I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

I love it when my gay sci-fi life simulator card collecting game makes me feel emotions. 10/10 would be depressed again.

Сразу хочу сказать: игра хорошая, но не для меня. Если вам нравится, когда вокруг вашего героя не крутится мир, то в целом она для вас. Скажу, что игра оставила много негативных впечатлений, как минимум, потому что все пары персонажей сделаны идеально. Почему я должна разрушить чьи-то отношения, чтобы самой влезть? Мой персонаж выглядит никак будто бы. Пока все вокруг дружат, мой персонаж - изгой-одиночка, что всеми силами пытается завоевать симпатию каждого, несмотря на то, что Я СПАСЛА, МАТЬ ЕГО, ВСЁ ПОСЕЛЕНИЕ НЕСКОЛЬКО РАЗ. Ноль реакции на мои геройства. Создаётся ощущение, что я никак не влияю на игру, будто без меня всё у них будет хорошо, что не является таковым: они бы сдохли с голода несколько раз без меня! Никто из детей не хочет дружить сильнее или ещё что. Всем плевать Я думала: ладно, может потом будет много романтического контента, и меня это утешит??? Выбрала эмо-боя, который улыбался инопланетянину больше чем мне :) За 16 лет мы с ним ЗА РУЧКИ ОДИН РАЗ ПОДЕРЖАЛИСЬ, пока другие персы УЖЕ ДЕТЕЙ СДЕЛАЛИ. И я так понимаю та сцена, где он нежно улыбается - после разрушения деревни и переезда к инопланетянам?? Круто. Если бы я знала, то не тратила на этого психопата время. Потом я решила закадрить мальчика-пёсика. Открытого, яркого, приятного! А он, оказывается, БРОСИТ ТЕБЯ В КОНЦЕ ИГРЫ, если ты откажешь ему в желании приникать к груди темнокожей красотки, которую я терпеть не могу! Я надеялась получить от игры позитивный опыт и хоть какой-то приятный контент, а не читать почти 30 часов заумные термины на англе, чтобы потом меня отшил сначала один урод, а потом второй!) Не интуитивный геймплей в плане сюжета: в большинстве концовок ваше поселение сдохнет. 10/10. Для позитивных концовок ты должна прокачивать определенные навыки. Какие? А это ты узнаешь только в конце! И скорее всего эти навыки ты у любимого перса не получишь :) Графика и правда очень красивая, музыка и геймплей как механика крутые, спору нет. Я в восхищении Но игра оставила ужасные осадок. Я всё ещё злюсь, вспоминая о ней, хотя прошло больше года с моего прохождения. Мне грустно, и я никому не посоветую эту игру

This game is an absolute masterpiece. I couldn't recommend it more. I hyperfixated on it from roughly early-November 2024-mid-January or so 2025, and even after the hyperfixation faded away, I still find myself coming back to it and posting about it. It changed who I was as a person and made me feel more prepared for the future. It has raised my standards for games in general. I have also started multiple essays on characters, and that helped me get into writing :D! Also fun fact: Because of the time period my hyperfixation was at it's peak (around Christmas), I now associate the taste of peppermint with the game. 10/10, worth every penny.

