Citizen Sleeper Dev Talks Sequels, Tension, and Creating “My Own Take on the Mass Effect Series”
Nintendo Life: Citizen Sleeper was a huge success in 2022, but you’ve said in the past that a sequel wasn’t the natural next project for you. What made you want to return to this universe to see Citizen Sleeper 2?
Gareth Damian Martin, Jumping Through Ages: I’m a big fan of doing experimental projects and inventing new designs in games, which means a sequel isn’t always my first instinct. But with Citizen Sleeper, I feel like there’s still a lot left to test! The first game was quite modest in terms of systems and scale, so it left a lot of room for new systems and ideas. In particular, I am a big fan of “ship and crew” sci-fi series like Cowboy bebop And perspective, but I always felt the game never had the right genre. So it was fun to try and create one of these stories in the Citizen Sleeper universe, which I feel is ideal for this type of storytelling.
Ultimately, I felt like there was an opportunity to build off the first game while also providing something new and different so the two games could go together as a pair.
Citizen Sleeper 2, like its predecessor, is about a lot of different things: capitalism, humanity, survival, loneliness, etc. The biggest challenge was balancing multiple themes when writing What is a story like this?
I have to be honest, I don’t really write “thematically” when it comes to storytelling. I don’t really focus on making statements. Instead, I’m very interested in my characters and the different paths they can take through the game.
I really hope players enjoy connecting the dots between the two games
When I start writing, I usually have a lot of situations in my head that feel interesting or interesting. I might have an idea for a contract where you instigate a mutiny on a ship in the middle of a general strike, or an idea for a group of characters all pursuing the same interstellar voyage The star has been lost for a long time. I choose and invent these themes based on my own interests, so the reason Citizen Sleeper has these themes is because that’s what interests me in the world! That’s when I really establish the story’s theme, and from that point on, my mind focuses on who the characters are, how they speak, how the world works, and what happens. What can make a compelling plot?
Some stories are compelling because they are tense and rhythmic, others because they are introspective and heartfelt. For me, the beauty of Citizen Sleeper is that the game can contain all of these atmospheres and stories at once, so I’m not too worried about balance. If it interests me and seems like a compelling story, I’ll try to get involved!
Despite sharing some narrative DNA, this sequel feels like it could be played by those unfamiliar with the first installment. Was it important for you to create something that continued the Citizen Sleeper universe but also worked independently?
I think this is always an important part when making a sequel, you have to assume that this is the first game for the player. But instead of seeing this as a limitation, I see it as an opportunity. I’ve always been a big fan of time skipping in stories. When done well, they combine all the existing components of the story, and then the reader or player will feel intelligent and curious as they piece it all together and tell their own story about the story. what happened in the missing time in between.
What’s especially cool with time skips is that they usually allow the prequel/sequel order to be read in one of two ways, since discovering where a character comes from is just as engaging as discovering out where they end up. So this was a big focus when creating the game, and I really hope players enjoy connecting the dots between the two games and marveling at the often unusual journeys the characters can take.
The sequel appears to be more rooted in the RPG genre, with clearly defined skills, quests, and expanded dice mechanics being just a few additions. Were there any other games (video or tabletop) that inspired these mechanics during development?
Like the first game, Citizen Sleeper 2 is heavily inspired by designs and ideas from the pen-pen TTRPG. Blades in the dark was the first tabletop game I ever played and it remains my favorite. It inspired the first game, and with the sequel, I saw an opportunity to adapt more of its systems into a video game. Citizen Sleeper 2’s “push” mechanic, where you accumulate stress to get bonuses or reroll your dice, is a direct inspiration from that game, and its system is designed around asks players to “push their luck”.
Tension quickly became a very useful tool for representing all kinds of systems in games
In the tension systems I added to Citizen Sleeper 2, I took inspiration from the countless tension systems that have appeared in tabletop games over the past 5 years, but especially mother ship And Heart: The city below. There’s a lot of great and interesting game design happening in the tabletop setting, and I find it a constant source of inspiration for my own work.
