Gareth Damian Martin, the acclaimed indie developer behind Citizen Sleeper and In Other Waters, has unveiled their next project, Signet City, a dystopian narrative role-playing adventure set in a monochrome metropolis. The game, announced far ahead of its 2027 launch, places players in the role of a parasite that inhabits the minds of multiple hosts.
Playing as a Parasite: A Unique First-Person Perspective
“You play as a parasite,” Martin explains. “It felt natural that it should be a game where you see the world through the eyes of your hosts, very literally. You wake up in the mind of a person called Sid at the same time as she’s waking up in the river of a city. You’re coming to understand what you are, why you’re in the mind of this person who doesn’t know that you’re there, along with your capabilities, and what the world is, through Sid.”
From this starting point, players slowly uncover a larger objective. However, Martin emphasizes that the story remains centered on a city “in the middle of multiple overlapping crises,” with each character serving as a flashpoint. Inspiration comes from novels with multi-perspective city stories, such as China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station and Jeff VanderMeer’s Ambergris books.
Classic Gameplay Elements: Dice and Host Emotions
Gameplay retains Martin’s signature tabletop-style dice mechanics. “Each time you drop into the mind of a host – and you have multiple hosts that you’re moving between – their part of the city comes with them,” says Martin. “If this person is working in the algae burners, then that’s your environment, and that’s what you’ll be exploring.”
Players have a limited number of actions per day. “You have objectives as a parasite – bigger objectives about growing, becoming more powerful, and influencing the city,” Martin notes. “But each host also has things they are supposed to be doing and their own emotional storyline. There’s a dice-based tabletop element governing actions, affected by the host’s emotions.” For example, getting a host into an argument might anger them, making it easier to kick down a door. “There’s a lock-and-key element and a skill-based system about adjusting modifiers through narrative decisions. I want games where narrative and mechanics are inseparable.”
Visual Style: Monochrome Inspired by Tish Murtha
The striking black-and-white aesthetic stems from Martin’s obsession with balancing hand-drawn characters with photographic environments. “I love how black and white photography creates imaginary detail from grain,” they say. “The game has a complex post-processing effect. It’s inspired by 80s social photography, especially Tish Murtha – I absolutely love her photographs.”
Signet City blends sci-fi with elements of 1980s northern English city life. “I’m digging into the idea of a city as a living structure – not just a space containing people, but also ecology, animals, and overlapping systems. I wanted to draw on British history and culture, what I was born into, and the 80s. Events like the winter of discontent cast a long shadow over today.”
Signet City is due for release on PC in 2027.
