Citizen Sleeper and Dishonored meet in the grimey, steampunk, dice-driven RPG Duskpunk, which is out today

Here’s a sentence I am very glad to write: the first Citizen Sleeper-like is here! Or at least the first one I’m aware of (and the actual genre is dice-driven RPG, no more something-likes, ok?). It’s called Dusk Punk, which mixes the narrative and mechanical framework established by Citizen Sleeper with the aesthetics and world of games like Dishonored, and it’s out today.

The setting of the game is a steampunk city called Dredgeport, a singular location more like the first Citizen Sleeper as opposed to the second. You must explore this city, coming face to face with gangs and corrupt law enforcement, as an ex-soldier, accidentally marked as dead and shipped back to the city. It is also an explicitly political game, a voice over in the game’s trailer noting “unions rising up” and that “revolution is in the air.”

Similarly to Citizen Sleeper, you have to balance your health, energy, and stress levels, a lot of which comes down to how lucky you get with the role of the dice. Such a mechanic is so obviously embedded in tabletop RPGs, and was so well translated into Citizen Sleeper. There is a strange feeling in having to pray for digital dice rolling in your favour, one I’m happy to see transplanted into a new world from a fresh perspective. Not to mention having to balance relationships with the game’s various characters, some of whom may have questionable goals in mind.

I’m particularly won over by the final bit of voice over in the trailer: “break their laws, break the city, break free.” Duskpunk is clearly not a game that features an easy or welcoming world, again much like Citizen Sleeper, but on the surface it seems like one that wants to push its audience to make a change. That’s an even funnier thing to push someone to do when your ability to do so may be impeded by the luck of some dice. I suppose that’s life! And that’s interesting, so, Duskpunk has piqued my curiosity.

You can pick it up on Steam now with a 25% off launch discount, and there’s a demo for you to take a look at too.