Hello! I’m Gareth of Jump Over the Age, a one-person game development studio. I’ve previously developed Citizen Sleeper and In Other Waters, and my new game Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector will be out this Friday the 31st of January!
Citizen Sleeper 2 is a dice-driven RPG, where you play as an escaped android. With your ship and crew, you take on contracts to survive while you navigate across the Starward Belt.
Verification: Jump Over the Age Bluesky Post!
——EDIT: CLOSED!——
Thanks for all the lovely comments and insightful questions, I really enjoyed this!
If you want to know more about Citizen Sleeper or what I am up to generally, you can sign up to the Jump Over the Age Substack newsletter or follow me directly on Bluesky.
Citizen Sleeper 2 is out in 2 days (!!!) on the 31st of Jan. I hope you enjoy it if you give it a shot 🙂
eShop Preorder Links:
💫Nintendo Switch (US): https://bit.ly/CS2NOA
💫Nintendo Switch (EU): https://bit.ly/CS2NOE
by Jumpovertheage
26 Comments
Citizen Sleeper was an amazing experience for me… Immersive, moving, fun, challenging at times. Loved it, it’s my first recommendation to folks. I picked up the mushroom at the end of the world and recommended that to folks. What do you think makes the first game work well? What didn’t work well that you could do over if you had it again? What advice do you have for other creators who want to make similar experiences for players?
Just wanted to express how much I love Citizen Sleeper. It was a 3-day binge for me during Christmas holidays and it filled me with hope and love, even if at times they were intertwined with sadness and grief.
I was curious about a specific design dynamic. In the first game, at a certain point the player could snowball their dice rolls, as well as eliminate any of the early game threats which provided so much of the initial sense of pressure, anxiety and “scrapping by” feel. In my first playthrough, by the time I reached the Refugee Ships DLCs, none of the time-gated checks felt immediate or high-stakes, because I could so easily complete them.
Is there a system to balance for that in Citizen Sleeper 2?
just received my Lost in Cult package yesterday, so this week is extra exciting! congrats on the upcoming launch. i’m curious, what has a normal day working on the game looked like for you? what kind of non-gamedev activities you feel helped preserve the balance of life, or enhanced the game whether intentionally or unintentionally?
Do you ever want to / plan to write any straight-up novels?
The system design of your games combined with the writing is hugely additive, so I can see that pushing that boundary is important to you. But the prose on its own is strong enough – *In Other Waters*’ writing is some of the most evocative and transportative I’ve experienced in a game – that I just wondered.
Also, any recent (like, last decade) sci-fi reading that’s really stuck with you?
(stoked for *Citizen Sleeper 2*. I haven’t watched a single trailer since the reveal since I know I’m playing it anyway, so I’m dying to see how the ship/crew stuff will work in this system lol. keep it up!)
Hi Gareth, thanks for the AMA. I am doing my PhD on how games can be used to develop empathy. One of the main themes in Citizen Sleeper was precarity – did you have any challenges in balancing player satisfaction with gameplay while making it possible to fail the drives? Did you have to change or cut storylines that left the player too much at the whim of poor dice rolls? It can be hard to write something that allows players to reflect on real world precarity without robbing them of in game agency.
Thank you for creatint this wonderful universe. It’s so refreshing to play something dystopian yet hopeful. While the art by Guillaume and the music by Amos are phenonenal, it’s the writing that sees me keep on coming back to the CS universe (still eagerly awaiting my Lost in Cult package 😅). Where did you get such awareness on the human psyche, and on the reverberations of small actions that create such far-fetching consequences?
Thank you once again. Your games give me hope when the world feels darker. They encourage us to keep looking up, and to give that trust to someone.
Hi Gareth! Could you speak to your inspiration for the dice mechanics – specifically, how they’re rolled at the start of each cycle? As someone living with depression, it really spoke to the idea of never being 100% certain what you’d be able to do/ what you would have energy for in the future, and having to just take things one day at a time. Or maybe it truly was just a reworked TTRPG mechanic and I’m imposing my own experiences onto it 😂best of luck with the launch this week!!
Hi Gareth, I absolutely adored Citizen Sleeper and have been counting down the days until the sequel’s release. During my wait for the sequel, I’ve been consuming media that [inspired](https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizenSleeper/comments/11czcm6/citizen_sleeper_inspirations/) the first game.
I was wondering what inspirations you have drawn upon for the sequel?
Hi Gareth, I love Citizen Sleeper 1 and I describe it as the best cyberpunk novel I’ve ever read. The characters, the station, the universe… everything is perfect.
My question is the following : Have you ever considered writing novels instead of/in addition to creating video games ?
Hi Gareth! Citizen Sleeper has quickly grown to become one of my all-time favorite games, it especially excited me when I realized you took inspiration from The Mushroom at the End of the World, which I was reading at the time of playing your game!
I want to ask: How do you translate that dense theoretical research into informing your writing and game design, is there a specific process behind it for you or does it happen organically?
Much love and good luck with the launch!
Hi Gareth! After watching Jacob Geller’s video of his favorite games of 2022, where he said that he sat down and played Citizen Sleeper until he finished it – I immediately bought it and did the exact same thing. The game was hugely addicting due to the enthralling story and immersive gameplay, and I absolutely adored playing it through that 12 hour gaming binge. I greatly enjoyed the additional content added later as well! I recommend the game to everyone I can and still listen to the music often. Thank you for your work!
I really loved the characters within Citizen Sleeper’s world, they felt really fleshed out, genuine, and full of personality. I felt like my character developed real, meaningful relationships with them. What do you think about when writing characters, what is most important for building a connection with the player to the character, and what helps each character’s personality shine, in your view?
