Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Citizen Sleeper 2 Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

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What's up, everybody. Welcome. Jesus Christ, you scared me. I didn't see that one coming at all. I had no way to be ready for it. For Thursday, January 30th, 20, 25. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside Forbes 30 under 30, a.k.a. New York Game Awards nominated,

AKA Magic the Gathering Poppy. Blessing Eddie, oh, yay, June. Everybody in this office is sick, you know, sneezing, coughing. I don't trust you guys First off Your whole family's sick We're recording this in a time

Lump of course We're recording this on Tuesday After we did the last games cast I sound great today compared to Monday Monday had that cough You guys made me laugh so much It irritated me But I've been great today

I'm fine today Like the excuse You made me laugh so much That I'm coughing nonstop I mean I was coughing I'm funny throughout the year You had a cough You got a last games cast

And you're the last 10 minutes I was like oh there there was an entity That exited That's where I kicked it out You know the end of it for me That's how I was a lot Of course, Hispanic heartthrop, Texas Street, Latino heat, clicking heads and ripping him to shreds.

The globe trotting, headshot, and three-point shooting, rooting, tootin, nitro rifle from Twitch.tv. Andy Cortez, how are you feeling? I'm doing great. Awesome. What was that sneeze? Was it just a, I got some dust in my nose? I felt a, I felt a tickle in the nostrils.

You're the one out there in the night, right? Playing magic, the gathering board games, people puking. Got the norovirus over there. One child. What are you going to do with it? the children. And also I was careful because, like, those was one of the kids who How young are these kids you're playing with?

Well, I'm not playing with the kids. The kids are just having to be there. The adults are playing the adult games. I thought the nine-year-old beat you up. And what? Which nine-year-old? Nine-year-old beat me up. No, that was when you went to the... It was a magic fest. Oh, yeah, no, that was... Yeah, that was at the the, whatcha, call it, pre-release event.

Yeah, no, but he didn't beat me up, though. I beat him because it's best two out of three. I beat him the first game. He beat me the second game. but then we ran out of time, and so I gave him the win so that one of us could win the pack because you have to win. Like if you submit a tie,

nobody wins the pack. And so I'm like, I'm like, well, he's the kid, so I'm not gonna flip a point. I'm just saying you're on people too. You're getting sick too, all right? But I'm saying these kids.

I got the dad bod, the dad immune system. I'm doing fine. I'm watching, I'm at this board game night. I'm watching this three year old, right? And like, like, there's a lot of snacks and stuff. Like, it's like, I love this game night.

It's like, it happens like, it's just out of friends house. Okay. They have children. And like this last time, you know, he had Cheetos out. He had like, yeah, different snacks. Oh, just the hands are everywhere. Yeah, I just see this kid.

Oh, man, this kid's hands are all more than snacks. And I was like, not in those. Yeah, not even though. Smart move. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's the, you know, Ben learned a valuable lesson that I'll have to, you know, repeat 14, 13,000, 100,000 times. But this weekend when we were playing our games, he is getting better,

but he's still getting over sucking his thumb. And so, yeah, he had me beat a part of Astrobat or Sonic for him, and I passed the controller back, and he pulled him like, wah-baha. No, buddy. This is a dual sense, all right? There's a microphone in it. That's a great call. Get him started early on that. I'm not going to raise one of these kids who's just a ruffian who has no idea what he's doing out there.

Trust the controllers. Exactly. It wasn't until Greg really sort of, like, drilled that idea into your mind of when you go to a convention, don't ever touch your mouth. That's why I get sick, yeah. And, like, I am so self-conscious of that now. It's always in the forefront of my mind. Whenever I'm anywhere with food, it's like, I either have, I'm always wearing a mask in an airport, because that's always like the place that I always get sick at. I always take a disease back home and I get sick when I'm back in Texas or I'll bring a sickness back over here.

So that's like eliminated pretty much. But then when you're at a convention and there's finger foods or you're at a, you know, a little event. Let's touch the controller. Then let's pick up a slider. All it takes is one time. It took the one time where I almost passed out of Comic Con. I was like, never again, never do you. You guys try to fist bump people?

Oh yeah. I fist bump. So my ammo upon leaving the hotel room or whatever, going to a preview event is that my hands are biohazards. So I shake hands because I know I'm not. I would never have a million years touch the food and eat it or do that or rub something. Once I'm out, I know it's whatever and then I'll be. I had a thing at, I believe it was, oh, I forget. I think it was Pax East.

It was Pax East where it was lunchtime and I was like, man, I'm starving. I'm going to go to like the food court area that's at the convention center and I had like I was like okay let me find a nearby bathroom because I don't know if I'm going to be washed my hands when I'm at the food court I'm sure this bathroom but who knows

so I washed my hands and like it was a obstacle course of like trying to make sure my hands stayed clean I ran into a friend of mine who I love him so much but he will not just like not shake my hand anytime he sees me he needs to dab me up fully

and I like tried so hard like I made the fist apparent of like I'm fist bumping you and he grabs my hand. I'm like, come on, my guy. See, I, I, I've been in that situation and I will stop, I'll stop everything. I'm about to go eat. I'm about to do this.

Yeah, that's why. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not afraid of, you know, making an enemy out of a friend. Yeah, but, you know, I don't know. I just thought, I don't like an awkward situation. My whole life's an awkward situation. It's fine.

This has been the thing, of course, you know, being a germaphobe, but on, you know, lower level, not like, you know, OCD or anything like that. Not there anything wrong with that. I'm just making sure I'm not trying to, you know, have false valor here. But the idea of like the things I've had to get over with having a kid.

