How Citizen Sleeper was inspired by tabletop RPGs and gig work

gamedeveloper.com:

This interview is part of our Road to the IGF series. The IGF (Independent Games Festival) aims to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize independent game developers advancing the medium. Every year, Game Developer sits down with the finalists for the IGF ahead of GDC to explore the themes, design decisions, and tools behind each entry.

Nominated for Excellence in Narrative, Citizen Sleepersees players trying to survive the complex needs of their mechanical body as a worker on a run-down space station.

Gareth Damien Martin, the game's creator, had a chat with Game Developer about the real-world cities that inspired the game's humanist world, how they created believable futuristic folks from working-class inspirations, and how the game's systems would perfectly capture how luck can often make or break someone living on the margins of a world that doesn't care about them.

Who are you, and what was your role in developing Citizen Sleeper ?

I am Gareth Damian Martin, the (mostly) solo developer behind Citizen Sleeper. I designed, built, wrote, and did all the 3D art and UI design for the game. I say mostly-solo because I worked with Guillaume Singelin on the character art and Amos Roddy on the sound and music, but in terms of the main body of the game, its themes and design, I am its sole author.

What's your background in making games?

Back in 2020 I released my first game, In Other Waters, which was successful enough for me to get to make a second game! Before that, my connection to the games industry was mostly through my work as a games critic. My day job, however, was working as a graphic and video designer for theatre, events, and exhibitions, so I came from the arts to games. I