Excellent game, held back by some SEVERE writing missteps, almost solely in regard to the relationship system of the game. If you're into girls, be prepared for a rough time as your options are: Tammy- one of the nicest human beings, however the only way to romance her is to either: A. Choose every mean/mocking dialogue to utterly shatter her self confidence so that she can't ask out her crush Cal. B. Become best friends with Cal so that you can tell him that Tammy belongs to you. Both options feel scummy and take away from her agency as a character. Then, when you do finally romance her, she decides to get artificially inseminated. BRUH. I would've helped lmao. Moving on to Anemone One of my personal favorite characters. You can choose her as your childhood friend, make her your Valentine, even share your first kiss with her. Then she makes out with Vace on your birthday, at your party, completely out of the blue. This happened during my first run and I almost restarted because I thought I did something wrong. Turns out it's a scripted event that will always happen no matter how strong your relationship is with her. The game goes on to show you that her relationship with him is abusive, physically, emotionally, and he even cheats on her, so you can at least 'rescue' her from a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ situation... but like, it didn't need to happen that way in the first place. There's other options which are equally bad/confusing: Tangent - who mocks you for wanting intimacy, ultimately breaks up with you no matter what you do in favor of pursuing science. Marz - Textbook narcissist, dating her is like being in a constant push/pull as she only uses people to pursue her own agenda, to acquire as much status and power as possible. Oh, and she also breaks up with you. There's also Utopia, but her romance is very slight and only happens after end credits. No real complaints on this one other than we don't get to see much of it, obviously, as it's an epilogue romance. Those are your options. Meanwhile, the women are eating good - you can romance just about every other male character in the game with relative ease, but again some are pretty bad morally (Vace cheats on Anemone to be with you for instance.) I sincerely love nearly every aspect of this game, but the relationship system lost so much of its potential because of strange development/narrative decisions. I cannot praise the card system enough, it is insanely good, honestly could be its own game with some more fleshing out. I love the bleak/dark tone of the game series and how most of the endings are bittersweet (that is until you unlock the true/optimal ending :) )

In the past year real world, my mom died and my dad shunned me for not wanting to befriend his new wife. I picked this game up finally as a "comfort game" a couple weeks ago when my cat died. And it DELIVERED. Yes, it's dark topics and heavy moral reflections and hard choices and impossible situations. Yes, people and aliens die, and people fight, and people grow into people you don't get along with as well. Yes, life can be hard, and this game really confronts that reality esp on a planet that was existing just fine before humans crashed the party. But this game is also hopeful and thoughtful and... yea for me, comforting. It's incredibly replayable; unlike real life, when I am grieving the loss of my parent, I can decide to save them in my next playthru, or even reload a previous save and try to find a way to change this playthru. And unlike real life, when I am accepting the loss of a friend, I can go get a hug from my dad. 10/10 you can bond with pets and hug your dad and change at least some of the stuff you don't want to accept about your life. It's not some blank slate - sometimes you hope you can change stuff in certain ways and you just.... cant. (or cant yet, I havent even gotten enough endings to need to count on both hands yet) But you get to explore which choices and skills let you reach which places in your life, and how things play out when you make different choices. And if you want to, you can build relationships with all kinds of people+. You can have romances or play as ace. You can be whatever gender or none, and neither sex is an option too! And the others characters are just.... chill about it. While being complex characters in their own rights. It's a good game. It confronts a lot of heavy stuff. Like... be warned. But it is SUCH a good game. Highly recommend :)

I think what sells this game to me is that it utilizes its setting to drive its character relations. And by setting, I don't mean strictly the sci-fi coding but the environment in which the characters live, one that's heavily tied to a utopian philosophy that could functionally exist in a multitude of settings. The alien planet is more in service to this concept than it is an exploration of its sci-fi premise, but both do tie neatly together to explore the implications of its premise. What I like about this is that it's able to show the flaws of its utopia without dismissing its merits or idealism. The philosophy preached by the colony is not abhorrent, and in practice, the narrative doesn't imply that its followers are deceptive or hypocritical. People do enjoy genuine freedom and prosper from it, the community does genuinely care about the broader needs of everyone, it is genuinely a progressive society where no one is judged on their birth, etc. But where it gets spicy is that certain conflicts arise from all of this, particularly in relation to the nature around them. It's such an incredible dichotomy to play with. People can enjoy a utopian society, but what is the cost of that? It's functionally a "man vs nature" conflict but moreso written to be reflective of a collective than an individual. Philosophically, it asks how do we approach nature in the pursuit of humanity's well-being and the core hook for that is the variety of different approaches to this question. You can believe someone has an abhorrent belief or solutions but it never comes from a place of misunderstanding, where the conclusions they reach can be rationalised in the context of their history and personal life. But what