I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

This game is a lot of fun. So much fun, I did not sleep despite class being in 4 hours now. So ya know, it's good. Not that I recommend not sleeping. But I do recommend getting this game.

OBSESSED
- time loop as a reason to play again and again is cool and only being given certain choices after having played a certain angle is Amazing anf fun
- amazing story and worldbuilding
- unlocking more of the story by befriending characters by giving them gifts & making narrative choices is fun
- doesn't feel like a card deck builder game as much because you also maneuver Sol around and it's embedded in a lot of narration without being a "next page" constant clicker game
- alien pets :') (technically the humans are the aliens tho)
- beautiful landscapes!! lovely art style and character designs
- getting to choose your adult appearance and romantic interests each round anew is also a neat thing! really drives home the "living many different lives" idea

only con: year 10-12/13 get a bit repetitive bc a lot more happens from year 13 on, but it's a small con

Genuinely one of the most engrossing and well-written indie games I've played in a very long time. Stop reading reviews. Play this game.

fun with multiple ways to play through and with each one you can learn more

If you're trying to figure out what kind of game Exocolonist is before you pick it up - don't. Go in blind and just let yourself enjoy the experience. This game is so special, and unlike anything else you've played.

I don't 100% a lot of games, nor do I even try to. This is one game that I fully completed every possible route. Cannot recommend enough.

genuinely obsessed with this game. i have yet to get every achievement and ending (although i plan on it) but everything ive seen ive loved. the characters have lots of depth and i have very complex feelings on basically every single one of them, the music is very nice, the cgs and backgrounds are absolutely beautiful to look at (plus all of the different card arts) and i dont know if even after 100% if ill have truly seen everything. its very narrative heavy which i love in games but is definitely not everyones thing but if you like the visual novel style of games i say go for it. i dont usually play visual novel-esque games with stats involved but i feel this game does it very well. ive also cried multiple times from this game kinda hitting a way ive personally felt

I gotta say, very clever integration between gameplay and story. Very character-based. The card game is solid.

I consider this game a narrative masterpiece. Despite being a deckbuilder, the card system is simple and isn't the main focus of the game.

Every job you do, every choice you make, even the way you interact with the other colonists will impact the story in a way you may not realize. This game is meant to be played multiple times, with some choices only being available after your first playthrough.

The relationships I built with my fellow colonists felt real a meaningful (They can also make me a simp :p). Their behavior is believable and they feel like actual people. Some routes and endings are only available if you have high friendship with specific characters.

This game is an absolute gem, a masterwork.

The writing is phenomenal and shows just how much they get it, and get things right. Triple A studios could never. Difficult themes and topics are handled with care and grace, and inclusivity is actually done right instead of just being included to say "Hey we have X in game BUY BUY BUY CONSUME".

The game itself is as deep as the marina trench, and every playthrough I find something new, whether that be an event, path, or section of dialogue. Hell even finding new cards is excellent because you get to view the absolutely gorgeous art.

Not to mention the gameplay with said gorgeous cards, its simple at first, then it gets complicated in a beautiful way quickly. Do you spec your build to be generalist or specialised, stacking up straights, flushes or pairs are all options and your gear can reflect this. Do you build a mono deck or multifacted one. And the wonderful part is the gameplay is never the same, each challenge offers a unique brain puzzle that tickles me in all the right brain places.

Buy it at full price, and then play it until the end of time. That seems to be where I'm at and you should join me.

Intricate character-focused RPG where your choices guide how your character grows up alongside the colony where you live in. The setting is refreshingly original. Story-telling wise it's more mature and complex game than it may initially seem. Getting to follow the growing-up stories for different characters is quite unique, and I found myself completely absorbed in the world for the first playthrough. The card based challenges, while not the strongest point of the game, work well as the main game mechanic.

Ridiculously good story and the replay value is insane, the game itself is only about 8h but you need to play it multiple times to understand the full story (each playthrough is very different if u dont make the same choices) . Characters are so well-written and i was hooked on everyone's plots from the start. Multiple endings made me cry :(

This is one of my favorite games now! The choices really feel like they matter, the art is amazing, the characters are brilliant, and the writing really pulls you in. All of the details yank you into the games world and it is a brilliant play through.

Story based game where there are over 29 endings! The card games to do activities are not difficult. Extra kudos at times for getting the exact score of what is needed to pass.

Greatest downfall is that during the exploration, there are some repeats even after 1 playthrough.

Otherwise a wonderful game where you become who you want to become each and every timeline.

