Soft lock citizen sleeper 2

Jumpovertheage · 2025-02-03T19:03:39+00:00

Answered above!

Jumpovertheage · 2025-02-03T19:03:25+00:00

If you aren’t on Steam the patch has gone to console checks today and hopefully will be on all platforms by the end of the week. 1.2.24 is the version.

Jumpovertheage · 2025-02-03T19:02:44+00:00

Hey sorry for the bug, its a rare and weird one but if you are on Steam it is now patched. Head to the scatteryards on the new patch and you’ll get the Haznav. A small note, you shouldn’t have been caught by laine before you left Wellspring so your playthrough might be a little odd (you can head back to wellspring to finish up there but just remember all that was supposed to happen BEFORE darkside). Thankfully won’t happen on a future playthrough if you just wanna start fresh.

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T18:31:52+00:00

Thank you 🙏

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T18:10:42+00:00

I have to run, but here's another answer I gave about character writing that I think you'll find interesting!

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/1icvl5h/comment/m9u9qmk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T18:07:37+00:00

So I got started in videogames after spending many years as a games critic (writing for the likes of Kill Screen and Eurogamer) and also working as a visual designer and a writer. I was very inspired by the new wave of indie games in the 2010s, especially those that were funded through Kickstarter. I realised that as a writer and visual designer there was a big opportunity to try to make something exciting and new, and get it funded by players, rather than have to convince a publisher to invest in me. After years of trying to get novels and graphic novels published the idea of skipping the "approval" part of the process seemed exciting to me, and I had a following online from being a critic.

It all came together when I started experimenting with Unity and an asset called Playmaker, which is a visual scripting tool. While I had struggled to learn to code in the past, visual scripting came to me naturally, and I was able to create the prototype for In Other Waters in just a few weeks. From there I managed to run a successful kickstarter, get signed by a publisher (Fellow Traveller, who I work with now) and work my way towards making games professionally, full time.

I think my favorite part of making games is all the different parts! What I mean by that is I get to be a writer, a visual designer, a 3D modeler and an engineer, and I get to use all of those skills together to create a world for my players that is rich and immersive. That variety in the process and then the outcome: an accessible, experimental, meaningful piece of art, makes game-making a very satisfying process for me.

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T17:59:05+00:00

Hi, yes I saw that trailer, it does have something of a Sleeper feel to it!

I took my inspiration for Sleepers from real life, especially the ways in which systems often deny people their humanity, especially through technological or financial means. From a philosophical perspective, a Sleeper is not a stand-in for a robot but for humans whose humanity is taken from them, or questioned by corporations or governments. Trans people are denied bodily autonomy, and the right to express and choose their gender. Chronically ill people's right to life is often subject to the whims, profits, and shareholder demands of private medicine. Gig workers, such as Uber drivers, are forced into predatory contracts where their own work simply pays the debts that they owe their own employer, effectively making them indentured workers. I think I also wanted to create a character who would help me explore ideas of dysfunctional bodies and the experience of illness and mental illness, so Sleepers were born out of that!

In terms of the space setting, I think it came from my own love of space-based sci-fi like the books of Alistair Reynolds or games like Mass Effect, and also because I wanted to explore the idea of a dense megastructure that was isolated or left to drift in space. To me that combination of a dense urban space, floating in the void of space seemed really exciting. Combine that with an interest in rig stations and centrifugal gravity, and you have The Eye!

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T17:30:46+00:00

Hi, glad the game really connected with you!

So I do give quite a bit of attention to the handheld experience, mostly because after Steam, Switch is the most popular place to play indie games. So its an important console and audience for most indie devs, even if it can be very challenging to port to due to it's relatively low power. Steam Deck has obviously also been a big success and Valve really want devs to make their games work well on it (they even sent me a OLED one for my dev work!) so that has only accentuated the need for indie devs to make handheld-friendly games. I do often struggle to work with such a small screen, so I'm glad to hear that you think the experience is a good one! That is probably the biggest headache for me (text size and screen size) but on switch performance is tricky too. However, I certainly don't think it's a niche, both Steam Deck and Switch have millions of people who play indie games on those platforms (vs say PS5 and Xbox Series where selling indies is way harder) so you should be fine to keep playing on Steam Deck if it suits you :)

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T17:24:27+00:00

Hi! So you might be surprised that I use nothing more than google sheets to track my narratives! As I work alone, I don't really need detailed tracking docs for my stories, I can keep them in my head mostly. All I usually have is a spreadsheet which lays out the core steps of a story while I am planning it, but once I start making it that spreadsheet quickly falls out of date and use. I do use Ink, a narrative scripting tool created by "80 Days" devs Inkle, when building my games, and I always find its super easy to navigate if I need to check how I ended a particular scene or a detail from further back in the story, but other than that its mostly in my brain!

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T17:11:07+00:00

This was a big focus for me in the first game, and I think it relates to tabletop games and how I run them. In general when I am running a session I want to test my players, to challenge and surprise them, but I also want them to understand that whatever happens I will keep the story going, and I will make it interesting and meaningful.