You know what I mean? I'm still hungry in the half eaten sandwich that he has been playing and touching. I was like, you know what I mean? Like I got to keep the immune system going. Whatever. I'm hungry. I'm in terms of again,

the levels like sure, I'm a germophobe, but I'm a fat guy first. So like today he's not going to finish that egg sandwich. Give me that thing. I made a great egg sandwich today. Come on. Of course,

I'm going to make a great podcast for you today as well. Because this is the kind of funny gamescast. Each and every weekday we run you through the biggest topics in video games Whether they be previews topics to talk about or like today Reviews of games you should be paying attention to If you like that of course join us each and every weekday here on twitch.tv.tvy slash kind of funny games YouTube.com slash kind of funny games and podcast services around the globe Of course if you're watching live I would normally tell you

You could be a super chatter and get a part of it but like I already told you Because it travels and previews and all these things We're recording this ahead of time however Andy Cortez went above and beyond and put up a blue sky post so we do have audience feedback. Good job, Andy. Yeah, no problem. Good job out there. Of course, man.

Of course, if you want to support us beyond following us on Blue Sky, it's pretty simple. You should get that kind of funny membership. $10 gets you all of our shows. That's 20 a week, 80 a month, ad free. And of course, the ability to watch the afternoon podcast live as you record them. And of course, a daily dose of me in a series we call Gregway, where even when I'm on the road like today, somebody else does it. I think it's Roger today. Roger with his Trinidad stories

Is he back? On Thursday He's back on Thursday Oh Is that what they're calling him? I like that The Trinidad Can we say that?

What you're saying he's back This Thursday? That's what the calendar says I thought he was gone for two weeks Has it been? No, it was 10 days? Wait, was he gone last week?

Yeah. Oh yeah. Wow. It's like I didn't even notice. Don't let Roger see this. That's crazy. Chat be cool, Chappie cool.

Do not show this to Roger. He was gone last week? Do not show this to Roger. It was his birthday yesterday, but he can't like, no way. He was gone for I didn't notice he wasn't part of game showdown.

He's like your co-hoored on that thing, and he wasn't here for it. Oh, yeah, I guess he wasn't. It was a kind of futy episode, you know. Only do one. If you got no bucks and tossed away, no big deal. YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, Twitch.com.

Twitter. com, podcast services. Like, subscribe, share, ring the bell, tell your friends, leave a review. I just thought the two weeks would feel longer. You have Twitch Prime. You know the whole song. Housekeeping for you.

You already got Kind of Funny Games daily today. Of course, you're getting a scream after this that as of Tuesday is supposed to be sniper elite resistance. If you're a kind of funny member, you can get today's Greg Way, hopefully from Roger. Today's, we don't think our Patreon producers, Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs. Today we're brought to you a better help and built. We'll tell you about that later.

For now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be topic of the show. Andy? Hey, Greg. In 2020, two. A game called Citizen Sleeper came out. I heard no one speak about it until you started speaking about it. and for three years now, ish, you've never shut up about it. Yeah.

You loved Citizen Sleeper. You enjoyed Citizen Sleeper, had an 82 on Metacritic, and now Citizen Sleeper 2 is finally upon us. The Steam description reads, a dice-driven RPG in a human and heartfelt sci-fi world. You are an escaped android with a malfunctioning body, a price on your head, and no memory of your past. Get a ship, find a crew, and take on contracts while you navigate across the surferenced. Starward Belt. Of course, it is developed by Jump Over the Age, published by fellow traveler out January 31st. Andy Cortez, as the biggest citizen sleeper fan I know, does Citizen Sleeper 2, Starward Vector, live up to the hype. Yes. Excellent. Yes, it sure does. It sure does, Greg.

Is it a contender? I am proud to say that Citizen Sleeper 2 is a contender. for at least by top 10, right? Yeah, of course. And I've always talked about how Citizen Sleeper is a much more different game than I would ever give a chance to. It just, I think it was one of those right moments in time for me where I was listening to the Besties podcast. Never heard. And they were just wax and poetic about Citizen Sleeper and how amazing the storytelling is and the writing. And it was available on Game Pass.

and I fired up my Xbox during the pandemic and I was like, let me see what this game is all about and I think I beat it in one day because I was just so I was just so enthralled and engrossed with this experience. Yeah. So immersed in the story

and the characters and everything and so impressed by the writing mainly how every every, you know, we talk about every frame of painting in movies or whatever. This is like every line of bar. Like every, it reminds me of watching Andor where

there are so many monologues in Andor, you're just like, God, that's a, that's a fucking poem right there. Like, give that like some award right there, just that one line. Like, that happens constantly in Citizen Sleeper. And Citizen Sleeper, let me just do the little Wikipedia plot. Please do. And this is also kind of encompassing Citizen Sleepers, too, plot as well. In Citizen Sleeper, the player character is a sleeper, a human whose mind has been digitized and put into the body, the robot body, to be controlled by the SNARP Corporation. The player's sleeper has escaped indentured servitude on a freighter and arrived on

the space station called the I. That's for Sitten Sleper 1. But just the general thing is in the future, if there's a lot of debts you owe, if you're kind of, you don't have a whole lot of options in your life because corporations and capitalism has run rampant and there's a lot of... Thank God this is fiction. Yeah. There are massive amounts of wealth disparity, right? You can lend your not necessarily lend, but you sell your body to a corporation. They emulate and digitize your mind, put it inside of a robot,

and that robot will work and make money and you will kind of exist there forever. While your body is somewhere on a station, whatever, just kind of there. Getting milked. Yeah, sleeping. Yeah, exactly. Getting milked. Yeah. and so it's really a pretty dreary look into the future and a really depressing take on what future life can be

but the thing that really struck me with Citizen Seeper was always this feeling of hope depending on whoever NPCs you would talk to any NPC you would talk to there would always just be like this underlying positivity of as long as you. as we have each other sort of mentality. Sure. If we stick together, you know, regardless of what awful things are happening out there in the space station or in the universe or in the galaxy, we can only control what we have right now. And let's make the most of it.

