The concept of capital S “Self” is something irrevocably human, and undeniably intangible. Considering this, it isn’t surprising that few games have taken on the subject with aplomb. So often the characters portrayed in games serve the sole purpose of digital avatar: Crash Bandicoot is a character who inhabits the colorful world in which he jumps, slurps up wumpa fruit, dons and loses masks, and bounces from question-mark box to question-mark box. But really he is a visual representation, an avatar, of the player, serving to anchor their experience as they move through the game. What Crash doesn’t have is agency.

It could be argued that the avatar in 2022’s Citizen Sleeper doesn’t really have agency either. But the writers of the sci-fi RPG, often more table top or board game than traditional video game, go to great lengths to set you up within the confines of a different self. You take on the role of a Sleeper, an artificial body whose sole purpose is to house the consciousness of a human being that has been sold into servitude.

Take that in for a moment. You’re having troubles making ends meet at your 9-5. You’ve run out of options. You decide to turn to Essen-Arp Corporation. They offer a significant amount of money in exchange for something most would consider insignificant: All you have to do is upload your consciousness and go about your day. The main character, the YOU of this game, is a copy of a person you won’t ever encounter, or learn anything about. Nothing unique is desired by Essen-Arp, only the electrical brain magic that they can use to make dummy cyborgs work for them. You are the drowned clone by-product of the fanciest part of the magic trick. HEAVY.

The game opens with you landing on The Eye, a space station home to all manner of refugees, misfits, corporate entities, and everything in between. And then you roll dice. A lot of dice. Each bright new day brings with it a new throw of the dice. The outcomes are placed at the top of the screen and represent your ability to perform actions. From 1 to 6, these pips will determine how you conduct your day-to-day activities aboard the Eye.

You navigate the station via an overhead view. Each area of interest can be selected and further explored via textual descriptions. There are unique characters to meet throughout the station, each with desires and goals of their own. The art style is one aspect of Citizen Sleeper that sets it above and beyond. It is gorgeous. Character portraits encapsulate the feeling of the world so well that you can’t help but fall in deeper, to step a little further into the shoes of this blank slate corporate slave. You can’t help but become invest in the stories of these characters, and all of that starts with what meets your eye, the first impression.

Serving as an ever-present accompaniment, the music is another unique aspect of the game. Ethereal synth is draped over every minute you spend aboard the eye. It’s spacey, it’s chilled-out, and honestly lends itself to disassociation after a while. I found myself feeling like an untethered consciousness, which is an amazing achievement, not only from a sound and music direction, but also from a gameplay perspective. As with all of the best art, each individual piece should draw you deeper into the whole, and this is very true here. Composed by Portland-based Amos Roddy, the score by itself warrants a close study.

Progressing through The Eye means you’ll inevitably see storylines through to their conclusion. Will you escape the eye? Will you dedicate your time to help others? What becomes clear as you progress is that Citizen Sleeper is less concerned with applying descriptors to your character, your avatar, and more concerned with the interactions you choose to pursue. You aren’t the things used to describe you, you are what you do. In a world so defined by leveling up characters, by the gear grinds and the point builds, Citizen Sleeper chooses to walk a different path. The points you place on your character sheet serve to further the story, not just add a laser site to your pulse rifle.

The game has undergone many updates and received supplemental developments since I first played it. I reached a point in my playthrough where I appeared to be blocked: I had resolved all available narrative threads to the best of my ability, and found myself with nothing further to do. I don’t know if this is an intended end point, or simply reflective of a build-in-progress, but either way it left me feeling a bit unresolved. I can’t wait to dive back in and play through the new version.

Like Disco Elysium, and Pentiment, Citizen Sleeper represents the pinnacle of narrative story telling in the medium. These three narrative experiences are so invigorating, so antithetical to the overwhelmingly generic way story is approached in games, that they may serve as a wake up call. These games are smelling salts to roust gamers from reveries spent eating narrative paste. Play Citizen Sleeper and try not to be enraptured.