Citizen Sleeper puts you in the shoes of a titular Sleeper: an android trying to survive on a space station. Developed by Jump Over The Age studio and published by Fellow Traveller.
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.
When the game begins, you’ll have your choice of three classes of sleepers. Each class starts the game with different skills and perks. Class skills add or subtract from the number die applied to tasks of the same category. Perks give your character bonuses when performing specific tasks.
Each class comes with tradeoffs, so it’s a matter of what skills you want to focus on first. Here’s a look at each class and its respective pros and cons.
Machinist
Skill Effects: +1 to ENGINEER tasks -1 to ENGAGE tasks
Perks – Efficient Extractor: Chance to gain RANDOM SCRAP ITEM on ENGINEER actions.
The Machinist is focused on working on machines and using tools, but they aren’t so good at direct conflict.
As such, this class starts with a +1 to Engineer and a -1 to Engage. Meaning your manual labour will have better odds while tackling problems head-on will be less favourable. If you’re drawn to tasks like repair and fabrication, this is the class for you.
Additionally, The Machinist’s perk to reward you with more Scrap will lead you to be farming money in no time. An extremely useful utilitarian class that has you focused on fixing rather than fighting.
Just note that some of the more social tasks will be trickier to complete. The priority of this class is the ability to work on the machines around the ship. And the tradeoff is a good one since there isn’t so much “fighting” in the game. Nevertheless, if you prefer to succeed in a conflict or a social situation then this is definitely the wrong choice for you.
Operator
Skill Effects: +1 to INTERFACE tasks -1 to ENDURE tasks
Perks – Transfer Intercept: Chance to gain CRYO on INTERFACE actions.
If Machinists are the blue-collar workers, then Operators are the techies. There’s a lot of hacking associated with several quests in Citizen Sleeper, so if that sounds like you’re thing, then you’ll probably want to play as an Operator.
Ultimately, this is undeniably one of the more useful classes to choose, if only at the beginning while other classes catch up. This is primarily due to the amount of hacking you’ll need to do throughout the game. Having a class that directly benefits one of the most common aspects of Citizen Sleeper just makes your life easier throughout this RPG.
Essentially, if you choose to go for the Operator class, you’ll get a plus one to Interface, which gives a bonus during the hacks you’ll find yourself doing a lot. You will, unfortunately, get a negative one to Endure. However, that shouldn’t be too problematic, especially when you can use the surrounding technology to get out of situations.
As for the perk, this is another way to earn easy money which benefits from the hacking skills you’ll be so good at. Every time you succeed at an Interface task you have the chance to earn a little extra money which can be used to buy food or other elements you need to succeed in your playthrough.
Extractor
Skill Effects: +1 to ENDURE tasks -1 to INTUIT tasks
Perks – Photosynthetic Skin: ‘Sunbathe’ DICE ACTION allows ENERGY recovery at home.
Citizen Sleeper doesn’t have combat per se, but Extractors are the “strongest” class. They’re strong, but not necessarily smart. The only problem is there really aren’t any actual fights you’ll need to get into. However, that plus one to Endure will allow you to complete some of the more muscly quests and brings in the brute style if that’s something you want to do.
Some of the more delicate situations will require a tougher dice roll from this class, but if you want to soldier through tough tasks like unloading at the shipyard for money, then it’s for you.
The Extractor’s starting perk is also pretty different from the other two: it lets you spend dice to recover energy at your home base. This comes in handy when you don’t have enough money for food. After all, nothing is worse than getting to your base with low energy and having no money to buy any food. Luckily, the Extractor’s perk allows you to recover energy at the base by spending one dice. It can be pretty useful, it just depends on if the other aspects can be good too.
Unlock Perks
When you complete drives, you’ll receive Upgrade Points that you can exchange for stat improvements. Therefore, you can adjust your stats to suit the actions and storyline best for you. In other words, your initial strengths and weaknesses ingrained in your class are temporary.
So, even if you start as a ‘Machinist’, with the ‘Efficient Extractor’ Perk, you can still use these points to unlock the ‘Extractor’ Perk ‘Photosynthetic Skin’ after completing a Drive or two.
In the end, it seems that the Classes in Citizen Sleeper are more for flavour than for true min/maxing, so just pick whatever sounds fun!
Citizen Sleeper is available now on the Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PC – Steam, Epic Games, and Humble Store.
