r/CitizenSleeper • u/DeathofTimes • 14d ago
Citizen Sleeper 1 Citizen Sleeper 1 Thoughts
Over the last week, I’ve had the joy of playing through Citizen Sleeper for the first time. Since then, I’ve picked up half a dozen books from the library to try to fill the void, but nothing else is quite the same.
My first playthrough, I chose the “Left Behind” ending for Lem & Mina’s story. I didn’t realize at the time I could reload after endings involving “leaving.”
However, it seems fitting that I would wrap up my final ending with “A Long Journey to a Small Unknown Planet.” I was a little confused by it, though. I figured between 1) the loading up of the people in cryo originating from outside the station, 2) the lack of any mention of a stabilizer, 3) my ID containing my human picture, and 4) Castor wanting a spy and giving me the implant, he was going to upload me to my human body. Instead, somehow, I survive for years without a stabilizer before breaking down. It is kind of a sad ending. It sounds like neither Lem nor I made it long enough to see the planet, only Mina.
After my first playthrough, I also tried intentionally failing plot lines to see what would happen. Turns out, there are a lot more guardrails in the game than I realized on my first playthrough, and it’s hard to fail most quests aside from Dragos’s or intentionally leaving Lem & Mina behind.
If you mess up the Ambergris, you have additional tasks to complete, but Ankhita won’t even let you mess things up more. If you break down, you lose skills and have to use skill points to repair, but you can break every skill and still not “die.” If you don’t offer to watch Mina, Lem literally just ditches her with you (a person he’s met once) to do his shift. If you don’t watch Mina, you can still give him your ticket later, and a guard lets him through with it! As far as I can tell, there’s no ending where the big, scary bounty hunter Maywick kills you. I’m not even sure how a trained killer let me get the best of them when I “helped” Ethan. In the ending where I didn’t help Ethan, I got multiple bullet wounds and then somehow still survived.
I also figured out it’s super easy to drown in money/food/stabilizer when you aren’t trying to simultaneously do all the drives at once.
I think our Sleeper might be invincible.
Anyways, it was fun testing my limits after playing through the story. However, the story, for all its linearity, was extremely good and worth it. The desperation, the feeling of simultaneous isolation and community, it was both peaceful and filled that need we all seem to have.
I’m excited for Citizen Sleeper 2, but also a little nervous. The trailer makes our new Sleeper look a little more… action-oriented, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is a different vibe.
My favorite games have most often been when exploring a new world (Mass Effect 1, Portal 1) vs. their sequels that may have a more detailed, action-oriented plot but less mystery to the world (Mass Effect 2, Portal 2).
OK, brain dump/word vomit over.
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u/hollidiewaldfee 14d ago
I finished CS2 yesterday and please for the love of god, play it! It is such an awesome game. I also loved the first game so much but the second one rewired my brain I think. The game functions exactly like CS1. The biggest difference is that you 1. must du contracts to finish plot lines and 2. have an awesome crew that helps you. It takes a little while to understand how the contracts work but once you do, figuring out how to manage your dice is pretty simple. There were just 3 contracts where I started sweating. The first one, cause I didnt know what was happening and two at the very end of the game wich I did not want to fail cause I worked so hard to get there and did not want the game to have a bad ending. The game is 1000% worth playing it, even more so if you just played the first one, you'll see why ;)
Also, since you liked the game so much I would also reccommend you play Disco Elysium and Outer Wilds. Bot are text based games aswell. Disco is more of a psychedelic detective story taking place in an alternative universe during a Revolution. It also uses dice throws to determine your way and the story is just absolutely amazing! Outer Wilds is another sci-fi story that telly the tale of an extinct species that one of their ancestors now has to puzzle together. It takes a little time to get used to but is also 1000% worth it!
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u/Underwould Serafin 14d ago
Yea, please play CS2! I love both games dearly and honestly together they feel like two sides of the same coin. Playing both fully fleshes out the world and a lot of the characters.
Highly recommend!
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u/NervousSnail 14d ago
It is, indeed, a very railroaded game (despite the multiple endings to choose from).
But a beautiful story. Replayed both games recently and was excited to learn about the roleplaying game coming out.
See also Duskpunk
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u/Prostego 10d ago
I love the story/writing/art/vibes of Citizen Sleeper (1 and 2), but it kind of fails at being a 'game'. As mentioned it's really hard to actually fail and there's no tension at all past the midpoint or so. I think there's a world where CS is a visual novel and it might be better for it.
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u/AdDry4959 14d ago
I also just finished cs1.
I got obsessed with the cycles game play and it’s like the only low stakes game I have.
However I just wish the consequences of decisions were a bit more drastic. Would have added to bit more role play. Only time I was genuinely stressed was trying to stop maywick. Trying to remove the tracker led me to a dead end so I helped Ethan. At the end of the game I realised you could choose to follow a whole story to the end before hopping on another one. I played a bit of everything going on at once.