Signet City Is a ‘Fungalpunk’ RPG Where You Play as a Brain Parasite - From the Creator of Citizen Sleeper

Gareth Damian Martin’s Citizen Sleeper and its sequel proved that tabletop-inspired dice mechanics could deliver deeply human sci-fi stories about survival, identity, and community on a decaying space station. Now Martin is pivoting sharply, swapping neon-lit void for the grey, salt-crusted streets of a British coastal city. In Signet City, players aren’t a human android escaping corporate debt. They’re a spore-born parasite that crawls into the minds of human hosts, shaping their conversations and fates from within. Announced at the PC Gaming Show in June 2026, this first-person “fungalpunk” narrative RPG is the most dramatic artistic departure yet from one of indie gaming’s most celebrated storytellers. Here’s what we’ve learned so far about this intriguing new project.

Welcome to Signet City, A Decaying British Coastline

The eponymous Signet City is a fictional British coastal metropolis, partially inspired by northern UK industrial cities during the turbulent 1980s. This is not a gleaming cyberpunk metropolis. It is a place of crumbling concrete, boarded-up storefronts, and polluted bay waters that glow faintly with unnatural life. The world runs on bacterial computing and biotechnologies, powered by fungal creatures lurking beneath the waves. Every light, every screen, every machine is organic in its own unsettling way.

Martin’s vision of the city is rendered in a striking monochrome art style that blends screentoned manga, pen-and-ink drawings, and black-and-white documentary photography. The result is a city that feels simultaneously hand-drawn and photorealistic, a place where grit and grotesque beauty coexist. Players see this world through the eyes of a parasitic spore that inhabits and controls human hosts. You are not a visitor. You are an infection, and the city is your body.

What Is ‘Fungalpunk’?, Influences and Aesthetic

The term “fungalpunk” might sound like a novelty genre label, but for Martin it represents a serious thematic foundation. In a post on their Substack blog, Martin directly cites Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World as a key influence, a book that explores symbiosis, decay, and multi-species entanglements in the ruins of capitalism. Where Citizen Sleeper dealt with the body as an owned asset under corporate control, Signet City explores the body as a shared territory, a host for something other.

Other inspirations include weird fiction classics, the body horror of Tetsuo: The Iron Man, the vertical level design of Dishonored, and post-punk music, particularly the Irish band SPRINTS, whose track “Abandon” features heavily in the reveal trailer. This is a genre that blends bio-punk, visceral horror, and political decay. It is a stark contrast to the comparatively clean, corporate dystopia of Citizen Sleeper. Martin is asking players to inhabit a world not of circuits and data, but of mycelium, rot, and reluctant cooperation.

Gameplay, Dice, Emotions, and Parasitic Control

Fans of Citizen Sleeper will find familiar bones under the fungal flesh. Signet City retains a tabletop-inspired dice system, where players allocate dice to actions in each cycle. But Martin has introduced a critical new variable: the host’s emotional state directly affects dice success chances. You are not a lone android trying to survive. You are a parasite dependent on a host whose anxiety, anger, or despair can sabotage your rolls.

Players guide their human host through conversations, manage resources, upgrade skills, and influence the city’s interconnected systems. But every action you take has an emotional cost for the person you inhabit. Keep them stable, and you gain access to their potential. Push them too hard, and they may break, leaving you to find a new vessel. The parasitic relationship is not one-sided; it is a negotiation between two beings trapped in the same fragile body.

This is also Martin’s first first-person game, following the top-down perspectives of In Other Waters and the Citizen Sleeper series. The shift is intentional: seeing the world “behind the eyes” of your host reinforces the unsettling intimacy of the premise. You aren’t observing from above. You are looking through someone else’s eyes, speaking with their voice, and feeling their heartbeat beneath your control.

A New Team, a New Universe

Signet City is Martin’s first entirely new universe since the original Citizen Sleeper. It is a deliberate break from the IP that earned them GDC’s Social Impact Award and an Indie Game Awards Best Narrative win. But breaking away also means building new collaborations. For music and sound, Martin has brought on composer Eli Rainsberry, replacing series regular Amos Roddy. The trailer’s use of SPRINTS sets a tone that is raw, confrontational, and dissonant, a far cry from the ambient synths of Citizen Sleeper. Environmental artist Tom Kitchen also joins the team, helping realize the city’s distinctive black-and-white visual identity.

Martin describes Signet City as “a major evolution” in an interview following the announcement. The game retains the narrative depth and systemic complexity fans love, but the tone is darker, the world weirder, and the central mechanic, inhabiting another being, forces players into moral territory that is anything but comfortable.

Release Platforms and Timeline

Signet City is scheduled to launch on PC via Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store later in 2026. No exact date has been announced, and no console versions have been confirmed yet. Fellow Traveller, the publisher behind both Citizen Sleeper games, will handle distribution.

No gameplay footage has been shown beyond the cinematic trailer, but that is hardly unusual for a narrative-driven indie title at this stage. What has been revealed is enough to mark Signet City as one of the most intriguing projects on the horizon. The combination of pedigree, radical premise, and a creative team willing to abandon their most successful work in search of something stranger is precisely the kind of risk that defines the best independent game development.

A City Built on Rot and Reluctant Bonds

Signet City is not merely a new game, it is a deliberate reinvention of craft and theme. By leaning into parasitic horror, emotional dice rolls, and a fungalpunk aesthetic rooted in real-world industrial decay, Gareth Damian Martin is asking players to inhabit a world of collapse and connection. The city is dying. The hosts are fragile. And you, a spore, a parasite, a passenger, must find a way to live inside the wreckage. For fans of weird fiction, narrative RPGs, or anyone who loved the systems of Citizen Sleeper, this is a title to watch closely. Add Signet City to your Steam wishlist now to stay informed about future updates. The spores are already in the air.

Signet City will release on PC in 2026. Follow Jump Over the Age on Substack for updates.

Tags: Signet City, Gareth Damian Martin, Fungalpunk, Citizen Sleeper, RPG, indie games, narrative game, body horror