I'm a chap in his late 30s who's played a LOT of video games over the years. An hour into playing this game turned me into a bawling, blubbering mess - like no video game ever has.

Ninety minutes later, it laid me low again.

The catharsis at the end of my first playthrough? Magnificent - and somehow undulled after a second playthrough with different choices... and then a third, and a fourth, and now a fifth.

This game is a stunning work of art and something I wish could have been around when I was growing up.

I bought this on the current (fairly large) sale as of 8/25/23 and just sat down and beat it in one sitting. Well, I got an ending in one sitting, about 5 hours.

It's 4AM now and I am riddled with existential dread in a way that I haven't been in a long time. That alone should be a pretty good indicator of the writing in this game, but I am going to spoil a bit below this for ONE of the many many endings because its made me think a lot, and frankly if you aren't scared of a single ending of like 50 being spoiled, I would maybe give this a read.

At the start of the game, the character I bonded with most was Nem. She was this happy, sporty, bubbly kid which is just how I was when I was a kid. You do the activities you are good at in game and so we did sports and rough-housed together. As time passed and we grew up sports turned into guard duty for the colony, and down the line we both joined the military. The colony started to get a lot more scared, of everything. Nem wasn't as happy anymore. She broke up with her abusive boyfriend and we started dating at the end of the game, and this is the part that scares me. I kinda ignored the rest of the colony for the sake of trying to defend it and keep everyone going. I indexed heavily into my friendship with Nem, so I wasn't really good enough friends with anyone else to try and save the colony another way. My parents were dead, Nem's brother was dead, a lot of people were dead. The final 2 years in game I spent more or less just performing the military duties and talking to Nem here and there. Nem was tired and slowly becoming a husk of her former self, barely acknowledging me when I talked to her at some points. The other colonists minus a few I remained friends with, hated me. I was a braindead military bro that had joined up with the invaders that took over the whole place. I was a traitor. In my mind at this point, though, the only way to save things was to fight our way out. I didn't have the skills in game to do it any other way.

Well, I did it. At least, as far as the game is concerned, I did it. I got the war hero ending, where Nem and I survived, and the colony lived on. Nem and I had 2 kids in the epilogue, and we both died in our early 30s in the line of duty. This was not something I was prepared to face at 4am after pushing to finish up the playthrough, but I got that ending and thought to myself, "Wow, what a horrible way for things to have gone."

The characters I didn't manage to save, the life my character wouldn't get to live. Even though its a successful ending where neither me nor Nem died in the game and we were happy until our epilogue deaths, was that really happiness? Its possible that could just be the short epilogue driving me up a wall a little bit, simply not giving me the full satisfaction I want from an ending, but it could also be the way they intended it to feel. Bittersweet.

Games like this terrify me, to be honest. I typically look things up at some point so I don't ♥♥♥♥ it up in dating sims, and this definitely isn't that. I feel like I've lived a life out in 5 hours, truly. Thats pretty horrifying. Whats scarier to me is that it made me think about my own life, the ways that I've been treated, the ways I've treated others. Conversations I did and didn't have. Relationships I do and don't have, all based on my own choices in life. The fact that this game and its writing were capable of making me think this deeply about my own life and the way that I have ended up as a 20 something... Yeah, I'd say its worth the price of admission. I honestly don't know when I'll play this again and go for another ending. I dont know if I ever will. I'd rather not get another bout of depression and horror at 4am thanks to a narrative hitting really hard lol

As far as how this holds up as a game, there's a lot of reading (duh) and the card mechanic can get a bit tedious in the endgame, but its pretty engaging throughout.

Anyways, I'm gonna go and think about my life choices now :)

As a 50 year old woman I don't really think I'm the target audience for this game, but it's got me really invested. You can clearly tell this game was made with love, care and passion. The artwork is a feast for the eye. The story is very compelling and I fell in love with the characters.
Definitely worth the buy!

Disclaimer: I was a QA tester on this game and have put hundreds of hours into it across multiple platforms. I was not asked to write this review and there was no expectation I would. I just genuinely adore this game.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is a rare type of game that presents a narrative of both breadth and depth and then allows players to explore that narrative through repeated groundhog's day scenario replays. There are over 600,000 words in the Exocolonist script, but you will only encounter maybe 1/8th of that script or so in any one playthrough. You control Sol (who you can name whatever you'd like), a man, woman, or non-binary character who grows from age 10 to age 20 over the course of the 10 years that a single playthrough of Exocolonist entails.

