I Was a Teenage Exocolonist – Review

Ask yourself this: have you ever wished you could go back to your adolescent years? You’re not alone; I don’t understand it either. But what if you had the chance to do it on a faraway planet full of surreal scenery, strange aliens, and classmates who had undergone genetic modification? What if your childhood was completely up to you, and you had an infinite number of chances to get it right? I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is a hybrid game that combines elements of anime-themed social sims and collectible card games; this is the game’s pitch.

While the premise is intriguing, I have to wonder if this is a galaxy you’d want to spend any significant amount of time in. Is I Was a Teenage Exocolonist an engaging coming-of-age tale, or is it about as entertaining as retracing your steps through the halls of your high school cafeteria? Let’s talk about this teen drama, shall we?

In my youth, At the start of Exocolonist, players assume the role of a young boy, aged 10, who is travelling with his parents on the colony ship Stratospheric to the planet Vertumna IV. You and your people have accomplished the impossible by establishing the first human colony on a foreign planet, but there is little time for celebration. Your parents are under a lot of stress because they are in charge of the hydroponic gardens, which were damaged during the voyage and are now essential to the survival of your colony. Thankfully, none of that is particularly pressing right now.

You can choose some minor details, like your best friend and main genetic modification, but the game doesn’t let you do much more than pick your character’s gender. However, despite the fact that everyone who plays Teenage Exocolonist will look roughly the same, you are given a great deal of freedom to roleplay your character as you see fit once you enter the game proper.

Inspired by anime social sims like Princess Maker, I Was a Teenage Exocolonist spans a decade, with each year divided into 13 months. The main goal during each of these months is to complete tasks that increase one or more of your 15 different stats and advance time to the next month. You can talk to other characters during each of these months, which may lead to branching conversations or small sidequests.

Many different activities exist, but they can be categorised into one of five main groups: learning, farming, the armed forces, government, and leisure. In any given month, you can take classes in robotics, work in the kitchen, man the guard post, or practise sportsball (yes, that’s the official name). At some point, you may even be allowed to travel beyond the borders of the colony on daring but potentially dangerous missions. There are a total of 25 “jobs,” each of which can be unlocked based on your stats and decisions throughout the story. The game not only features a large number of jobs, but also keeps them interesting by constantly switching up the scenarios in which they can be performed. Working in the colony store is the kind of job where no two days are the same. It’s possible that one day you’ll have to deal with someone trying to stealthily purchase fart medicine, and the next you’ll have to deal with a moral conundrum caused by learning that a friend is engaged in illegal replicating items on the side. This is a standard practise across all professions, and the creators of Teenage Exocolonist have promised over 800 unique occurrences in the story.

You may be wondering what role the cards play in I Was a Teenage Exocolonist at this point. You’ll earn virtual cards in the style of Magic: The Gathering for a good chunk of the game’s story events, and your collection will grow steadily over the course of the game’s years. These cards are then used for pretty much everything else in the game. The outcome of any card challenge, be it defending yourself from an alien or performing in a talent show, hinges on whether or not you can complete the challenge. The rules are straightforward: you play a hand of cards drawn at random from your deck and try to get as high a score as possible. Each card has a point value, and straights, flushes, and full houses are worth even more. There are additional abilities on some cards. If you reach your goal, you succeed at whatever it was you were doing.

The card system can be picked up quickly and offers some strategic depth for more serious players. The constant influx of new cards provides an engaging incentive to take on as many story events as possible, and the difficulty it presents makes Teenage Exocolonist feel like more than a straight visual novel. I can see how the system could get old after a few plays, but Northway Games wisely gives players the option to increase the difficulty of card challenges or remove them entirely. Teenage Exocolonist’s simple yet expressive 2D visuals complement the game’s solid framework, which allows for a great deal of character customization and a well-thought-out card system. This solid groundwork, however, would be for naught if the game’s writing and worldbuilding were subpar. The good news is that it is.

All of the playable characters in I Was a Teenage Exocolonist have distinct personalities and respond to your actions in interesting and sometimes surprising ways. Initially a bit of a self-centered mean girl stereotype, my character’s main crush and eventual romantic interest, Marz (yes, there is dating in the game), eventually transformed into perhaps the colony’s best advocate. My second best friend, Annie, went from being a free-spirited rebel to a disciplined soldier.

Moreover, the colony itself conceals a number of intriguing problems and contradictions. The developers of Teenage Exocolonist aren’t afraid to show their political leanings, and that’s fair; their vision of the future is both intriguing and plausible. The game’s willingness to question its world and characters allayed my initial concerns that they might be handled too bluntly. At first glance, Vertumna IV’s society appears absurdly egalitarian; however, it soon becomes clear that the colonists were actually part of a cult that engaged in eugenics and forced cultural assimilation, and that many of them had to flee Earth. The most materialistic character in the game, Marz, was the greatest visionary in my first playthrough, despite the fact that one of the game’s early civics classes is a multi-page dissertation on why capitalism is the root of all evil. There are definitely some exciting developments occurring, and you have a lot of leeway in determining your own path. You can be Cyril Sneer if you want, but I’m willing to bet that most of the people who worked on this game aren’t in favour of environmental exploitation.

In the end, though, I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is primarily a coming-of-age story, and a very good one at that. Those feelings of disillusionment when you realise your parents don’t really know what they’re doing, the excitement of a first crush, and the sadness of growing up are all beautifully rendered in the game. This coming of age is also effectively captured in gameplay. At first, you’ll just jump from job to job, but as you gain clarity about who you want your character to be, you’ll start to specialise. And, yes, there is some serious drama in the game, just like in real life. A multi-heading content warning page seems excessive, but make no mistake: I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is not afraid to deliver solid gut punches. These events aren’t just for the sake of drama; they’re crucial to the growth of the game’s characters and world, and who knows, maybe you’ll get a second chance to undo whatever bad thing happened.

Without giving too much away, Teenage Exocolonist is the kind of game that can be played through more than once, with the knowledge gained from previous attempts being used to alter the outcome of subsequent attempts. Find out what’s going on with the aliens attacking you, or bring back a loved one who has died. There’s a lot to do in space, what with the game’s nearly 30 endings and the fact that each run can take up to 7 or 8 hours. While a perfect youth is the stuff of science fiction, I suspect that some people spend a lot of time hoping for it anyway.