Now is the time to play Citizen Sleeper

It's a miserable world we're in, but I don't need to tell you that. Holding on for dear life and playing our little video games to catch a damn break is what most of us are doing these days.

But even gaming, a tried and tested escape from reality, is on shaky ground. To me, it increasingly feels like a futile attempt at dissociation — no matter what I play. A game with a dark setting, heavy subject matter, horror, survival? A reminder of the current reality. An uplifting, sunshine-and-rainbows, grind-for-pleasure sim game? A reminder of things that our society is sorely lacking. Succumbing to despair is oh so tempting.

Despair is not the solution, though, so let's climb out of this funk. Now is the perfect time to play the rare sort of game that may be bleak on the surface, but is still imbued with such utter hope and love for humanity that it is impossible to walk away unaffected. The sort that reminds us of our shared humanity, without shying away from life's horrors, both terrible and mundane. The sort that asks both of themselves and of us, what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to choose life, to resist and fight, even if the fight looks unwinnable?

If you're down for something like that, and I hope you are, please, play Citizen Sleeper.