Here are a few things to keep in mind before starting Citizen Sleeper.

As you progress through the moody sci-fi world of Citizen Sleeper, the narrative RPG from Jump Over The Age, you'll come up against tough decisions, intense resource management, and over a dozen branching storylines revolving around the game's stellar NPCs.

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Erlin's Eye, the space station you'll be exploring as the unnamed Sleeper, can be unforgiving at first and you'll need all the help you can get to survive your pursuers, keep your body in working order, and stay out of trouble with a number of factions.

In typical RPG fashion, you'll be choosing a class at the start of Citizen Sleeper, which will guide many of your interactions with the game's world. Pay close attention to the specific strengths and weaknesses of your chosen class and be sure to leverage them as best you can, especially in the early game.

The bonus point you get to each class's main stat may not seem like much, but the difference between rolling a four or rolling a five can eliminate any chance for failure, making the result a neutral outcome at best. Finding tasks that revolve around your main skills and taking advantage of them will help you establish a footprint on The Eye, giving you allies and income that will be vital in the game to come.

Seeing one or two show up in your daily set of dice rolls can be disheartening, especially since that pool of dice essentially represents how far you'll be able to progress your tasks on a given cycle. However, taking a low roll doesn't always mean failure and there are multiple ways to spin these low numbers to your advantage.

The game's hacking system sees your character navigating cyberspace and cracking open various nodes around The Eye. Instead of the usual dice roll mechanics, these nodes will require a specific number to act as a key. These numbers tend to be on the lower end, mainly ones and twos, meaning you can save your low rolls for a bit of hacking which can provide additional income and in certain cases progress NPC questlines.

Early on you'll find a gate leading to the second major area in the game which is closed off and requires a toll to open. While the price might seem steep at the time, especially with more pressing concerns like monitoring your condition on your mind, you should make opening this gate a priority. Opening the game's world not only provides you with more tasks, ways to obtain resources, and daily activities to perform; but will also introduce new NPCs and factions to further flesh out your options as the game progresses.

By continuing to expand the world, you'll be able to progress certain questlines more quickly as well, which is vital given the amount of time and resource management you'll be juggling as you attempt to stay afloat on The Eye.

As a Sleeper your life is dependent on two sources of energy; food and stabilizer. Both of these things, at least initially, will cost money so you should make a consistent source of income your first priority. There are several odd jobs you can pick up around The Eye, each offering varying degrees of income depending on the difficulty of the task.

When looking for work, it's best to keep an eye on what kind of skill said work will be utilizing. Many of these jobs even offer paths toward promotions which will give you even more money each time you repeat the task.

Many of the nodes you'll visit will be marked with a compass symbol when you first arrive. Clicking on these will bring you to a set of tasks you can perform in that area to gain more awareness of the zone as you explore. While you don't need to max out these tasks to gain access to surrounding facilities, it's highly recommended that you do as the area won't become fully unlocked until that task is complete.

This can unlock new ways to earn income, lead to new NPC interactions, provide new sources of energy, or even unlock entirely new sections of The Eye for you to explore!

In narrative RPGs, it is often hard to make everyone happy, especially when confronted with difficult decisions. However, in Citizen Sleeper, you should try to keep your relationships with most NPCs amicable, especially as you're feeling things out in the early game. Many of these characters offer tasks for you in their locations and cutting yourself off from those could prove detrimental to your income.

On top of that, you never know when a certain character's expertise could help you out of a bind further down the road. So try to keep things civil with the residents of The Eye, at least in the beginning.

Clocks do more than just track your progress at the various nodes around The Eye. They'll also warn you of upcoming events or tell you how long you need to wait before progressing certain questlines. It's important to keep track of which clocks are spinning and what will happen once they are complete as it will likely hold some sort of consequence or reward for you.

It's worth doing a sweep of The Eye at the start or end of each cycle to make a mental note about where each active clock is and how many more cycles you have until it completes. That way you can plan your daily activities around upcoming events and prepare for the narrative shifts that accompany them, good or bad.

Two separate merchant vessels will periodically stop on The Eye, one offering scrap and the other more valuable items. You should take advantage of these as frequently as you can (provided you have some cash lying around) as the items they provide are useful in multiple questlines.

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If you aren't making regular use of these resources you could find yourself stuck and waiting for several cycles for them to return just to move a quest one beat further when you could have just had those items ready to go from the jump.

While it's tempting to be a jack of all trades, you'll find that specializing in one or two skills provides a far greater return on your investment. Spreading your points too thin might net you a +1 in most skills, but by specializing you'll gain access to useful second-tier perks like the ability to reroll your dice once per day or a flat 20% discount in all of the game's shops.

This mindset should carry over to your interactions with the denizens of The Eye as well. There are many characters to meet and all of their stories are compelling, but trying to do every questline at once will drain your limited resources very quickly. It's better to find two or three characters to attach yourself to and see where their stories take you. If you're curious about other NPC stories you can always try a second run as the game is super replayable.

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Winfield is a writer, gamer, and (most importantly) Cat Dad. When he's not writing he can be found streaming, cooking, listening to podcasts, and, of course, gaming. He has his Bachelors degree in English and Dance and currently resides in Philadelphia, PA.