I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fantastic. I didn't have any expectations for this and this is very under hyped.

I love the characters and the setting so much. The story is amazing and super complex. I did three playthroughs and I still feel like I’m barely scratching the surface of all the possibilities! If you’re into visual novels that you can replay over and over again and still discover new things, you’ll love this game. The card games are a lot of fun, too!

Having so many different endings to unlock is so COOL!! And the idea of adding to my main screen is amazing. The art is actually amazing! Great game! Absolutely recommend!

★★★★★

замечательная игра для любителей 50 часов выбивать 30 концовок вчитываясь в лор инопланетной планеты и все это чтобы абсолютный каждый персонаж был уже в отношениях или не заинтересован в романтике 10/10

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is a very cute, caramel-coated game in the “a little bit of everything” genre. It’s part RPG with dialogue choices, part visual novel, part card game, part dating sim, and part simulator of turning a schoolkid into a person with the required stats. And in all of these aspects, the game is... tolerable? The best thing I can say about the card mechanics is that they’re optional and can be turned off. It’s a good example of a game that exists not because of its gameplay, but in spite of it, and still works beautifully. It gets people emotionally invested, steals several evenings from their families, and carries them away to stomp around the dusty paths of distant planets. The dating sim gets considerably more attention than the science fiction, and there’s a whole rainbow of romanceable characters with so many pronouns that hardcore opponents of gender theory might experience a hypertensive crisis. To the game’s credit, you know what you’re getting basically from the cover. You don’t spend half the game assuming you’re playing a conventional dating sim only to discover that you’ve somehow wandered into a polycule of nonbinary, ethically non-monogamous, blue-haired feminists. The signs were there. For my first playthrough, I picked Tangent based on her description, and honestly, she ended up being my favorite romance in the entire game. A nerdy girl who loves science rather than you and has no interest in a traditional family. Obviously, an instant crush. Every conversation with her is a little celebration of the heart because she’s a transhumanist who loves going off about how weak flesh is and advocating for a “balanced life through chemicals.” Absolute cinema. My second favorite is Nomi. They’re a nonbinary, apparently ace character who seems to have ADHD and has no idea what they’ll become when they grow up. Nomi is extremely relatable to creative people who can generate good ideas ten times faster than they can actually implement them. Ace characters in dating sims are rare enough on their own; ADHD-coded ones are even rarer. I didn't romance them, but their route with Rex is genuinely sweet. The romance part was actually good and enjoyable for me. Now for what I liked less. The science-fiction element is weak. Vertumna is comically hospitable to humans. You can eat random local plants straight off the bush, which is not exactly what I expect from a biosphere produced by an entirely separate evolutionary history. In fact, it seems considerably more accessible to an unprepared human than, say, Australia. The planet is also so “hostile” that you can spend the entire year outside wearing a T-shirt and shorts, including during the snow season. Even a different atmospheric composition would have sold some sense of frontier danger. I get it, hazmat suits probably don't help the dating-sim vibe, but still. The other disappointment is that instead of really exploring group dynamics, adaptation to extreme stress, and psychological defenses in an isolated environment, we get a rather cardboard conflict. On one side are the adorable integrationists who want to befriend every friendly tentacle they encounter. On the other are the aggressive militarists who want to burn xenos, heretics, and traitors while going da-ka-da-ka-da-ka. There are no rationalist characters taking a genuinely science-based ethical approach to the challenges of colonization, like: “Maybe we shouldn’t ingest the mysterious alien substance until we’ve tested it in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial.” The colony’s perimeter security is basically “a hole in the fence that children climb through.” Realistically, this level of negligence should be incompatible with survival. And yes, I can already hear you saying: stop complaining and go reread [i]Rendezvous with Rama [/i] or [i]The Invincible[/i], or at least [i]The Martian[/i]. It’s naive to expect a mature and fully developed sci-fi setting from a visual novel with a time loop. True. But that’s exactly why it’s so frustrating. They had all the cards in their hands. The characters are genuinely good, the art is beautiful, and the game is ridiculously addictive. There’s an enormous amount of unrealized potential here. I keep wondering whether everyone who wrote the lore for Mass Effect is now retired, sitting on coconuts in Bali. Could the industry perhaps hire them back? The people, I mean. Not the coconuts.

SO charming. I absolutely love the world building and characters!! You play through the struggles of adolescence and maintaining a society and community. There is so much potential for replays as there are so many endings, routes, and relationships to choose from. I love the addition of the card game so it's not just a pure a visual novel, it's a fun puzzle every time and can be very challenging at times. The story goes into politics, economy, society, and environmentalism. The characters are so well written and you fall in love with them so easily, also the designs are so fun! The alien planet is really cool and I love the ecology/biology of it, it's so interesting and well thought out! I was immediately invested and have yet to have a run I was bored with. Also, prepare to be emotionally devastated, serious ♥♥♥♥ goes down with navigating the hardships of founding a colony on a completely unknown planet. The art is stunning, the music is amazing, and the dialogue is so well written. Definitely a must have if you like choice-based games!