And there's, regardless of how depressing it gets, there's always that sort of feeling. Sure. And I was just super drawn to it. And for whatever reason, it just worked in that moment whenever I played this game. And this is typically a game I would never ever try because it's a lot of. reading and there's no dash, there's no, there's no parries. Yeah, that's, I was going to say if you're, we're watching it obviously, but if you're an audio listener, yeah, it's this interesting visual novel, but then mixed up with the, as I read, dice-based RPG mechanic, right? Where it is,

you have these set number of dice that you can then go and apply to the choices you make in the game. So it'll influence, obviously, you know, with more dots on the die if it's going to be a good outcome or a bad outcome and it changes the priority of what you're doing. But you're, yeah, just making choices and seeing how they play out. Yeah, and I think one thing for me when I played the first Citizen Sleeper is after, the story that I experienced in Citizen's Sleeper one is like, that's my canon. That's, yeah, that was my story. I think I had one of the best endings to any video game experience I've ever had

and something that will just constantly resonate with me. And it was... beautiful and emotional and just fucking like emotionally wrecking you know it was a very heartbreaking moment that was still so amazing to experience yeah it felt great and so many of the mpc's in citizen seeper one and citizen seeper two have a lot of those those through lines whether you're talking to them for a tiny little mission or whether they're there to constantly go back to and kind of progress their story can i stop you right there because i feel like you're going somewhere that I want to get one of our super chats in.

It's a quote from your blue sky thing, right? You're talking about how much you have this canon ending in Citizen Sleeper 1. Citizen Sleeper 2 clearly a sequel. We do have a question from Eric Myers who says hypothetically, because this is how you phrased your tweet. If I hadn't played the first one, would I be able to jump into this one and not be lost? Yes. Okay.

Do you recommend playing the first one first? Of course. I think the first game is a better video game. Oh, interesting. If I were to, you know, kind of funny score, you know, we didn't have that scale back in the day. If I were to give Sidon Zeber 1, it's like close to a masterpiece for me. I give it a 9.5. Nice.

And Citizen Zeber 2, I'm on the fence between 8.5 to 9. Okay. Still extremely recommended. Absolutely play this game. It's still incredible. But in Citizen Sleeper 2, you are playing a different sleeper. You start, you're in a different, you're a different character altogether. But still the same through line.

there. You are a digitized, emulated mind put into a worker robot body. And it starts off with a bang. And I think it starts off really great. Citizen Zeber 2. And the demo's out now. You can still play the demo. It's called the Hexport demo up on Steam. But yes, you can absolutely hop in and not be lost or confused because it throws you into a very easy to digest situation. you are confused you wake up what the hell is going on we're going to give you the best couple of paragraphs to beautifully you know describe the the environment that you're in and it's all written so incredibly great and somebody's hunting you and somebody's you know somebody's fucking with their property back somebody is fucking with your robot body and it says dude named lane and this lane is bad news and this guy's like you know look what i've done for you and this is how

you're treating me. Like, you know, I, you know, that I have plans for your body and you've just treated it like shit. And, and then you have a friend alongside you who's like, we got to get the fuck out of here. And you're like, who is this person? You have different dialogue choices. Who are you? Like, what the, what do you mean? Something happened to you. There was some sort of test or some sort of thing happening to your body and it was interrupted and your brain is wiped. and it's a great place to kind of fall into because it's immediately like I feel the tension, I feel the action and I hate this dude already.

So I'm 90 minutes in. I did not play Citizen Sleeper 1. And so the only thing I found not jarring, but I was wondering, am I, would I know more about me or Lane if I had played Citizen Sleeper 1? And I think not knowing it, not even knowing that, just having that question,

didn't influence this, having a great time, story is great, conversations are great. Gameplay, I'm still wrapping my head, head around because it is so new to me and different, but I don't think you have to worry if you're a new player jumping in, because I am. Right, and you will have three different classes to choose from and the three different,

can I ask a question there too? Go ahead. Was that in Citizen Sleeper one as well? Yes. Okay. And where, um, you know, if we're talking,

the closest end all I can give you is strength, dexterity, magic, whatever the fuck, right? But these are engineer, um, pursuits. I'm blanking on what all the different skills. all right, but one character

won't be able to do one of them. But, like, each class won't be able to do certain moves. When Kevin was going through it, you saw the skill trees and, like, they're being one redded out, right? That's the ideas. You go in there and you have different base levels to start from, let alone, things that are closed off on it. You will have some strengths, and some

of your fellow MPCs might be able to pick up the slack in those situations whenever you come across these moments where you have to roll your dice, right? A new mechanic in this game? we go. Here we go.