This is such an incredible game. You can easily spend a couple hundred hours in this world. The card mechanic is simple, but adds a lot to the experience beyond a standard visual novel. The game is beautifully drawn, and has really interesting themes to explore around environmentalism, colonialism, transhumanism.

I think the best way to describe the love that was put into this game is to state that it would exist even if capitalism didn't exist and there was no financial incentive. You can feel the love and care of the devs into it and it's been years since I've truly felt this way about any game.

The gameplay is fun and enticing, the characters well written, the choices matter a lot, there is over a hundred hours of content if you want to get through everything but it can also be finished in ten hours if you just want to reach the end. The card game is fun and can be skipped, the protagonist feels real, and the stories will tear at your heartstrings. A genuine masterpiece the likes of which i have not seen since I was a child.

i love this game so much it is so replayable i see something new still every run and ive played like 6 lives

I chose to stay in my room at every option because I wanted to see how far I could take it. I ended up becoming more terrified than any horror game because of how long I was able to do this.

dude i literally love this game so much?? i got very attached to all the characters from the very start, the card mechanics were easy to understand, and i genuinely cried so many times over things that happened. everything is so awesome like i genuinely cant ever understand hating this game!!

Cute and calming. Love the multiple endings and how each restart build on each other.

It looks very cute - and it definitely has some very cute moments - but those mature content warnings in the beginning of the game are DEFINITELY there for a reason.
I played my first playthrough in just two sittings (the latter of which lasting over eight hours lol), but *STARS* that was filled with some grim moments.
I had an unexpectedly great time though, and as a visual novel noob I definitely feel drawn to trying out more this genre has to offer!
The characters were super convincing and loveable, and the art direction was super unique and consistent. Solid 8.5/10 for what I've experienced! Not sure if I'm gonna try another full playthrough (or more) yet though

Great game, great writing, fun resource management. Your choices actually feel like they matter. The core card game actually creates interesting little optimization puzzles.

I don't know how to feel about this game. I wish Steam did starred reviews and not just Yes or No.

On the plus side, this is a beautiful game, with a really unique story, some of the most weirdly deep worldbuilding for a game in its genre (did not expect that at all!), and a gorgeous art style. The gameplay loop is fun and relaxing, and I really enjoyed playing it. It's fun watching your friends grow up around you, the story gets surprisingly serious at times, the choices you make do actually matter, and it has a lot of replay value. It's got some interesting takes on common scifi ideas, like a living planet, psionic aliens, nonlinear time, and the dangers of fascist ideology taking over a space colony. The worldbuilding is really cool, and the ecosystem is thought out in a kind of mindblowing amount of detail.

However.... some of the writing choices are awkward, clunky, and strange. I'm assuming the target audience are teenagers, so a lot of was easy to ignore as just "this was not written for me," but there are two things that sat really uncomfortably.

First, you can totally customize your character's sexuality and gender identity, including being a bioengineered genetic experiment, but you cannot be intersex, and that feels kind of bad when the rest of the game has ticked all of the representation boxes. The "I" in LGBTQIA does not exist in I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, but everything else does, so... It really sticks out, and feels like the creators were just trying to tick boxes to market the game better to teenagers. I tried to wave it away as part of the critique - the game subtly implies a few times that your parents are consciously rebelling against the planned breeding programs of the colony mindset - but then my colonist got older.

So, when you're about 16 (and maybe the option exists earlier than this, not sure), you start getting the option to flirt with grown adults. Notably, Utopia, the chief scavenger. It's a truly strange writing choice that only gets worse once you meet Sym. While I'm pretty sure you can only meet Sym once you're an adult, Sym is a very old alien who has been watching you since you were a little kid, protecting you the entire time you were growing up, has been intruding in your mind via psychic dreams, and from the moment you meet Sym the game tries to railroad you into a speed romance. I think it's for dramatics, because they die immediately, but it's still extremely uncomfortable given Sym is not the only adult with romance dialogue. Real, human writers made this game and chose to let your teen try to romance adults who watched them grow up from a little kid. It's not great. The only upside is that you are thankfully not forced to click on these options.

I don't hate the ending as much as most of the reviewers do. I think meeting your astral self after death is a nice poetic moment and a bit of fourth wall breaking to allude to the game's replayability. You're meant to replay this game a few times, and that's what the dialogue is about. I'm looking forward to trying to get different outcomes.

I just wish that I could give this game 3 or 4 stars instead of a single yes or no. If you like dating sims, this will probably be fun until the end, because none of the romances as far as I can tell actually work out in the end. I just wanted to play a fun scifi story game with pretty artwork and didn't care about that much, so this delivered that. If I had a teen, I'd probably recommend this game to them, because it seems like a fun way to explore your identity and learn about its ideas and themes. But it also makes me uncomfortable, and not in the "empowered to fight fascism" way that the game developers probably intended. I'm sure that some teen will really enjoy playing this game and seeing themselves in the characters, but I'm not sure it works for me.

