I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (2022) is a narrative game about growing through teenage years on an alien planet. It's played by making choices about who to help or which skills to master over the ten years. This determines the course of your life on the colony and builds a collection of cards that relate to your life, memories and events. You progress through a living breathing history that takes multiple playthroughs to fully understand as you explore, grow up, and fall in love.
You follow the life of a young person living on humanity’s first extrasolar space colony. It's not always safe, but still is as much about studying, pets, parents, friendship and falling in love as much as surviving the wilderness or dealing with strange creatures. Make friends, fight with your parents, go on dates, fall in love, and save the colony. Get to know 10 dateable characters, including dog-boys, aliens, hot politicians and stone cold killers. As you decide how things unfold your choices directly affect the lives of your friends and the fate of the colony.
What kind of world will you help make? Will you survive to enjoy it? Will you spend time studying in school, or exploring the strange flora and fauna of this new world? Will you introduce space-age technology, or live in harmony with nature? Will you battle massive beasts, or nurture future generations?
As you progress it becomes clear this is a huge branching story that will take many loops to really get to grips with. The first time through it's all new but next time around you come with fresh ideas about who to save or what events are important. These formative moments - your memories, decisions, and friendships - become collectible cards you carry with you. These give you new options for navigating relationships, learning new skills, exploring the planet, or staying alive. Every decision counts, during this life and the next.
The results is a game that includes a mind-boggling 600,000 words of which you probably only see 15% each play-through. Each time through offers a different perspective on the story, and a fresh chance to influence it in new ways. With 250 battle cards to collect there's always a new way to face different challenges.
Our examiner,
Jo Robertson, first checked I Was a Teenage Exocolonist 14 months ago. It was re-examined by
Andy Robertson and updated 3 months ago.