Everyone who follows the computer RPGs and persistent state worlds knows what the two categories' most highly publicized titles are at any given moment. We're also aware that there are various others in development, but among them, the number that many of us are actually familiar with often represents only a relatively small proportion. And it has been amply demonstrated that pre-release hype, while quite often based on the quality of the respective developers' prior projects, is certainly not an infallible guide to which titles will ultimately turn out to be the best. Every year, a few games manage to emerge from the shadows of comparative obscurity during their development to prove themselves worthy of critical acclaim and to gain a larger audience than initially expected. It happens enough that we have a label for them; we call them sleepers.