I’ll concede the slightly out of pocket nature of this question: how well do you think CS2 lends to hacks and mods? Just to say, there’s a tradition in tabletop of remixing and reworking a system to fit one’s own ideas. *I* think it would be neat to see games “powered by sleepers”, but what’s your take on that, as a software designer?
Hi! Super stoked to dive into CS2! I played the first game around the time I figured out that I was nonbinary, and spending time on Erlin’s Eye where characters like Sabine and Peake got to lead vivid lives grounded in place and community, where their gender was just another *thing* about them, wound up being really formative for me. It helped me imagine a world where being nonbinary could be casual – unremarkable, even, so I’d love to hear if/how being nonbinary yourself informed Citizen Sleeper’s setting and world building?
Citizen Sleeper was such a magical game for me; so excited for 2.
A couple of questions:
1) Is 2 of a similar length to 1, or is it longer/shorter?
2) What is dangerous difficulty. Permadeath? Or just “hard” mode?
3) As an achievement hunter on Xbox, who also loves Switch, curious to whether as a developer you like achievement/trophies and find them a way to encourage gamers to play x way, or whether you find them burdensome to create/prefer Nintendo’s no-achievement approach?
What challenges did your team face when deciding to do a sequel to the first game?
Hi Gareth! Dusting off my super old account! Citizen Sleeper and In Other Waters were transformative experiences for me – the stories on both are excellent for entirely different reasons, same with the soundtracks! Citizen Sleeper’s in particular is one of my favorite OSTs ever – I hope to get the vinyl one day!
Do you ever consider the ‘vibe’ of your game as you are mid-development on it? In Other Waters is quite chill and relaxing, while Citizen Sleeper is a litany of things – tense, hopeful, stressful, fulfilling. Do you try to hit a specific emotion when it comes to certain moments or gameplay systems?
Thanks for the AMA – I can’t wait for Citizen Sleeper 2!
What were the (likely literary) influences for the narrative(s) for Citizen Sleeper 1+2
Hey Gareth!
Would you ever consider developing an official Citizen Sleeper TTRPG? What did you find most interesting or surprising about playing in the CBR+PNK game that Quinns ran in the Citizen Sleeper setting?
Link for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCP7Pf12xcU
Despite the constant deterioration and risk of getting low-rolls, there is a sense in Citizen Sleeper that the game wants you to succeed and feel safe. Can you comment on this and how you created this balance between the feelings of urgency + the feeling of safety in the game?
Hi Gareth,
What tools/techniques do you use to help keep track of/plan out the different branches of your narrative?
Thanks.
Hi Gareth!
Sorry if I’ve missed the party but more than anything, I just wanted to say that the first Citizen Sleeper is one of my favourite games I’ve ever played and its story and the way it told it both hit me hard emotionally and kept me coming back for another cycle when I should have put it down lol and I can’t thank you enough for giving me that experience.
I don’t know if you can really tell the metadata of this, but personally I got the game on Steam and played it entirely on Steam Deck and, considering we’re in the switch sub here, I do want to highlight how great of a game it is to play handheld and let you know that even with the Steam version, I think there’s a decent number of people out there who appreciate how great of a title it is for that playstyle. I can only speak for myself but I highly recommend either game on a handheld like the Deck or Switch, if you have other.
As a new-ish father, the steam deck has been kind of *the* thing that has enabled me to keep playing games and I always wonder how much attention devs have towards this rise in handheld pc gaming, and I’m curious how much of a pain it is to accommodate on your end, making a game not just for pc and Nintendo but also making sure it plays well enough for people with the pc copy to play it handheld. Again, the switch is kind of the harbinger of this wave, but considering how much bigger my library is on Steam, that’s what I tend to default to so that’s why I’m more curious about it. Like on the creator’s end, is it still seen as pretty niche, or something you give thought to, like how well will this play on a handheld pc – and I guess is that easier if you’re developing for switch anyways?
I’m sure that sounds leading but if anything I’m curious how much of a bubble I’m living in with my gaming format of choice lol
Sleepers remind me of an upcoming movie called Mickey 17 where someone “sold” their body and consciousness to be copied over and over again for a ticket on the spaceship. Curious how you came up with the idea of “sleepers” and why in particular, the game had a “space” scifi setting?
Citizen Sleeper is arguably my first TRPG on the computer, looking forward to the 2nd game in a few days! Excited to play it on game pass again. Thanks!
What inspired you to start making video games and how did you start?
What is your favorite part of making video games?
I haven’t played citizen sleeper or in other waters yet although I will buy them
Is there anything you do/did to write better character dialogue that’s in the character’s voice and still feels real?
No real question, just wanted to say that I played In Other Waters when it came out, out of curiosity and that solidified my impression of your passion for the stories you tell. So when the first Citizen Sleeper was announced and I found out, I counted down the days until I could get my hands on it, and though In Other Waters is fantastic – Citizen Sleeper has become my favourite game of all time. It just hit all the right boxes at all the right times, and I’m not much of a gamer, so when I tell you I KEEP coming back to it – That’s a huge thing for me!
Its like its become an escape from the realities of real life, to the point where I recommend it to friends alongside more traditional ‘cozy’ games. Like so many of the games characters, I can find refuge on the Eye.
And I wait here, in these last few days before Citizen Sleeper: Starward Vector is in my hands, and feel that exact same rush of anticipation, and excitement, and mild anxiety I felt while waiting for (and then playing) the first game. Its exhilarating!
There’s a magic to your work in my opinion, and I just wanted to say that.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for Citizen Sleeper. It immediately became one of my favorite games of all time after I played it. The OST is on constant rotation in my life and I’m halfway through the Design Works book.
The announcement of Citizen Sleeper 2 got me so excited when I first heard of it. Got it all preloaded on my Switch and can’t wait to play.
Guess there isn’t really a question here, but thank you for your work.