... Also, it's just kind of cruel that the character who spends her entire childhood talking about how much she hates that she's being groomed by the adults around her to be a babymaker one day (Nem) ends up in an abusive marriage as an adult. I get that it's probably supposed to be commentary but it just feels meanspirited? If this is going to bother you, you probably shouldn't pick up this game, because I'm unclear on if you can prevent this ending.

Hidden gem. Really good game if you want to relax and be involved in a good history

I really enjoyed the game. It had so many warm and cozy moments, and so many sad and concerning moments. All the ups and downs that come with being a teenage exocolonist, I guess :)
Definitely enjoyed my second play through and how much I was able to change things, and get different results for the colony, and the vast many many endings. I don't know how much I can say without spoiling, but this game definitely delivered.

Help, I want to be a completionist and get all the cheevos, but am too attached to the characters to go for the bad endings!

In all seriousness, I Was a Teenage Exocolonist has taken its place as my go-to comfort game when I'm stressed. The wonderful characters, beautiful art, and joyous music all contribute to Exocolonist's hopeful atmosphere. Really a great game, with a lot of replay value. The deckbuilding mechanic is pretty meh though.

This is an adorable game with great story line

I got quite addicted to this game for a while. I loved all of the characters, and that you can see huge aspects of the branching stories without having to romance specific characters, its more about what you choose to do, so i could just happily pick a favourite and stick to that one if i wanted, or you could just be friends with characters. By time I got to the point where playing further was just to get achievements, I still would have happily kept playing to see more.

Its the type of story where what you did in a previous playthrough can actually matter and i LOVE that. I genuinely came away from it wanting to play more, and checked to see if the developers had anything else like it.

The soundtrack was pleasant to listen to as well.

On a whole, the game felt like someone treated it right. It was fleshed out well, there was a lot to do and new scenes to find, and you can even make morally questionable choices that the game/story explores in a fairly neutral way.

Would recommend. Probably one of my favourite visual novels so far

THE SCI-FI LIFE SIM OF ALL TIME.

this game lulls you into a sense of "oh yeah. i totally know everything. i got it all." then hits you with a double whammy, leaves you spinning, ties you up and tosses you off a cliff

it'll give you a 6 course meal then starve you and show you ghosts of scraps that you know in your heart could be REAL scraps but DAMNIT YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO GET THOSE SCRAPS . in the best way.

there's soooooo many options and paths and secrets. SUCH fuckin' BEAUTIFUL graphics. not to mention really really fun characters (dys & anemone my beloved.)

i've bought this game on 2 seperate consoles to play everywhere i go i love it so much. fuckin fantastic job. you WANT to replay it, there's so much replayability. secrets are hinted at but by the time you understand WHAT they were hinting at, you're too deep in another path and you'll need to save the secrets for the next playthrough.

the card gimmick is okay, kind of silly & not the MOST unique thing ever, but it fits well with the game itself. the stat-raising mechanics are well-done and trying to figure out all the variables going on offscreen is half the fun. chaos incarnate, our communal beloved...

follow your own colony's wellbeing. become an eco terrorist. run pantsless off into the woods. make a viral weapon. eat dirt. romance a brainwashed soldier. romance Marz because she's the sexiest thing on planet.. whatever this is. try to figure out the ship's AI codes. i don't know man. keep talking. keep your eyes open. c'mon help's almost here

10/10

I cannot rec this game enough, especially because the replay value is ridiculously high. The story, the characters, the different endings you can get and different skills you can pour into-- it literally makes for a different experience every time. I have 72 hours on Steam, and more hours on my Switch because I bought it there so I can play this game on the go. ITS VERY GOOD!

Its strange genre for me. but I liked every minute of it.

I cannot explain how much I adore this game. To the team that worked on it: THANK YOU. Its easy to see how much love and care went into making this game. If you want to delve into a magical alien world while exploring various facets of the human condition then this is the game for you. I have found one "ending" and am ready to explore many more.

The game pulls you in, weaving such a beautiful yet heart wrenching story. The characters are so well written and easy to become attached to. There were definitely some tears during my first few playthroughs of the game.

Tempestuous, new weird, queer ecohorror where you defeat space fascism through transcendental buddhism.

As Heraclitus put it, you never step in the same polycule twice ;)

Absolutely beautiful art. The messages of the game are quite heavy handed, but at the same time still heartfelt. I played through this game quite a while ago, but every so often it pops back up in my head. If you let yourself really get absorbed into the setting, it gives you a feeling unlike a lot of other games.