You will decide what Sol does every single month during this 10 year period, including where they work, who they hang out with, and defining your version of Sol's opinions and beliefs through hundreds upon hundreds of dialogue choices. The game combines a Princess Maker style character progression system with a very compelling and emotional choice-rich narrative and card battles using cards which represent the many memories and choices your Sol has made. All of this together creates a surprisingly reactive system that encourages you to roleplay as a different Sol each time you replay. Through narrative choice you will be able to define everything from who Sol is attracted to and where they work down to the very granular level, such as whether or not Sol eats meat, what they think about the way the colony is run and which factions within the colony's web of characters Sol supports.

And that's only the start! There are 10 dateable characters, each with their own story arcs that can end in any number of ways, and a vast array of secondary characters with their own arcs and often surprising backstories, many of which hold a further level of depth to them if you really go digging into everything this game has to offer.

I could go on and on about the incredible aesthetic of the art in this game (I love Exo's future clothes!) and how fun it is to watch these characters grow physically alongside their narrative arcs, or gush about the emotional and stylish synth soundtrack, or Vertumna's incredibly vibrant ecosystem, but instead I want to talk about another reason why Exocolonist is always going to have a special place in my heart:

Most sci fi depictions nowadays are bleak. Dystopias have become the norm in our cultural representations of the future, and for good reason, as our present day reality is itself quite the dystopia. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist does not follow this recent tradition. And that's not to say Exo's vision of the future is at all naive or happy go lucky, either.

Instead it does something far greater and gives you a rich and conflicted future in which characters are free to express themselves and to live comfortably in that expression, but there are still those who would like to take away that freedom out of fear, malice, or misguided attempts to help others. Exocolonist's future is beautiful and scary and awe-inspiring and most important to me, it gives me hope. It thoughtfully presents a future different from those I've encountered before and then fills in that world with an incredible level of care and detail so that you can live in this world for as many groundhogs as you'd like.

This game is good, but it really needs a primer, so I will give you one now: You will likely miss the entire game if you try to do everything. You really do need to commit to raising relationship with a couple of characters and spam them with gifts as often as you can to max them out, this isn't like Persona or Potionomics where you can easily see everything in a single playthrough. Also go exploring often, even to places you've already been, that's where a lot of the plot is hiding.

Primer aside, it's a well-written game with a focus on relationships. It's like Persona, but with the novel conceit that you play a character from age 10-20 and very slowly grow up over the course of 20 or so realtime hours. It's also very queer, with nonbinary characters, a full playersexual cast of romance options, an ace/demi character and more.

This game deserves a medal!

Many games in "Choices Matter" category fails. They give you choice but they force you to the same result. But in this game the choices are REALLY matter.

I loved this game when i finished. I wanted to start new game and it got more interesting. Because the main character remembers the critical path from the first game so the choices opened new path. I never saw an amazing game like this before. It is unique.

Turns out this game was 22% of my total steam game-play for the year of 2023. I binged this game to the fullest, and even ended up writing an essay about it for my college English class. I ended up getting a 96 on the essay as well!

The first most obvious charm of IWTE is the art and music. I loved the music on the soundtrack; it intertwines with the gorgeous and colorful art throughout every scene. It's very unique.

Secondly, the game-play is quite smooth and easy access for all types of players. There's options to view possible triggers, as well as changing how your game actually works. You can turn off the card game and focus on the story, and you're able to skip through dialogue you've already seen. These features make it more re-playable than it already is, especially for people who might be achievement mining. People have different playing styles and levels, and this was definitely taken into mind.

Thirdly, the characters and relationships! IWTE truly dives into the nuances of relationships, particularly the emotional and peculiar ones of teenagers. I love the fact that you can see other characters interact and see the depth to each personality.

My only real qualms with the game have to do with some of the endings and the way they interact. I won't dive into the depths of it, but sometimes the endings feel unfinished when you understand the connections in the game. One catastrophic thing happens in one ending that can be ignored completely in another if you meet certain requirements.


TLDR; Love this game after buying it out of pure curiosity. Very unique gameplay that make it replayable. Lovely to listen to and look at. Considering the team was not big at all, it's a seriously impressive game. Thank you for making this game. And if you're reading this review to see if you should get it: I think you should.

This game has come literally out of nowhere for me. It surpassed all of my expectations and made me fall in love with it in a way that is so rare and for someone who has experienced a lot of media throughout their life. I’m going to spend this review gushing all over it with very little criticism, since while it’s not a perfect game, I believe its shortcomings completely fade in comparison to all the good that it does. If you like story-driven, choice-heavy games (or generally life sims and visual novels), and the artwork is appealing to you, I bet you’ll enjoy it too.

Exceptionally high-quality writing.
“Exocolonist” doesn’t just read like a well-written game; it reads like a well-written book. Each character is written like a real person, dynamic yet cohesive, interesting and unique in their voice. Dialogue is joyful and engaging, it never feels awkward or tone-deaf. Descriptions of places and events are concise, evocative and informative. Through them, the alien world where story takes place is presented with outstanding clarity and life.