Here's the screen. Machinist right? Or machinist? Yeah, machinist. So this character can't do the engage skill. So if there's ever a test in the future that has engaged, you will not be able to roll a dice there. You can roll a dice, but since you don't have that skill, it'll get, you know, if you have a six that you can roll, because you just so happened to wake up that day. And every day you wake up, you are giving five dice to roll.

And you could use those five dice on any place in any of the star stations that you're kind of located. and if you have a six and I try to use it on that skill engage, it's going to become a four. It takes away two points because you don't have that skill. You can't use that here. And the four gives you less chance of

this having a positive outcome, right? I think all that stuff gets so like in the weeds though. I don't really want to scare away people from like dice rolling type stuff because I think it starts to kind of come more naturally to the player, but when I hop into this, I'm like, I'm not a table

top guy. I'm not a visual novel type dude and I really was just there for these human stories. Interesting. I love that about it. I think that's the thing is like not being a dice player either like those kind of games, even tabletop RPGs.

I respect but I haven't done a lot of D&D. It was more like getting in and being like, oh, it's the gimmick to the visual novel. Visual novels often, I can't enjoy, but often I find myself drifting away from. I'm bored to some respect thing right i'm just making choices whatever the gameplay mechanic and the influencing

none of the decisions and the thing especially early on right now where i am in the game right over is like let's scrounge up some cash i'm gonna go do this don't fuck it up and you walk around and either fuck it up or don't fuck it up right like i'm in that section still and so it is like okay this is a risky choice do i do i use my big dice on it or do i not or i do i go to this yeah if you uh the different tests will tell you whether it's a safe choice a risky choice or a dangerous choice it'll have danger on there. And if you roll a, you know, if you roll a six, that's a 100% pass. Yeah. You're going to pass that test. If you roll a five, you have a 50% chance of it being a positive outcome or 50% chance of it being neutral, which is like still fine. And that usually passes in a lot of cases. Yeah. And then if I were to try to roll a two, then that's like negative or neutral. Like you're not really going to succeed.

here. And if it's a dangerous task or a risky task, a risky task will result in more punishment to you the player. So it's like, do you want to take that risk? Do you want to deal with the consequences of undergoing stress? And the more stress your character has, your dice will break. And you have to eventually repair those. But if your dice are broken, then that means you only have four left instead of the usual five. And if you keep on taking really shitty risks, then you'll have another dice will break and then you'll have three left, you know? And so it's like there is a lot of that risk reward and a lot of that player payoff. But I kind of wanted to,

I wanted to compare my experience with Citizens Saper 1 and with this game to another game that we played last year, that you and I played last year, Dragon Age the Veil Guard. Oh yeah. Where I think based on certain endings and certain outcomes, you can have an incredible experience and maybe you get an outcome that you feel is lesser than, you'll be like, ah, that really kind of hurts the overall.

my overall feelings will be here, right? Yeah. And I stand by that whatever I did in Dragon Age de Villegarde, even if having a catastrophic ending with all the choices that I was making, I was like, wow, I really loved what I experienced. And then I started up a new player, and I saw different dialogue choices. And suddenly, I saw the cringe that reviewers are talking about. And I saw things that weren't lining up,

and I saw things that didn't feel earned. and I'm like, okay. Now I start to see why other people's viewpoints. And that's not, you know, I'm not trying to excuse the writers here or whatever, but different, you know, whether you're choosing a different backstory, it might lead to worse writing. It might lead to moments you're like, oh, that doesn't, that didn't feel good. I don't really like the character saying that.

That makes no sense. Why would you feel that way when I didn't experience, you know, blah, blah, blah, that you can kind of like, you see where I'm getting at. And with Citizens and Sieber One, I still feel like, ending that I got is the most perfect thing that could have happened for me in that moment. And there could have been other outcomes that maybe didn't make you feel as satisfied. For me, it was like perfect. That's why it's like, what an amazing experience.

With this game, it feels like there is one singular ending, but there are a lot of like one A and one B and one C sort of like. Shades to it? Side endings to it. Because it still feels like there's one kind of, this is the final thing that you will do in this game to eventually roll credits, but there are other sort of paths to pursue

that you may not in certain playthroughs. So that's where a lot of... But I do think a lot of the choices still matter in this game. A lot of the things you're doing, a lot of the NPCs are deciding to keep around. All of that stuff does matter. And the same with Citizen Saper 1, where

you're making some big choices. And if you fail some stuff, you might have an ending that's like, oh my God, this is really depressing and sad. and I really fucked up here. What made those choices matter to you, right? Like, if it's not a thing of figuring out, like, oh, I want ending A versus ending D or whatever, right?

Like, is it the fact that you're just coloring in the story the way you want to color it in? Is it like what happens along the way that differs from what other people might do? Or, like, is it something else? I think what makes, as long as I'm getting fulfilled emotionally, you know, I was talking, I'd ask the developer where the demo ended

because I wanted a, know for like embargoes. Sure. And they were telling me that the demo ended at a certain spot and I knew, okay, I won't talk about what happens beyond that. And then they said, thanks for always talking positively about Sinsever 1. Like I really appreciate it. And I was like, thanks for making me feel.