I don't know what I expected going into this game but I ended up loving it so much. It's like Princess Maker in space, but even better and more inclusive/dynamic.

There's so much artwork involved and the music is beautiful. Aside from the overarcing plot, little decisions change little things and it's just so great to see them change through all the runs.

For me, there has been very little to complain about, I'm kind of obsessed.

so many people died my first playthrough. amazing.

i was expecting cute and cozy and relaxing and oh wait now im sad

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist surprised me with its dialogue and replayability. The game looks gorgeous due to its unique and colorful art style, and its main focus is on world-building and character interactions. I was very pleasantly surprised by the mature themes often on display and by the branching narrative paths which become clear to you as you progress through the game. A single playthrough takes about 10 hours exactly, but this is a roguelike, so you will likely wish to play the game through multiple times.

Exocolonist plays a bit like a Persona game without the awful, repetitive dungeon grinding, with a similar social system that allows you to build relationships with the characters around you on a limited time budget that won't let you do everything at once. However, unlike that series, the core gameplay mechanic of Exocolonist is a rather simplistic card game which, while fine enough, doesn't really match up to the quality of the rest of the game's component parts.

Overall, I'd give the game a strong buy recommendation--I quite enjoyed it, and I can see myself playing it through more in the future as I attempt to see more of the game's many endings.

Oh, and if you see the art style and are considering buying this for your kid, I'd rate it about PG-13 for content, so just keep that in mind.

I absolutely adore this game. I love the characters and the dialogue and it is so fun to build relationships with everyone. The story is amazing and powerful, and the art and music are gorgeous. I've already finished two playthroughs and I'm getting ready to start a third!

I played this game with my boyfriend and we really tried to give it a fair shot. We liked the art style and thought the writing of the main character's inner landscape was well-written. Unfortunately, the rest of the writing was just too shallow. Examples:

- There's a character named Auntie Anne, like the pretzel company. She's the colony cook. Another character, who is a bullied and depressed emo, is named...Dysthymia, a type of depression.
- Bafflingly, a character is named Halitosis. This is never explained.
- The mechanics and narrative of the game seem to be at odds. The card-based minigame is easy to follow, but you can only gain better cards for the game by moving through the plot. This wouldn't be an issue if the card game ever changed or gained new complexities. It doesn't. Instead, you're just forced to play a trivial minigame repeatedly to get to the next scene that gives you a new card that might help you avoid character deaths. The whole game starts to feel like reading an article that keeps flashing up a paywall--and if you don't pay enough, someone you like dies.
- It's implied that there's a big mystery to do with wormholes, alternate realities, and time distortion, but it's sprinkled out so sparingly in the narrative that by the time we got to year 16 we were too bored to continue. The whole narrative is a mystery box plot, and it seems like the team expected you to get swept up in your attraction to the LIs as motivation to open that box at the end. I understand that this is because you're expected to replay the game several times, but I honestly can't imagine wanting to go through another fifteen hours.
- The colony is heavily implied to have originally been a Scientology-esque eugenics cult on Earth. They ostracize, demean, and neglect a certain child character throughout the narrative but you're given no meaningful way to call this out or stand up for them--even against the other child characters your age that are bullying them. Moreover, this bullied character randomly leaves the colony because of their treatment, and despite having max relationship with them, you have no way to either prevent this or go with them.
- If you try to "rebel," which really just means not participating in the activities, your mother will yell at you about failing your responsibilities to the colony. However, this seems to happen quite randomly after you hit max rebellion, which at least for us made her speech feel disjointed. We had just finished a back-to-back round of helping our Dad in the garden when she yelled at us out of nowhere. It made her character seem unreasonable and obsessed with her image to the other colony leaders, which was at odds with the way the narrative pushed the idea that she was a good mother who was willing to sacrifice herself bc she had once endured a period of violence.
- Because characters are so heavily tied to a single activity, it's very difficult to gain relationship with more than one or two characters at a time. This becomes a problem as the story goes on, because the narrative heavily pushes the idea that you're all close friends, when mechanically this isn't the case at all. This was especially true for us bc we focused so much of our attention on the ostracized character.
- During a history lesson, a character states that global warming destroyed the Earth bc people were too consumerist and didn't want to give up their comfortable lifestyle. I think the writer of the game should do some research into climate change, bc individual consumers are not the cause of global warming. Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases produced by industrial plants, which burn fossil fuels to produce energy for industrial manufacturing. Individual consumer habits are not to blame for global warming, and it's a particularly odd speech to give in a game that shows a fully electrified, futuristic colony using advanced industrial technology.

