In my first Citizen Sleeper review, I expressed a hope that another game could be build on the strong mechanical foundation that Citizen Sleeper created but didn't quite maximize. DLC would seem like a great way to do that, tying a new story into Citizen Sleeper's world. Tragically, the DLC we got fails to meet my hopes in so many ways.
To begin, the choice to release a series of self-contained "episodes" plays directly against the strength of the form. Modular narrative games shine because they let the player explore a possibility space of story and construct their own understanding of the game-world out of the path they find through that space. Citizen Sleeper's base game already struggles to take advantage of this, with little variation in the way stories play out and no connection between those stories, but the DLC is much worse. It's so small that it's forced into linearity. There's simply not enough room for multiple meaningful paths.
Since it can't use its mechanics to foster a sense of modularity and exploration, it instead uses them for raw difficulty. It expects to be played in a late-game save with easy access to cash, food, and repairs, so mostly what this means is making a lot of high-difficulty dice rolls and obtaining a bunch of one particular item. Unfortunately, it's entirely possible to beat the base game without having a source of that item in the quantity demanded, so the wrong build (mine!) can get locked out of the best ending. It can still be completed, mercifully, but it's a totally unnecessary dagger of frustration.
Since this is notionally a narrative-focused game, I should mention: the plot is fine. It's a bit more simplistic than the chewier parts of the base game, and it suffers greatly from being unable to include any of the characters you likely befriended, but if you think of it as another quest alongside all those in the base game it's solidly in the middle of the pack. But this isn't a novel, or a collection of short stories; it's a game, and as such I expect it to do something interesting with its mechanics.
(And no, the copy editing did not improve.)
To begin, the choice to release a series of self-contained "episodes" plays directly against the strength of the form. Modular narrative games shine because they let the player explore a possibility space of story and construct their own understanding of the game-world out of the path they find through that space. Citizen Sleeper's base game already struggles to take advantage of this, with little variation in the way stories play out and no connection between those stories, but the DLC is much worse. It's so small that it's forced into linearity. There's simply not enough room for multiple meaningful paths.
Since it can't use its mechanics to foster a sense of modularity and exploration, it instead uses them for raw difficulty. It expects to be played in a late-game save with easy access to cash, food, and repairs, so mostly what this means is making a lot of high-difficulty dice rolls and obtaining a bunch of one particular item. Unfortunately, it's entirely possible to beat the base game without having a source of that item in the quantity demanded, so the wrong build (mine!) can get locked out of the best ending. It can still be completed, mercifully, but it's a totally unnecessary dagger of frustration.
Since this is notionally a narrative-focused game, I should mention: the plot is fine. It's a bit more simplistic than the chewier parts of the base game, and it suffers greatly from being unable to include any of the characters you likely befriended, but if you think of it as another quest alongside all those in the base game it's solidly in the middle of the pack. But this isn't a novel, or a collection of short stories; it's a game, and as such I expect it to do something interesting with its mechanics.
(And no, the copy editing did not improve.)
AnarchoFooty
1 year ago