Great sci-fi.
This game combines the joyful, optimistic, curious spirit of classic sci-fi with modern tendency towards sharp, topical critique of modern society in a brilliant way. Some of the events portrayed have genuinely shaken me due to how relevant they are to me personally, and it’s even more true to many other people around the world. There's no shortage of trauma and tragedy in the life of the young Exocolonist. And yet, it ultimately relays a message of hope and constructive optimism for the future.

Meaningful choices.
“Exocolonist” does a really good job of giving you control over the narrative while never making you feel like you’re more important than everyone else. In fact, it’s very likely that you’re going to feel powerless and confused for your first playthrough, and the game doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the consequences of your actions, or inaction. It takes work to succeed, it takes curiosity and exploration to find the way to positively affect the events of the story. However, once you’ve familiarized yourself with the game, you’ll find that your actions influence everything: the resolution to the final conflict, the fate of other characters, your own life post-ending, and everything in-between. There are also a few “curveball” endings that completely change the later events of the story or your character’s place in them.
There are multiple romance options. They are pretty expansive, and you can enter in different types of relationships with some of the characters. Polygamy is also an option in a few cases, though not everyone in the game is okay with it. That said, romance is not the primary focus of the game, so don’t expect too much here. Its purpose is to fully portray adolescent experience, and other characters will not stay partnerless if you don’t assert yourself.

Stunning artwork and OST.
The massive synth soundscapes are forever ingrained in my brain. I don’t feel like I need to say much about the artwork – just look at the screenshots. Along with great background and character design, the game also features a number of breathtaking fullscreen images for certain story events. Seeing different sprites for player character and all of your friends as they grow and change as people was so touching and exciting, it really creates a deeper level of connection to all of them.

The gameplay loop elegantly ties everything together.
There’s nothing revolutionary here, but it works great, and offers much more than a lot of similar games tend to. You collect memories by doing actions in the world and talking to people. Memories are your playing cards in the card challenges, which work as a simple puzzle minigame with some randomness. The minigame is not very hard even on “hard” mode, and careful use of resources allows you to blow through some of the harder ones, which seems to be intended by design. Card challenges can represent any action that requires some skill to perform. You raise skills by performing various actions in the world like studying, exploring, working or talking to people. Most actions increase your stress level and progress the story one month further.
This is where the magic happens: you only have so much time - 10 years 13 months long each, and the gameplay loop naturally forces you to alternate between different actions and take breaks. Managing stress means you’ll frequently have to spend a whole month to rest. Some regular actions reduce stress naturally, so planning around them is good. Other actions may require more stress to perform, so you want to be fully-rested to be efficient. You can also use your stress to “push trough” card challenges by adding missing points in exchange for increasing stress, so it's good to be rested before important events that you don’t want to fail.
One of the best activities in the game is exploring: it gives you a lot of collectible items that you can give to your friends or use strategically to gain advantage in challenges. Exploration is also required to fully understand the story and unlock a number of important events and characters. However, it also takes up the most time and stress, and can be awkward to do if you’re not fully rested. On top of all this, some story events that may force or incentivize you to perform a certain action, or even completely lock you out.
What this ultimately means is that your choices throughout the game also change what actions are available to you – and this is true for everything. Who did you befriend? What dialogue options you chose? Which skills you raised? Did you explore that place fully? Did you save that person? Did you talk to that other person? Everything matters here. And with a hard limit on game time, you will always have to prioritize, plan, sacrifice. Some events you can’t stop at all, others require you to complete certain actions in time before you’re locked out. You cannot see or do everything each playthrough, which makes each playthrough unique and meaningful.

Finally, what struck me the most personally besides the fact the high quality of all of the game’s aspects is its core of empathy, love, joy and respect. It’s rare to see a piece of media that’s so thoughtful and understanding of and focused on the immense value of each person, regardless of their identity or worldview, and the wonder of genuine, deep human connection. This is the ultimate achievement of this game to me, and what makes it such a great piece of art both within and outside the video game media.

One of the best English learning materials out there on steam
10000/10 Better than Merriam-Webster
Now my professor will be proud of me cuz I can finally spell aspartame, anemone, symbiosis, fluorescent, olivaceous, recalcitrance, melatonin, antecedent, obsequious, dysthymia, and nomination

ps.
Symbiosis, my dear Symbiosis \\\(>_<)///

Ah yes, a game where I could relive my teenage years but on a new world. Where I could still pursue my dream career whilst also getting the girl and hopefully live a more happy, fulfilling life.

Except all I did was relive my reality in a video game, orphaned with no friends and no long-term romantic partners by adulthood. Thank you for reminding me that I still suck even in a fantasy video game.

But I still loved every minute of it.