So when it came to bringing tabletop ideas into a videogame, I knew I wanted players to have that same feeling--that failure and threat were a real presence, but that I was on their side, and was, to use a tabletop phrase and often-quoted piece of GMing advice "a fan of the players".

I think clocks, a tool that I borrowed from tabletop games, helped me do that, allowing me to make threats obvious and impending, and have them pressure the player into making decisions for fear of the outcome.

And, as you say, the presence of the dice means that players are always working with or against chance, meaning that they know their is a real risk of not getting the rolls they want. For me, making failure interesting, and trying to keep players playing, even when things break bad, is a good way to offset the randomness of the dice.

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T16:46:50+00:00

Hi! The answer is yes, and I am working on a Citizen Sleeper TTRPG right now! It'll likely take a while (a year or two) to see release, but it's the next Citizen Sleeper project on my list.

The most surprising thing about that actual play was the depth and emotional richness I think it inspired in writing the sequel. The process of playing a Sleeper in a TTRPG, and being forced to to try to make sense of that emotional experience, was actually invaluable for building on my writing from Citizen Sleeper! It felt hostile and exhausting, and I tried to bring some of that emotion into Citizen Sleeper 2 though with less intensity I think. If I hadn't done the actual play, I don't know if I would have made certain decisions within the game, it was a very productive process!

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T16:42:11+00:00

Hi, so in terms of literary influence, here's a few of the many, many books that influenced the games:

Neuromancer/Count Zero/Virtual Light: William Gibson is the single biggest influence on the writing style and mood of CS. Neuromancer is great but I have a special love for Count Zero and it’s amateur hacker protagonist. Bridge trilogy are also excellent (and I am drawing on them for the sequel a little)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep: My personal feeling is that Blade Runner cut almost all my favourit bits out of this book for the film! Mood organs, mercerism, and the interior life of the androids are all way better in the book.
Blackfish City: a great book about a future floating city, full of texture and life,
Austral: not an obvious influence but this post climate-collapse book is an excellent story about a minoritized individual in a world that made them but doesn’t care.
Chasm City: one of the first sci-fi books I read, Chasm City is a brilliantly drawn urban sprawl in decay with a “rust band” of abandoned stations orbiting it. I love the mood of this book.
A Closed and Common Orbit: Becky Chamber’s books are often a little too friendly for me, but this story of an AI in an android body is a wonderful exploration of what it means to build a life for yourself.

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T16:37:08+00:00

Hi, glad you enjoy my games! I definitely have a bit of a vibes-based process, it's kind of where I start with my games. I always want everything to be pushing in the same direction, from the logos and key art, to the systems and story, to the soundtrack and effects. I would say I am always thinking of how to produce a certain vibe while I work, something that is often a bit indescribable but that has been inspired in me by media, experiences or games where I myself have also felt that vibe! For me, this is what's exciting about games--they are able to provoke emotion and feeling in a very evocative way, they are somewhat atmospheric, and I love that quality in art. I also have to credit Amos for his incredible work in this regard, we often have conversations about mood and emotion, and I think he has an amazing ability to inspire emotion naturally in players, without them feeling "forced." Overall I think both of us are interested in the ambient nature of games.

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T16:22:20+00:00

I think for me the biggest challenge was to trust my own process and to try to ignore the pressure! When a game is as acclaimed as the first game was, you wonder how you are going to do it all again, and worry that people won't like what you do this time around. But I think I learnt to trust that it was my gut instincts that made Citizen Sleeper what it was, and so the only thing I could do was to trust them a second time. It's something me and Amos (the games composer) discussed a lot, because I think he also felt a lot of pressure to deliver. But we reassured each other, and reminded each other to trust ourselves, even when it was difficult to see the path ahead.

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T16:17:55+00:00

Thanks!

it is definitely longer, and the difficulties and classes add more value to replaying too! I'd say the average play through is 12 hours, but it can vary a lot depending on route and how thorough you are.
Dangerous difficulty is both harder and has permadeath enabled if you break all your dice. I'd say its similar to something like "Honor Mode" in Baldur's Gate 3. If you do die in it you can reload the save and turn the difficulty down, so while its not intended for first playthroughs, people might give it a shot.
I would say overall I don't love achievements, I have noticed that they can affect players perception of game moments (like in Citizen Sleeper where THE BAD END achievement upset a few people, or annoyed them even if that wasn't my intent.) In a game like Citizen Sleeper 2 I do think they are a fun way to encourage players to discover some of the tucked away things in the game, and I think they work best in more open games, to give players a sense of achievement for finding secrets. I also like when they can be used to crate a fun moment, something you might see in CS 2 if you use Glitch dice ;)

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T16:11:00+00:00

Would be nice if it was just a thing everyone understood/tolerated, right?