Because these games have such an impact on me story-wise. And whether I could talk to an NPC in this game that only exists for a mission and they just drops some of the fucking most poignant, like just hard ass shit ever. And you're like, god damn, man, that's like a tattoo. Like, that is such an amazing thing that you just said. And now you're gone. And I think what makes those choices matter to me is like the sort of human connection to these characters and how I don't think that every character is necessarily the most

believable. There are a lot of stretches that happen in this game where you'll meet a character and they'll be like, oh, you're a sleeper. I don't see many of you. By the way, are you looking for a crew? And it's like, I don't, that feels kind of like a stretch. I feel like maybe we would need more of a back and forth to eventually you wanting to like join a crew. Or maybe you just are desperate. But I, such a video game thing. Yeah. Starfield's always the same way. He's bump into somebody like, I'll join. You're trying to, yeah, you're trying to get me to the next point. And so I definitely see where you're going with this. But for me, the choice is that what makes the choices matter to me are.

like feeling like I'm letting something down as opposed to in other games where I in other games where I'm really curious to see what the developers were able to put into this game like Starfield or any game that has choice

the game developer side of me like that's still somewhere in that brain goes man I want to pick this but I really want to see what happens if I pick the other choice just out of game development, like curiosity's sake. How far did they take this? How, like, asset-wise, dialogue-wise,

how far are they going to take these cutscenes and these character interactions? Or in this game, I'm really just more curious in how is this character going to react to this? How am I going to fuck up this side of the story if I choose the side with so-and-so, if I decide to make this choice? Like, it feels much more like I am choosing out of my own self-interest rather than oh, what do this game developer have in store for me if I choose this path? You know, I don't really have that with this game. Here, I'm just like, I want to see what this character is.

I want to see the future for this character if I do decide to side of them or help them out. How long did they take to get credits? Ballmark. Much longer game, I will say. How long was Citizen's Super 1? Citizen's Super 1, I've beaten about nine hours, nine or 10 hours. I think how long the beat says 10 hours, but I think it was a little bit shorter for me. season's zipper 2

fuck man like 22 23 oh wow it is a lot more expansive I and I don't know if that I was going to say does that work for it

is that I anytime I felt like it wasn't it reminded me of 1,000 times resist sure where that game I mentioned in our review of it

or you know just past sort of game of the year a podcast about it where I felt like I had 12 different epilogues where he just kept on like oh there's more And I'd be like, oh, there's more.

And then you would get into the meat of it and go, oh, this is really good, though. Like this meal is tasty. I actually was still hungry, thank God. And I felt a lot of, I never felt like this game won't end, though, because I am still enjoying so much of it. And I do want to learn what keeps on happening with these characters. And then a new MPC would pop up and be like, what's your deal, right?

The game definitely is longer. I do think that I chose to go more of the completionist route with this one. Okay. And that feels, Citizen's Super 2 feels like it opens itself more up to that, where Citizens Super 1 did feel like, all right. Point A to point B. Well, there's five different points. Pick one or two maybe.

Okay. And this game definitely feels like it gives you more time to kind of explore a lot of different options and a lot of different story paths because there are a lot of characters, and there's a big star system out there. Let me bring in this question then from the Super Chats and quotes. Okami 13B says My biggest question is if it retains the heart and thought-provoking nature of the first one.

I'm happy it's bigger and has more systems than the first but only if they don't get in the way of what made the first so special. One million percent. Yeah, that is without a question. Anytime that I was expecting for the writing to fall off, it never did because it's just so amazing throughout. And every character you meet, there's always like this beautiful lesson at the end of it.

And there's always like a very, impactful sign off to the way you your character are thinking about an NPC and this character stayed there and it made you think what was really that you know you just had this sort of moment of self-reflection

and it's like it's so beautiful and so hopeful and it still reminds me a lot of the vibes that's in the Zeper 1. This universe is punishing and it sucks and there's a lot of people suffering yet through it all there's this silver lining

of human connection or in this case sleeper and human connection like synthetic connection and you as this sleeper anytime there was a moment of you was a sleeper talking to an mpc and then being like um hey you what's your deal right do you feel like what we feel do you have these memories and you as a sleeper being like actually yeah like i had this moment where i saw i had a visual of a butterfly. I was like, what's that? I haven't experienced that. But the person that I'm emulated from where my body is, experience that somewhere. Why is that memory leaking through? And what is it to be a human? You know, it's like, God, it's so fucking good. And at every turn, there are moments that hit you upside the head. And like, as bad as I am with ADHD and reading. I was going to say,

it's so fucking good. Jamie Super Chast and says, as someone who hates reading, is it good? Yes. Like, and I think because the writing is so good I find myself I found myself a lot at least like 20 damn times because of how bad I am with reading and this spans back to high school where suddenly when I like

turned 12 and 13 and 14 I just could not get through a paragraph without trailing off of my mind going somewhere else and be like what did I just read and that happens a lot in this game with me personally and that's just me being bad at reading and having just this brain that cannot focus focus. And I would get to the end of the paragraph and go, no, don't move on. You didn't know

what you just read. And you know it's going to be sick as fuck. And then I would read it and consume it to be like, oh, that was great. Like, trust me, like, for a game that doesn't have Dodges or parries or level design or anything like that, like I am still so blown away by this experience. You have a lot more questions here from Blue Sky that I want to get to. But first, I'll remind everybody that we are an 11-person small business all about live talk shows, usually about video games. If you like that and want to support, that'd be great. Pick up a Kind of Funny membership on Patreon.com. slash Kind of Funny games or Apple or Spotify.

