possible like my heart was just like oh my gosh it was so filled just thinking like this is the smallest gesture but to be able to have the opportunity to give somebody some comfort is such a human thing to do I loved I

[01:44:57] play I don't know how it would go without Flint because it makes it all worth it I also took Flint's hand because I'm not a monster after you take their hand you close your eyes and the screen goes dark there's no more character art there's no more environment art it's just black and description and this song starts up and it's the song that

[01:45:27] plays whenever you hit an ending in the first game there was called possible futures I think this version is played on piano and it's called imaginary futures or imagined futures instead which is so brutal because the game ends before the reboot finishes you don't instead of choosing an

[01:46:25] you

[01:46:57] and it's gorgeous it's such a gorgeous ending and I bawled I cried like a child for 10 minutes I mean yeah I mean I was so emotionally stunned just because it was a super beautiful moment and like you said to be there with Flint and to have you both achieve so

[01:47:27] much right and it's so interesting what I loved about this game is like these personal histories the personal histories of individuals are so important and they're so deeply entangled with other people's lives right and to be able to be in a moment not like in an arrogant way but just to think like you know what I actually accomplished a lot of good even if it was just for seven

[01:48:12] to it's interesting because the game is geared around after the confrontation with Lane you you're told that your body is starting to decay at a rapid rate and so the game very much gives this pressure that's like finish up whatever you

[01:48:42] yeah so I couldn't wait to kind of see how it all shook out so I left a couple of threads untied I guess yeah a couple of threads loose and I went back then after I rolled credits to try and tie up those loose ends excuse me and your dice start to accumulate permanent glitches the longer that you go and it's heartbreaking it really does feel like your faculties are breaking down

[01:49:12] and you get these special little written passages about how you're losing function in parts of your frame and it feels so sad it reminded me an awful lot of cyberpunk actually funnily enough how towards the end of that game you're just sort of a wreck your body is breaking down and you're losing control despite all your attempts to the contrary and it's just really sad it ends on a really sad note in a way

[01:49:41] that can't help but respect see and I kind of did the opposite I

[01:50:33] rig every single one go back and skate past it and go on the next one yeah I think what I love about both games is that there is an autosave right before the key decision so you could just boot things back up and see how things play out but yeah I just thought that was a

[01:51:04] and not save flint so I might just look something up on YouTube but I'm super curious I feel like you'd be missing so much heart in that game if you didn't have flint there at the very end with you it wouldn't resonate the same way flint is canon as far as I'm concerned there's no question

[01:51:34] obviously lots of characters I loved I loved Bliss Bliss recurring character probably one of my favorites just loved Bliss to death yeah some gorgeous scenes with Bliss repairing your frame Bliss can fix your broken die so they're not broken forever but there's a section I think where Bliss is patching a hole in your skin and talking about how they so Bliss was in the first game and went by she

[01:52:04] her pronouns I think correct yeah but they them then in this game and they kind of talk about the journey that they went on and I just thought it I thought that was gorgeous there was a couple of moments like that with Bliss that were just so lovely to read a

[01:52:34] non-binary character written by a non-binary person so well I just kind of lit up with that I too much but the stuff we did talk about was very end of game so again we both recommend that you

[01:53:05] just play the entire game then come back and listen to that and see what we had to say before we close it's not that obscure now but some indie game this game has so much humanity and heart in it and I feel like it just

[01:53:35] helped expand my capacity to know and understand people as they are and just feel like a love and affinity towards them so that's somebody who I lots of problems and this game will just really not care in a way in a sense

[01:54:04] if you fail a contract like that's it that's how that's how the cookie crumbled and that you just kind of have to pick up the scraps and move on from there but I I think this game I didn't play this on a handheld console or I don't think it's on

[01:54:34] mobile but I think that this would be an amazing game to play you just play you know a few cycles before you go to bed every night in a handheld like on switch or something I think this would be really good for that what recommendations do you have yeah I totally agree about the handheld players first and foremost I'm currently playing through the first citizen sleeper on my switch and it's perfect it's great for commute or whatnot I think anyone who played that game and wanted to like it but found it maybe a

[01:55:18] I think anyone who like me is kind of a thoughtful political sci-fi sicko you know it's very heady it gets quite philosophical at times you know talks about consciousness and bodily autonomy and identity so if you like your sci-fi full of themes I think this is for you and then visual novel enjoyers as well I know we

[01:55:48] the visual novel format I think this is as you say the cream of the crop I don't think it gets much better than this yeah excellent all right folks Evan tell us real quickly what's the best way for people who have listened they've listened to all

[01:56:18] you if you want to track me down you can search Elden Ring George RR Martin I think I'm the first video that comes up which is nice I'm telling you the SEO is popping off I don't post on Twitter anymore I'm on blue sky I'm at the backlog reviewer there too if you want to hear my stream of consciousness which is fun it is it's a lot of

[01:56:48] nice I love that phrasing folks definitely look at their YouTube channel at the backlog is how I found you but I didn't know that about Elden Ring George RR Martin that is very cool to snag that SEO right there folks yeah that's great yeah folks thank you all for listening thank you to support

[01:57:19] more things more endeavors like this please check out our patreon for three dollars a month you can subscribe at the indy past tier that gets you three episodes from the indy impression series per month plus a newsletter folks thank you so much And likewise, and thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure.

[01:57:49] Oh, of course. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And then, folks, that's it. Until the next episode, take care.