In terms of video games, my main criteria are Mass effect 2. However, I wouldn’t say I was trying to copy anything from Mass Effect 2, more so I wanted to create a game that approached similar ideas in a different way. I often find this is how I like to work in games. In other waters It’s my responsibility Metroid Primerefocusing on scanning and xenobiology. Likewise, Citizen Sleeper is my own work about Mass effect series, shifting the focus from saving the galaxy as a superhero to learning to live and survive on the margins of an interstellar society.
With community and home being a big part of the first game, how does this theme play into the larger context of the Starward Belt in the sequel and what challenges do the new hubs pose? for Sleeper?
The idea of home plays out a little differently in Citizen Sleeper 2: instead of being set in a massive urban infrastructure, the game takes place across a series of scattered habitats varying in size and style. different. Because of this, your home effectively becomes the Rig, a ship you’ve stolen, and it expands and changes throughout the game. I really wanted to capture that slow, subtle transition as the ship gains crew and becomes more familiar, and often when writing games I find that contrasts with the Hub, which eventually In the end, you always have to leave.
So I think at the core of the game is the tension between moving on and settling down, which seems very important to the Citizen Sleeper series in general.
There were a lot of tense moments in Citizen Sleeper, and now Stress is the mechanic in the sequel. Why did you decide to do this and what effect will it have on your relationships in the game?
Citizen Sleeper 2 ties up several ideas nicely, while also opening up the possibility of more stories
Stress systems are a fairly common and well-tested element in many modern TTRPGs, and I think that’s because they introduce an abstract form of harm compared to Health Points. You might be stressed over a burglary, a difficult negotiation, or having to babysit, but hopefully your HP won’t be damaged! This brings more challenges to the player and consequences. I’m really aware of the possibility that this opens up the possibility of telling more stories from a TTRPG run, especially stories that don’t focus on combat. So this is one of the first things I wanted to add in the sequel.
As I developed these ideas in Citizen Sleeper 2, tension quickly became a very useful tool for representing all kinds of systems in the game. It represents the stress your body is under and the potential for that stress to become real and permanent harm. It shows your team’s eagerness to continue working on the deal when things aren’t going well. It also represents more abstract ideas, like how quickly a derelict ship is falling apart, or the opinions of a disgruntled crew turning against their captain. So the different types of stress bars will have a huge influence on your path through Citizen Sleeper 2, and I think managing them is one of the most engaging and tense parts of the game.
This time, I really wanted the game to be tense, engaging, and filled with outstanding stories of success and failure. Stress is the tool that allows me to achieve that.
You said recently European gamers that Citizen Sleeper 2 will be the final video game in the Citizen Sleeper universe, but a tabletop adaptation is still being considered for the future. How do you feel about the thought of bringing the game back to its original state on tablets, and do you feel like anything will be lost/gained in the process?
I’m in the early stages of creating the TTRPG Citizen Sleeper (as you can imagine, I’m busy with the sequel!), but I have very clear goals with it. I’m really happy with the two games and the stories they tell in this universe. I think Citizen Sleeper 2 combines several ideas nicely while also opening up the possibility of more stories. My aim with TTRPG is to provide the tools to tell those stories to players and allow them to take on any theme that piques their interest with their friends (or start new themes). completely new topic).
Of course, what’s left behind in doing that is my own presence as the person telling those stories, but I think after two games, there’s a lot of references for people to look to if that’s what they want. What’s achieved is a radical openness of the system on tabletop, an opportunity for players to fill in the gaps in a meaningful way and really explore their connection to characters and ideas of the universe. In a way, that’s what these games are all about.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Thanks to Gareth for taking the time to answer our questions and to Jasmine at DoubleJump Communications for setting it up. Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector launches on Switch eShop on January 31 for £20.99 / $24.99.