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I'm going to start with David Page, who blew skies and says, did they gamify more of the systems from the previous entry, or is it still very much in line with how simple and straightforward the first ones' systems were? If the former, did that detract from the experience of the first? If the latter, did it feel like it did enough to improve in other areas? I think it improved the gameplay for sure adding this sort of stress meter So that's the new thing

Yeah the new thing is this whole sort of stress meter If you fail a check If you're going out to a side quest Which I love just having these tiny little moments Of talking to an NBC and then being like Oh there's this like this crash ship out in this system They're looking for this and that And if you want a job like go you know 200 cryo or whatever

as the currency. And then so you would decide to fly out there and you would pick two of your NPCs that you've recruited along the way. And you look at what, you know, you have four skills, right? Depending, you know, varying strengths of the different skills and you have one you can't use.

So you look at your NPCs and you're like, all right, who am I gonna, who should I take out with me? Well, you have that one skill I don't have, so I'm taking you out there. And you're not so strong in that place, but you are, so I'll take you as well. So you take two people. people with you and they have two skills or they have one to two skills but they have two dice

that they can roll and you have your five dice that you can roll yeah yeah and you're out there and you need to make sure that you have uh it's if it's a mission that is going to take a long time you wouldn't need to make sure you have enough supplies because every time you end your cycle you uh you need to eat or also your character will like slowly start to lose stamina and you start to like break your dice or whatever. And if you fail these checks, you will incur a little, you know, here's a little ding on you,

and that's going to be your stress meter. The more that fills up, the more your dice breaks, and you can't remove stress during a mission like that, during one of these side quests. You, as the stress meter goes up, your dice will continue to break,

and you could just straight up fail the mission. And it's all fucked, and your dice are all super broken and you have to go back to your base or whatever and kind of chill out. And when you go back to these space stations, that's kind of your moment of reprieve. That's where you are normally under less stress.

And there are some really stressful situations where you might fail a check on one of these side quests and then a sort of like stress side mission will pop up on that space station you're at. Interesting. And it's like, I can finish out this space. station. I can finish off this quest where I'm looking for this treasure, but there's like a really, really high priority thing that's now going off. And it's a, it's an alarm that's going to

alert the authorities. And if that thing goes off before I am able to get this treasure, all hell is going to break loose. So I want to go take care of disarming that alarm. I'm really stressed out right now. I only have two days left. Can I possibly just like push it and risk it with, you know, trying to get this treasure, or should we try to strategize and try to disarm the alarm, right? And that's like, that's where the push and pull comes in. And that's where, like, you're basically just throwing a dice. But, man, all the stress is there.

And I'm feeling like the tension of like, God, I hope this fucking rolls. And if this doesn't land positively for me, I'm really, really screwed. One thing I haven't seen in the game, because I'm so early, is a game over. So let's say you do that. You ignore the alarm. The authorities come in. you get into a battle where you're rolling dice

or choices where you'd have to and then can you be killed? Is it game over and then you reset or is at the end of the game? You will not game over. There is a permadeoth mode as the hardest difficulty where if you die it is the end of the game but you essentially like pass out. Fates like a Pokemon.

I never did that gamer. I appear fucking gamer. Oh my God. This kid the skills he's got. I'm assuming I would wake back up on a base and then being like, man, you've knocked out. We just escaped.

or whatever. I don't really know what the end game scenario is. Got it got it got it. But I do know that I incurred a lot of punishment and you know hey you really fucked up because you really pushed it to the limit and now you're stressed all the way out and you

only have one functional dice left. Like there, I did experience a lot of that throughout the game and yeah, it really really hurt me for the future because I had to spend a lot of time trying to recoup because I was so just damaged, you know? Sean writes in on Blue Sky and says

I'd always like to hear about Steam Deck performance You got your Steam Deck right in front of you That's where I played but you're obviously way deeper Steam Deck great I had some issues with some UI elements Especially when you are trying to fly to Different parts of this little Star

Star System When you're trying to go to different planets or space stations It can be kind of annoying I ended up just like tapping on the star system I wanted to go towards because when you move the when you move the D-pad there are moments like I'm showing

I don't want to show the screen but if I hit right on the D-pad and I want to go to that one I see it's like it could get kind of like frustrating in some moments and it's not it doesn't always tag to the right thing but it does fill out the full like 1,200 by 800 screen ratio for the Steam Deck it looks great

it performs great yeah I had no no other issues with that I say that I played like 90% of it on Steam Deck awesome yeah Chris says how do you feel I'm sorry, do you feel like the choice of your starting class is impactful, that it influence how you use your party members? Absolutely, yeah.

Especially knowing that one of those skills you cannot ever have. And if you do try to use it, you're going to be significantly at a disadvantage. So yeah, for sure. I did start off as one class, started off having these tests and being like, ooh, me and my squad are not prepared for these. Let me restart the game as the other class because I already failed this first mission. and it wasn't a death but it was just like a you failed

drive failed or whatever these missions are called drives there's like major drives and minor drives and so I restart it as a different class but I guess I'm reminded of our Pokemon Nuslock where everybody was like if you go with if you go with a

if you go with Charmander at the start it's going to be a lot easier for you at the beginning but getting harder later on but if you start off with Bobesore at the start it'll be a bit harder for you the beginning but better for you in the long run that's kind of how you end up here it depends like by the end of it

if you want a lot of squadmates on your ship and I say you should because that just gives you a lot more diversity for what sort of skills you would have options for using definitely do that because you're going to have a skill that you cannot use but you'll have a lot of skills

you can eventually upgrade to and every time you you know, I believe it costs four skill points to upgrade something. So maybe that one skill that I was, or maybe that one, let's call it like engineer, whenever I wanted to roll a dice on an engineer test, it was giving me no benefit. But I level it up so much that whatever I roll, it gives me two extra bonus points on it. Okay. So if I have a four dice left on an engineer test, I know I'm going to get a six because I'm getting two extra bonus points.

