GMing for over 100,000 Players in Citizen Sleeper’s First Free Episode
Hi, I’m Gareth Damian Martin, the (mostly) solo developer behind Citizen Sleeper. Today we launch Episode: Flux, the first of three free episodes that are coming to the game in the next eight months, adding new characters and locations to the game as part of an ongoing story that you can follow and affect through how you choose to play.
Citizen Sleeper, if you don’t know already, is a tabletop inspired RPG where you are a sleeper, a digitized human consciousness in an artificial body, owned by a corporation that wants you back. Thrust amongst the unfamiliar and colorful inhabitants of the Eye, you need to build friendships, earn your keep, and navigate the factions of this strange metropolis, if you hope to survive to see the next cycle.
In making Citizen Sleeper I wanted to make a world that felt as open and flexible as a tabletop RPG, which is a challenge when you can’t be a GM (GM stands for Game Master, the person running the game) in the same room as players and react to their choices. Instead I had to “pre-GM” by accounting for different player choices, providing a story with no “main campaign” only different characters to meet and work with, and use time-specific events to make the world feel alive and reactive.
In Episode: Flux I am taking this one step further by running a three episode “campaign” that will tell the longest and most complex story to be featured in the game to date. It follows a refugee flotilla that arrives at the station, and the player will play a key role in the events that follow its arrival.
Making each episode successively will allow me to react to player’s feedback and opinions, just like a GM would, and tell a story with a variety of complications and wrinkles that will allow players to feel that their journey is distinct.
If that sounds like a journey you’d like to be on, the first update Episode: Flux launches today, so give it a play and then head to twitter and let me know @CitizenSleeper what you think.
I’m really excited to be undertaking this unique experiment with the game, and seeing how players react now, and when they reach the finale in 2023. Good luck on the Eye, and enjoy Episode: Flux on Xbox!
Citizen Sleeper
Fellow Traveller
$19.99
PC Game Pass
Xbox Game Pass
EPISODE: FLUX OUT NOW
In Episode: FLUX – the first of three new free DLC episodes for Citizen Sleeper – pressures in the Helion system have brought the first ships of a refugee flotilla to the Eye. You will meet and help those that get on-station before the quarantine locks them out.
These episodes will tell a continuing story across all three updates, introducing new characters, and expanding on the wider narrative of the Helion System, the star system in which the Eye orbits. The second and third DLC episodes are currently planned for release in October and early 2023 respectively, however dates are still to be confirmed.
ROLEPLAYING IN THE RUINS OF INTERPLANETARY CAPITALISM
From the developer of In Other Waters, and featuring the stunning character art of Guillaume Singelin, Citizen Sleeper is a narrative RPG set on Erlin’s Eye, a ruined space station that is home to thousands of people trying to survive on the edges of an interstellar capitalist society.
You are a sleeper, a digitised human consciousness in an artificial body, owned by a corporation that wants you back. Thrust amongst the unfamiliar and colourful inhabitants of the Eye, you need to build friendships, earn your keep, and navigate the factions of this strange metropolis, if you hope to survive to see the next cycle.
INSPIRED BY TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING GAMES
Citizen Sleeper uses dice, clocks and drives to create a player-led experience, where you choose your path in a rich and responsive world.
• ACTION DICE
Each cycle you roll your dice. Assign them to a vast range of actions available on the station. With every action, choose what, and who, matters to you, shaping the lives of those around you, and ultimately the future of the station.
• TICKING CLOCKS
Clocks track both your actions and the actions of others across the station. From becoming a local at the Overlook Bar to protecting a friend from Yatagan enforcers, clocks allow you to track your own progress and the influence you have on the world around you.
• DRIVES + SKILLS
Follow drives not quests, allowing you to pick and choose the stories and activities that matter to you. As you do, you will shape your character’s five skills (Engineer, Interface, Endure, Intuit and Engage), unlocking perks and bonuses that reflect and change how you choose to live in this world.