I find compelling is that the impetus is often emotional, that no one suggests their solution out of pragmatism but moreso how they've connected themselves within the dichotomy of nature and broader society. To give an example of this, Nem's characterization stems from the trauma that nature has caused her. She grows to become a militant adult who views nature as a threat due to what it took away from her and her being socially extroverted with the rest of the colony gives her a stronger emotional connection to the colony than it does nature. In contrast, Dys is often seen being mocked or socially distant from his peers and his far more talented sister causes her to be the "shining apple". As a result, Dys finds more comfort in nature and ends up seeing that as more valuable than the colony itself to the point he's willing to go to extremes in service of it. Neither are portrayed as wrong for coming to these conclusions, perhaps their extreme choices are questioned but it's never a case of either being wrong. In fact, the game wants you to be intimate with both. It's also not strictly simplistic as this dichotomy either, characters such as Tang have a very complex emotional output in their place in this conflict, while others such as Tammy are more concerned about the interpersonal than grand scale, even if the latter is unavoidable. All of this makes the central conflict about humanity's relation to nature all the more fascinating, as it's more tied to how nature affected people than postulating on its abstract idealism. This example also shows another fascinating undercurrent of the title. How our upbringing affects our aging into maturity. There are clear distinctions made between characters in their adulthood and childhood, but I think what drives a lot of playthroughs is exploring how the childhood of every character leads to their adult characterization. I think this is far more intimate than other games that utilise a social link system because you're literally growing up alongside characters and experiencing the consequences the narrative has on them. Characters don't exist to give you validation and will conflict with you over ideological differences, and often times even if you do wholly support them it doesn't mean their ending won't be dour or depressing. I absolutely applaud the writers for creating endings where your love interest breaks up with you and there's nothing you can do about it. It shows a sense of agency to characters, conveying a sense that their personal life does not end in their relationship to the PC and that your association does not mean they necessarily get a happy ending or you're more important than their personal values. However, there's things worth criticising in how it treats its characters. I think too much of the broader scope of the game's lore and grander narrative arcs are tied too much to exploration so Dys ends up being overly centralising to a lot of the narrative which undercuts other cast members. The kids introduced at the midgame with the exception of Vace are bland and don't offer much to the scope of its narrative, despite the twist otherwise being great. For as much as the game also emphasises your ability to save others through time loops, a good many end up bleeding into the background and doing nothing after you've successfully saved them with the sole exception of Tammy. This gets particularly weird given how some even have hints about their past which isn't played into as you would expect. The gameplay itself isn't deep but I think it's dynamic enough to not be wholly boring. There is a learning process to understanding how to optimize stat building and pathing to get the most out of any playthrough. Sometimes success is RNG dependent but there are means to affect the RNG in your favor to make results consistent. In terms of how it correlates to the narrative, I do think it succeeds in tying the stat building with relationship building, as often you're doing both at the same time. It's framed in such a way that the characters are building their skills the same way you are and the bonds you make with them are through a mutual life experience. In terms of how dialog options are laid out, your character is given mostly simplistic dialog and your relationship is defined by stat checks. The PC isn't given much characterization and is defined moreso by what the narration tells you. I'm usually not a fan of this, but in this game I'm okay with the stat checks insofar as the game is designed in such a way that the goal is to raise your character's stats a certain way in a given playthrough so it's less a lame exploit and more gating towards how you interact with characters. Personally, I feel I'm more invested in the grander whole of the community than how people relate to the PC specifically, so I think it makes sense to design the PC so that you're able to blend into many different facets of the setting. Arguably you could say this can be a weakness given how much it pigeonholes a lot of character's actions based on your whim but I do think being able to influence events just makes its time loop premise compelling. Presentation wise it's simplistic but I do think it lands effectively in conveying how otherworldly the planet you exist on is. The colors are vibrant but distinct from anything found on Earth and I do like how differently seasons function in contrast to Earth. There's also a good sense of how different biomes are conveyed that all look uniquely alien but cohesive. The washed out colors on the portraits and scene art are beautiful to look at and there's a lot of great storytelling done just by the character design alone. There's so much I could delve into about this game regarding its overarching narratives on the Gardeners, the way it portrays character relationships, the fascinating ways the utopia is portrayed and how that ties to real world realities, or the specific themes such as transhumanism, spousal abuse, and political demagoguery, but Steam limits my words! At its core it's a thematically rich narrative about the relations we have as a community and how our environment communicates our understanding of the world, and it does this wonderfully.