Sure, sure, sure. When you're on these... Just nerd shit. Yeah, nerd shit. Yeah, nerd shit. When you're on these side quests, there's these sort of like sub-towers called a push.

And that's another thing you can level up. And it's like an either or thing. Do you want to put points into upgrading your pushability or do you want to put points into pushing down that skill tree, right? And that pushability will be anything from... If I click this button on one of these side quests, it'll add two points on my left. lowest dice available.

Okay. So I have a one, a five, a five, a five, and a six. If I click that push, that one becomes a three. So, and if I level that up more, it could possibly go further and further. And the different classes sort of vary there where... Sure. When I picked another class recently, the push ability then became, instead of benefiting you, it said, you take on one blip of stress, which is like not good, obviously.

not good. But your squad mates dice will raise like up by one or up by two. Gotcha. So now my two squad mates get stronger. So it's kind of like what do you want? Do you want to hurt yourself and help out your squad mates or do you want to benefit your own sort of dice? What advice would you give for people who want to jump in like whether it be, you know,

a good class to pick or anything, right? Because for me hearing this, I think I made the decision. I think I'm going to jump into Citizen Sleeper too. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I would say one, man. You'd say one?

One is shorter and it's, I think, a... Game pass, too. And game pass. And I think it's... Play right now in the cloud. I think it's a bit more streamlined. Okay. But I love the gameplay elements of part two a bit more.

Sure. No, you're not taking away, but that's your like blanket statement to everybody. You think if you haven't played Citizen Sleeper, because you have so many questions in here, if I'm a new player, why should I get in? What should I, you'd say start the series of sleep more. Where I'm coming in is I really liked the premise that you talked about earlier of like coming in and, like, there's this mysterious guy and, talking to you.

It does start out with a fucking bang. Like that shit sounds like such a cool premise to me. And then I also have it on Steam. And so like I can play it on Steam Deck. I do have Citizen Sleeper 1 on GamePass so I could play that way. But now I'm like visualizing like, you know, an hour before bed with my Steam Deck. And I'm just like, you know, reading for an hour before I go to bed. You'll be asleep at 15 minutes.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, you're the guy, right? Kevin, you fall asleep every time you try to read, right? I sure do, Greg. I sure do. The more I'm, the more I push you towards Citizens'Ceber 1, the more I just think about. the all the amazing things that part two does. And so it's like, yeah, fuck it.

Because the other thing I'm thinking to is like, it's a, it just came out so it's fresh. It's 2025. So I know I'm playing a game for this year. And like, I can factor into the game of the year combo. You know what I'm giving it a nine. And that I'm giving it a nine.

Yeah. It's going up. Well, because I just think about all the other NPCs I've experienced throughout. And it's like, oh, they're so good and there's so many impactful moments and just stuff that just, it's,

it's food for the soul, regardless of how dreary depressing you can get. It's just... And this one, Citizen Sleeper 2 is food for the soul in the same way Citizen Sleeper 1 was. Absolutely, do you?

Because I'm also thinking of like, I can always play Citizen Sleeper 1 also. No, you're totally right. I can play it down the line. You're totally right. Especially if I fall in love with this one. And that'd be an interesting one too of how much you enjoy this,

not having the baggage of Citizen Sleeper 1. Yeah. I intend to keep playing at this, but I'm gonna be... I literally opened up my... I opened up my like game release calendar and then which isn't public anymore. Now it's just private. And then I opened up like releases.com

Yeah. look at what's happening in the next few weeks. And I'm like, I think I can pencil it in. I think you could definitely get it done way quicker than I did as well, because I was trying to do everything. And while I don't regret that, I could totally see myself having a bit more streamlined of an experience where I wasn't, you know, getting bits and tastes from a lot of different experiences as opposed to like, what if I just focus on one or two NPCs and

really, really tried to make the most out of that? But then, even as I'm saying this, there's also the Andy in the back of my mind going, yeah, but all the other stuff you experience is so, like, fulfilling as well. I do think that there are so many great moments of excitement and stress that you could experience in this game. Just with bringing your homies along and it's like, oh, we've really, really fucked up this side quest. Are we going to be able to recover this? There's a lot of money on the line. I'm kind of poor. I could really, really, like, you get so immersed, you're like, man, that 300 cryo would go a long way right now.

Because I need to buy fuel and I need to buy food and supplies. This game rocks, man. Yeah, I mean, hearing you talk about it reminds me of games I love, like Disco Elysium and Neartometer. And like the near franchise, right? Like, take some of those RPG mechanics of Disco and like, especially like a lot of the tech space stuff. I know Disco it took for the Directors Cup for me to get into it because they had the voice acting. And so, like, they read all that shit out loud to me. really cool voices, but even still, that's another one.

Interprely cool. They were super cool. The way thing is really cool. If you play disco leasing, you know what I'm talking about. The voices are so fucking cool. Honestly, that was it. I was, I had the same thing.

That's what I held off for disco as a director cut as well. But jumping into this one, I was like reading, like I like reading fine, don't be wrong, but it's like, am I, it's going to maintain my interest. And I was shocked how in my hour and a half, I was like, oh, there's voices to these characters as they go. Yeah, and thematically,

everything you're saying just reminds me of near, right? Of like what does it mean to be human, right? Like the idea of even like machine bodies versus actual bodies and like how much does the body matter? And so like, you know, like, I don't know. That type of shit gets me. And so I'm excited to pick this up. I was a, I was just taking like some photos of my Steam deck.

