Cycles of the Eye is a tarot-based solo tabletop game. In it you find yourself on The Eye, a ramshackle space station on the edge of an interstellar capitalist society. You are a Sleeper, an emulated human mind in an artificial body, on the run from the corporation that created you.
While the tabletop game shares a premise with Citizen Sleeper, the critically lauded video game it is based on, Cycles of the Eye brings an added flexibility and complexity in its transition to the tabletop.
Cycles of the Eye is driven by a tarot deck. Available both in a Standard and Deluxe foiled 78 card deck, these cards represent the challenges, resources, characters and adversaries you will face. It also acts as a kind of narrative “oracle” with prompts that shape how you tell the story of your Sleeper’s journey to escape the Eye, or build a home onboard the station.
Designed by Citizen Sleeper’s award-winning creator Gareth Damian Martin in collaboration with solo tabletop master Alfred Valley (Lay On Hands, Thousand Empty Light), Cycles of the Eye is a distinctive hybrid of tabletop and video game RPGs.
Playing the Game
Like Citizen Sleeper, Cycles of the Eye is broken down into “cycles”, turns that allow you to take on jobs and challenges with what you have at your disposal. Your energy for the day is represented by 5 dice, rolled at the start of each turn and then assigned to individual activities. Cycles of the Eye is a game about planning, improvising and making do, and working with the rolls you have and the cards in front of you.
Meanwhile your body is decaying, and each time you roll a 1, you’ll lose a dice from your dice pool. Recovering dice requires resource cards, so like the video game, you’ll need to spin multiple plates and manage many jobs at once if you hope to succeed.
Residents of the Eye
The heart of Citizen Sleeper are its richly drawn, diverse characters and this is true of Cycles of the Eye too. These take the form of the game's Major Arcana, and when you encounter a character they will present a series of narrative challenges to overcome. “Cycle dice” will help you track these quests, and completing characters locks them into your tarot “spread” that will help tell your story at the end of the game.
The same is true of the game's adversaries, bounty hunters and corporate agents that appear by chance and need to be dealt with. Fail at these challenges and they too will be locked into your spread affecting the narrative outcome of the game.
Cycles of the Eye Data-Cloud dice add-on
To celebrate the incredible success of the Citizen Sleeper: Design Works campaign – over 190% funded! – we’re launching a new set of add-on dice to be used with the Cycles of the Eye tabletop RPG. Over the last month we heard many of you asking for a more accessible add-on option for our custom Citizen Sleeper dice. This new double-set contains 5 glitter-and-swirl Data-Cloud Dice, and 5 Cycle Dice in a fresh "positive yellow" colourway.
This new set of 10 dice can be bundled with the Standard Cycles of the Eye edition, utilising them as typical energy and cycle dice.
Alternatively, you can use them alongside the Deluxe and Anniversary edition’s existing dice, enhancing the experience. In this form, the Data-Cloud Dice brings the tabletop game’s dice-matching hacking mechanics closer in line with the original video game, while the new yellow cycle dice help distinguish positive from negative clocks! Beyond this, these beautiful dice will bring a new flavour to any D6 system of your choice.
For those who have already put in an order, and wish to add these dice without additional shipping, please buy the dice add-on to bundle them with an existing order
Storytelling with Tarot
In Cycles of the Eye the cards are the material challenges you face and the resources you earn, and so play a very mechanical purpose. But they serve a narrative purpose too. This unique deck is detailed with prompts based on the card’s tarot meanings, and cards you use during a cycle will be added to a discard pile that we encourage you to use to help tell the story of your Sleeper’s life on the Eye.
Equally, at the end of the game, once three characters or adversaries have been locked-in to your spread, we encourage players to use this array of cards to reflect on their Sleeper’s journey and narrate how it might have ended. Playable as a journaling game, or simply as a reflective self-led experience, this design is intended to create a unique experience that can be played as a solitaire card game or a narrative heavy journey depending on the player.
Deluxe Edition
Deluxe Edition
Cycles of the Eye can be played with the basic deck and 10 D6 dice from your collection, but for those who want the complete experience the Deluxe bundle (which includes the video game’s Design Works art book, plus much more) gives you 5 custom energy dice that match those found in the video game, and 5 custom cycle dice for tracking character questlines and upcoming threats. The Deluxe edition also features a special foiled version of the tarot deck, only available during this funding campaign.
Deluxe box with metallic finish and magnetic clasp
Spot Gloss hardcover book
210 x 297 mm (A4)
250 pages approx.
Section sewn binding
“Citizen Magenta” OBI strip
Deluxe Cycles of the Eye tabletop roleplaying game book with gloss wrap cover
Deluxe Holographic Foil 78 Card Tarot Deck
5 Energy Dice (Yellow)
5 Cycle Dice (Citizen Magenta)
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