[h1] 🚀💫 I Was a Teenage Exocolonist 💫🌌 [/h1] (Review after surviving multiple teen lifetimes in space) …is one of those games where you just know after the first hour: This is something different. Something special. You don’t just play this game, you live it for a while. On a strange planet. with real consequences. real emotions and memories that literally become your advantage later. [b] First Impressions: [/b] I went in blind and was suddenly neck-deep in a sci-fi life sim full of queerness, childhood trauma, tough choices, alien planets, and… deck-building. Sounds chaotic? It is. But it works. And it works so damn well. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3287135421 [b] Gameplay: [/b] It’s like a life sim RPG card game hybrid that somehow doesn’t feel overwhelming. You build a deck of memories, pass challenges, fall in love, mess up, save lives (or don’t), and shape your future. Sometimes you die. And then you’re born again – with the knowledge of a lifetime. Yep. It’s that kind of game. [b] Art & Atmosphere: [/b] The colorful pastel aesthetic is soft, dreamy, and full of emotions. The world feels alive, sometimes joyful, sometimes heavy, often both at once. It’s all in the details. You feel the seasons change. You feel the dread. The beauty. The questions. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3286381335 [b] Soundtrack: [/b] I wish I could press it on vinyl and play on rainy afternoons. [b] Characters & Story: [/b] I nearly love them all, just a few exceptions. I couldn’t save all my favorites every time and yes, that hurts. But that’s what makes it powerful. It’s inclusive, emotional, thoughtful, chaotic, tragic, hopeful. The other kids’/characters stories matter nearly just as much as yours. You’ll want to see everything. And you’ll want to try again – because this time, maybe you’ll make it right/differently. [b] Replay Value: [/b] This isn’t a “one and done” kind of game. You’ll want to play it again and again. Because on your second run, you know more. By the third, you make fewer mistakes and gain a different outcome. Either way it’s worth it. Every single time. You can reach up to 29 different endings for this game. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3304192913 [b] Bugs & Performance: [/b] Runs great for me either with kbm or gamepad. Smooth, stable, no major issues and runs also perfectly fine on Steam Deck. [b] Final Thoughts: [/b] I don’t want to sound cheesy but this game is a work of art in my opinion. It’ll make you smile, it’ll make you reflect, it might even make you cry. And sometimes you’ll just sit back and softly say, “…wow.” If you love emotional, story-rich, inclusive, creative games that go way beyond the usual – please, please play this one. [b] Wholeheartedly recommended! [/b] Absolutely fantastic 10/10. [b] Small personal note: [/b] This game helped me through a very bad time where i was sick more often than i could count, and it really had an impact on my life and my recovery. It was a saveplace for me and it really holds a special place in my heart. ❤ And if you like my reviews, I’d be happy if you gave my curator page a follow: ❤ https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43807398/

[b]Do not buy this game. [/b] Short and succulent reasoning: This game features not one, but two, predatory child groomers. Yeah. Don’t ask me how or why this got through the writers. If for some reason positive depictions of child groomers don’t deter you from this game, maybe this will: the writing isn’t consistent, and the game only barely meets the criteria of being a deck-builder... and that’s only because you have a deck in the game. Longer discussion: I Was a Teenage Exocolonist puts the player into the life of an “alien” resident of another planet – meaning although you’re human you’re alien to the planet. You live through ten years (from age 10-19) before the game comes to an end. You can pick your sex/gender, so I will use “she” for this review. It’s expected that you play this game multiple times/runs in order to get a complete run. I played through roughly 1.8 runs before I shut the game off. Although I went through more than one run, the game apparently features more than 600k words, so there are some things I looked up in this review to confirm. I’ll do my best to note those times. So, there’s a character named Symbiosis (Sym.) This character can only be encountered if you choose to go on expeditions which take you outside of your colony into the “alien” wilderness. Because of how I “built” my character, I didn’t end up going on expeditions until my character was 16 for my first run. Sym doesn’t directly encounter the MC at first; rather, you see him from faraway or in glimpses and he puts cards into your deck called “mysterious stranger.” Sym is certainly mysterious and the language he uses is vague and taunting. He teases the MC that he knows much more than he’s willing to tell you and also asks the MC not to tell any adults about their meetings. (You see where this is going... right? ...Right?) Although Sym tells the MC she is super-duper special and the only one he’s speaking to, it turns out Sym is also speaking with another resident of the colony, one of your similarly-aged friends named Dys. For background, because it’s important, Dys is highly isolated in the colony. He’s a year younger than you; his mother died due to alcoholism; he doesn’t have any friends; he feels like an outsider; he feels disconnected from his one family member, his sister; he’s very, very