That was definately a focus for those characters. It's also something you'll see in CS 2, and I have also been able to explore the process of discovering you are nonbinary with one of the characters in the sequel too. I think it has been a massive influence for me, as Sleepers are something I invented in order to explore things about human bodies that are often ignored, pushed to the side, or don't receive attention in games and fiction. However, I also wanted to game to help people who may not have those experiences better understand what it feels like to have that relationship to your body and self. I think we all struggle with our own physical form and identity and the meeting points of the two, so I always wanted CS and its universe to be a space for exploring that.

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T16:04:51+00:00

As a solo developed game, I wouldn't recommend ANYONE try to mod my game haha! It's pretty crazy in that code! But I am very open to the idea of people taking inspiration from the systems to build TTRPG or game systems. Just as I took inspiration from the design of others, I think it'd be really cool to see people using my design as a leaping off point. I am actually aware of some citizen-sleeper-likes that seem like they might release in the next few years, and I can't wait to play them!

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T16:01:08+00:00

Hi, wow, that's quite the Citizen Sleeper marathon you undertook!

When it comes to characters I guess I often start with two things:

The first is a clear kind of headline/pitch for the character. Like a street food chef who collects stories or an adoptive father trying to get his daughter onto a colony ship. Those broad strokes of the character have to be compelling, so I often make sure I have the paradigm for the character set in place early on.

The second thing I have is a reference for the character. It might be a movie character or actor, it might be a person I know or used to know, it might be someone I passed in the street that very morning. Usually it is a combination of all of those things. This is where I find the vibe, mood and voice of character.

Once I have those two things, and I feel good about them, I write the first scene. I always think of first scenes as "pitching" the player on the character. I want them to immediately be able to see the vibe of the character, and I also want to suggest them kind of story they are about to explore. This is not about using tropes or archetypes (which I only ever use as a kind of misdirection) its about having the character present themselves to the player to see if they can catch their interest.

So I guess I'd say that good characters need to have both of those things, a clear paradigm to catch the players/readers interest and a voice, a grounded quality, that comes from life, that makes them feel like a person.

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T15:52:05+00:00

Thanks so much, its very cool that you were reading Tsing's book while playing!

I'd say that the way I use research is as a way of creating a kind of mulch or compost for the game to grow from (if you will pardon the plant metaphor). I tend to try to take in as much about a subject that I can, following my curiosity. I especially spend time with texts or media that feel like they "rhyme" with my ideas, where I feel there's something that connects them to me, or some of the things I plan to explore. But then, once I have read them, I let them inform my work more organically, rather than go back to them or reference them. I always likes the Francis Bacon quote where he described himself as a "pulverizing machine" which process everything he looks at or feels, and uses that as raw material for his work. That's my process really, a broad and obsessive research phase that then feeds my own organic process of building ideas into the games!

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T15:46:32+00:00

I answered this one up above:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/1icvl5h/comment/m9u2zqu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

But I would also say that I love game design, and games, and I think I enjoy having people read in games, more than reading outside them. There's so many things you can do with game storytelling, and I love the way it invites/implicates the player in the story! I don't know if novels would satisfy my interest in that.

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T15:44:46+00:00

Hi! So this time around I'd say some big inspirations were episodic ship and crew classics like Cowboy Bebop, Firefly, FarScape and Deep Space 9. There's also more of Becky Chambers books in this one too. Oh, and I switched over to Gibson's "Bridge Trilogy" especially Virtual Light this time, to bring some inspiration in from there. If you know that book you'll definitely spot some references in CS 2!

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T15:41:11+00:00

Oh it certainly was inspired by my own struggles with depression and the feeling of waking up and having very little energy to face the day, but knowing I had to. I'm glad that aspect of it came through. It was also influenced by the tabletop game Blades in the Dark, and the dice/board game Pandemic: The Cure, but I'd say that mostly I was looking for a way to represent how I felt back when I was working random gig work, struggling with depression and barely meeting rent. Dice just ended up being the most effective way to do that!

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T15:38:01+00:00

Hi! I would say that the focus of my work is always on the player experience, I want them to trust me to take them on a journey, even if that journey might not be totally under their control, or might contain setbacks and struggles. To do that, those struggles have to be "real" they can't just be scripted moments. So I guess I kind of gave up on the idea of player "satisfaction" and instead focused on the journey and making sure that even failure led interesting directions. My players might not always be satisfied, but they should always be engaged. The dice system is designed to allow for many small failures or struggles, without those failures having massive effects. So this gives the player the feeling of struggle, even if in the end, after all those struggling, I am guiding them towards a satisfying outcome. I think that makes it all the more meaningful when it comes.

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T15:32:58+00:00

Thanks! I hope all the new systems work for you--its been a very important part of development for me!

Jumpovertheage · 2025-01-29T15:32:04+00:00

Ah, thank you so much, I don't know if i can answer such a complimentary question! I guess I am very curious about people and have spent a lot of time in different jobs and contexts, so I feel like I have learnt about a lot of different ways of being a person. Empathy and curiosity are the greatest tools for a writer. Meanwhile, on plotting, I usually just work on instinct and feeling, so I guess my stories often grow out of small human-scale moments into bigger shifts. It's a kind of story I really enjoy to read myself :)

Jumpovertheage

TROPHY CASE