Just like moments of brilliance with just small little entries of text. Right. You can just hit the screenshot button. On the Steam deck, I don't know how to do that. Really? Yeah. It's like, what's the steam button and then click? Yeah, yeah.

On like one of the right bumpers, I think. I think it's R1. But I just, like, wanted to read this. I'm not going to include characters' names for spoiler purposes, but I have this one thing. It's like... Steam button R1. You turn their coin over and over in your fingers...

You turn their coin over and over in your fingers as you stand in Flickr Row. Crowds pushing past on their way to whatever future awaits them. Your fingers glide over the worn metal, as you imagine the characters have in moments of an event. anticipation. Perhaps others before the coin came to become theirs have repeated the same ritual, the same nervous routine, but their fingers were human, born, not made. This intrusive thought makes you slip the coin into a pocket quickly as if it had delivered a shock. It is worn and worthless. It is bent and broken. And it is beautiful in all those things. And as you press your

thumb against it, your crooked callous thumb again and again, you realize you are the, you are the coin, you are bent, you are broken. It's like, fuck, man, this shit just so. Yeah. good, dude. He went to, what's hilarious? I started playing out my day of like, oh, what if I got home and immediately stream Citizen Sleeper 2? And I was like, oh, wait, no, this is pre-recorded.

What if I'm home in Broke embargo? I will say, man, Andy gave it a nine right over in the games cast out for this. Definitely not a game that I could stream just because of the amounts of reading. Yeah, you have to read all that shit out loud. Even though I have so much fun, like, doing the voice acting stuff, it's like,

it's also one of those that I needed to kind of just experience this and not be distracted because when I play if I'm streaming a game that's already you're already throwing

in a distraction factor where it's easy for me to miss spot points and miss stuff where I'm laughing at a joke in chat or I'm thinking of how am I going to entertain the chat in this moment what funny line can I come up with here

and when I was just there in the steam deck at night it was just like I was just in that fucking world the reason why I want to stream it first is just for like the first stream of if I can have a reason for two hours

to sit down and just have to play this and not be distracted. I want like I wanted to grab me in those first two hours that way I can like go off stream and then just play the rest of by myself. Because I'm like you where when I read I will read a paragraph and not internalize anything and then have to read it over again.

And so the idea of like having to sit there for a couple hours and like read it out loud and understand and like actually get a specific the meat of it. Yeah. And then like, already be invested. Because once I'm invested, then we're good. Right. Like, that's what happened with me with Live Alive, where I played like the first chapter, Alive, and was

like, oh man, I'm playing the rest of this. Like, I didn't think I was going to be as into this game, and now I'm into it. So now I'm just going to cruise through this thing. Oh, and the music fucking kicks ass, too. Like, there's a lot of songs available on Spotify, but just like part one, Amos Roddy, I believe, is the name of the, of the musician. And it kicks ass just like the first one did. There's a lot of great bops. There's a lot of repeated bops as well, but even the final song that plays during the I was telling Greg

and Bless during the ad break, like reading the final kind of paragraphs of as the game is ending and the music is playing, I am just like an emotional wreck. I'm like tears on my eyes like, man, this is just I, and the thing about the developer they mentioned that they are kind of done with Citizen Seper as a

universe and they want to work on a, they're making a tabletop game already, but they mentioned I'm done with this. I'm not doing this anymore. And I'm just, pleading to any of my favorite developers, like, hire them to write for obviously they have their own game development studio. They're probably going to just make another game

of this style. Sure. But it's like, man, I just wish that their talents were, you know what, let's emulate your brain. Put it in a robot body. What does it mean to be human? Teaching AI to write just like this. And also to the citizen sleeper devs.

If you are selling the film rights to your IP, we're interested in talking. Me and Gregor are interested. And have a little chat. How can we capitalize on this? Not taking any of the lessons. The whole plan, of course, is that we will do one of those. We have to publish a movie every four years.

Yep. And we will have a agreement with you. We'll just resonate evil this thing and have a great one. Have you seen the Steam page, by the way? Like, we're on the Steam page. Right. Yeah, we have a quote on the Citizen Sleeper 2 Steam page. It's quote, it's living up to the hype.

It's a contender. Oh, wow. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. And it turned out, it did. It lived up to the I. It sure did. A 9 out of 10 from the one, the only, Andy Cortez.

That, of course, is an amazing on our scale. Citizen Sleeper 2 Starward Vector is out tomorrow, January 31st. Pick it up or go play Citizen Sleeper 1 to see if it's your cup of T since it's on game pass. It's on PlayStation Extra or PlayStation Plus Extra. You can get that too. But if you don't got that game pass, the demo is still up on Steam as well. Fantastic. I think the demo is probably up everywhere.

Yeah, but we already talked about this on the other show. We don't know how to use demos on PlayStation 5. You know what I mean? You're going to hit the three dots. Where is it? I don't know what's happening over here. Ladies, gentlemen and NBs, are you planning to pick up Citizen Sleeper 2?

Or is this a time loop and you've already played it and stuff? Let us know in the comments below what you think and what drew you to it or what's keeping you away from it. And then, of course, go ahead and pick up a kind of funny membership. Remember, we're an 11-person small business that does live talk shows about video games all day, every day, and we couldn't do without you. So head over to patreon.com slash kind of funny, YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Apple and Spotify pick up a podcast.

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