Overall, I can't say that I recommend this game, which is a shame. It seems like there was promise here, but the systems weren't designed to support the overall narrative arc, and the narrative wasn't deep or intriguing enough to keep your attention.

AMAZING game. Beautiful, sometimes sad, but overall lovely narrative. A second (third, fourth, fifth, etc.!) playthrough is a MUST. There's much less reading than a visual novel, and lots of gameplay/significant decision-making to break up the reading. To friends who value immersive narratives/deckbuilders/replayability, I couldn't recommend this game enough.

Honestly, this game got me really pumped after being in a bit of a narrative slump. If you're on the fence, buy it!

I had a lot of doubts about this game when I first started playing it, but it surprised me in the best way possible. This is one of the only story-based games I’ve played that focuses on replay-ability and I love that aspect. There are always new things to discover, and during each new play through, you can prevent and change elements of the story with your new knowledge. The relationship building is a lot like Stardew Valley, and overall, it just has very nice cozy vibes. Also, if, like me, the card game aspect of this is not your style, you can disable it to focus on the story line instead. It's adorable, and I recommend it to anyone who loves indie story-based games.

This game has a story that captivates and transports you to that Colony, making you a part of it through the narrative of each of its elaborate characters.

I have to praise also its art that works perfectly in tune with the whole atmosphere and blends exquisitely with its music.

I really enjoyed this tale and I found it so goot that I will most likely be playing it again to continue exploring the other possibilities it has to offer.

I hightly recommend this game.

On the downside, I personally found this game a bit twee and heavy handed. That said, I liked it enough to play multiple times through. While I found the characters to be more like caricatures, the art is beautiful, the soundtrack is lovely, and the setting and gameplay are unique and interesting. It's definitely a good choice for a mild, comfort game.

This game is so fun! You can play it again and again and every playthrough is a little bit different. I love exploring the story more and more. Highly recommend!

It's so amazing. Out of most of the visual novel-esque, and choice heavy story games ive played. I'd say this one is probably the best, so much can change based on your choices and all the characters are so well written and interesting, even the ones that you'd think are just annoying.
The game definitely goes places too, it never got boring and i was excited the whole time. Even the setting itself is super interesting and just fun to learn about. There is also a small addition of almost balatro like card challenges. Making straights and flushes and using the memories from choices you make as cards to succeed or fail at things. Its almost a roguelike with all the different cards you can get. I think this small bit of gameplay really helps round out the experience, it prevents it from being just one big book that you sit there and read for hours, it helps break up the reading with a little gameplay other than choices. The game is definitely better for it.

A surprise gem that I picked up on the side, had laying around for a month, and then opened up on a whim and ended up playing until 5 in the morning.

Initially it comes on a bit strong with an aura of overbearing political correctness (pronoun choice, content warning for violence and death)... but it's actually executed properly, with the topics being fitting seasoning to the narrative, not just shoehorned in.

The gameplay itself is an interesting mix of time management storybook, with a hint of deckbuilding. Though it's really more of the former than the latter, because the cardgame mechanics quickly fall behind even the most basic synergies you can find out on your first playthrough, and in my 2nd I was legitimatley able to just throw cards randomly at the board, and would score Super Successes without even trying (to be noted: There is a hard mode that specifically amps up the cardgame difficulty, so I guess there's that). I'm also a bit conflicted about the difficulty of the game's ending, since I'm reasonably certain I scored an almost perfect ending on my 2nd playthrough, which included a lot of one particular skill in the last 2 years... that I didn't have leveled whatsoever. I feel like maybe it shouldn't have been possible to beeline for that ending without even investing into building up the required skills.

Overall, I'd give the game a solid 8/10. I'm not sure I'll have the motivation to do a 3rd playthrough (as mentioned, there's very little I could really improve on or change up), so it's replayability is more in the 'okay' category.

Pick it up if you like time management storybooks, or like the theme of a text-based exploration adventure on a truly foreign planet, including all the hardships that can come with it.

This game is a great combination of lifesim meets deckbuilder. Not only does it have near-infinite replay possibility, the game encourages it due to the past life mechanisms. It took me 50 hours and several playthroughs to feel like I accomplished a decent portion of the game, but I still have 50% of the achievements and more than half of the endings to go through. I heavily suggest buying this game :D

It's a game that's based around replayability, and that slaps. There are a lot of mechanics that go into the game, but they work together to keep things varied and interesting. The characters are engaging and it's an interesting plot with some gorgeous art in the cutscenes. I highly recommend.