vulnerable. In trying to stake out his own meaning in life, he sneaks out of the colony and encounters Sym – who takes advantage of Dys’ vulnerability to befriend him. Again, Sym tells Dys not to tell anyone about him, absolutely no one. It was around this point I turned to my husband and said “uhm, he sounds like a groomer, right?” The odd thing about Sym is that he is a romanceable character... which threw me off immediately because he acts much older than the MC (who again is anywhere from the age of 13-19, depending on when you start expeditions.) I honestly couldn’t believe you can romance him. I kept waiting for some bait-and-switch. Like, [i]haha, kids, you got groomed by this smexy alien! See! It pays to stay in school![/i] The reason for the confusion is because of a character named Utopia. Utopia is 12 years older than the MC and she is also in charge of the expeditions. When you first go onto the expedition, you can flirt with her. This didn’t sit well with me, and I was really disturbed. I ended up choosing to flirt with Utopia because if the game actually let me flirt and romance her, then I didn’t want to play it anymore. I was hoping that the game was going for a realistic “teenagers can form crushes on adults” but the adults should turn them down ... which is actually what happens (sorta; more on that later.) So, that really made me trust the writers because I’m not going to sit here and say a teenager can’t get a crush on an adult. They can. And it was cool to see an adult “turn down a kid in an appropriate manner” (again... more on this later. 🙁 ) Anyway, I didn’t end up testing Sym’s romance on my first run and I was waiting to see if there was more to the character than first let on. For the second round, I decided to flirt with everyone... until I randomly was able to flirt with people as young as 12? The flirts can be a little adult, too, so it was kinda weird. I will say I think this is some bug from the game encouraging multiple loops as I didn’t get any flirt options until I was much older in my first run, but that’s just a guess. I also started my expeditions a lot earlier and thus got Sym’s interactions a lot earlier. At age 12, Sym began to stalk me, leaving his ♥♥♥♥♥♥ cards in my deck. Then, here are some of the things this freak said to me as my MC grew up (recalling roughly since it’s been around a week since I quit): “You are the center of my web,” “You are my princess” (he’s saying something about how you’re a damsel...), he dreams about you (which is plot relative, but it comes across as creepy), and finally “I like to think I’m young at heart” when you call out his age. BARF! This alien is thousands of years old and saying this to my very young MC. He’s been stalking her since age 12 and just...watching. Each romance option has a make-out scene (I think?) and when I got to Sym’s I was like okay. This is it. He’s gonna tell me that it’s NOT OKAY for us to be together because this guy is OBVIOUSLY an adult. Right? ...Right? No. I made out with this gross alien stalker to learn that the writers weren’t trying to pull a fast one on me (I’m still going to stay in school, though.) And Sym’s make out scene is...... gross. Especially because my MC was only 17 when I got it. Again, apparently Sym’s romance scenes are supposed to only activate when you’re 18 – but can I just say this is giving me Mary Kate and Ashley Turning 18 countdown vibes? Not to mention I did get those scenes before 18 so who even knows if it’s true or not. And despite that, he still freaking stalks you when you’re 12... (maybe even younger if you can sneak out earlier?) Since the game is expansive, I wanted to see if I missed something. In my googling, I found out that apparently Sym can enter into a throuple with you and the other child he groomed...? He just moves into your apartment without your consent? Oh, and a friendly relationship is required in order for you to get a “peaceful” ending. Northway does have a content warning for Sym, which I have to guess is what she hides behind when she receives complaints. I’m usually not very disturbed so I ignore content warnings, so I did miss this. Although, to my credit, I wouldn’t expect a game to say “content warning: this game has a positive relationship with a child groomer. 😊” because that’s not a content warning – you're just a pervert if you include that. And finally, the game DOESN’T actually give you a content warning on Sym. This is what it says: “Your character can enter into a relationship with a being who is technically thousands of years old, though he's only been in his physical form for the duration of the game.” Anyone else getting “she’s a 1,000-year-old vampire in a 10 years’ old body” vibes? Please raise your hand. (Although Northway’s content warning somehow manages to be an even stranger justification for this romance... I can’t believe someone managed to beat the creep-factor of 1,000-year-old vampire, but here we are.) Sym is also really weirdly written because it’s as if Northway took up a groomer play-book and used it to write Sym. The way he speaks, the way he acts, it’s all very... textbook. Which is why I kept waiting for some switch! Something! Not... this. Apparently one of the elders can call out that “[The Gardeners/Sym] were coming after our children?” and it results in a genocide of Sym and his people. Again, odd for the game’s own writer to point out that Sym IS kinda a creepy groomer and then normalize a romance with him. I hit my limit, so I'll continue in the comment section. :)