Being young and figuring yourself out is hard enough here on Earth, but I Was a Teenage Exocolonist sees you growing up on a whole new world.
You’re a teen on humanity’s first extrasolar space colony. Which makes those awkward teen years that much heavier and stranger, doesn’t it? You’re not just dealing with prom dates, but SPACE prom dates. Although it’s a bit more serious than that, as your choices will affect the flow of your life and the lives of others on this world. Plus, who wants to go to school and study when there’s new life forms to meet and plants to discover. You’ll have to decide what sort of life you want to live here, all as you steadily grow older. Assuming you don’t pick a fight with some awful alien creature and die, I guess.
Your experiences will give you abilities in a fight, as well as in how you shape your colony’s future. Being a talent show champion might not see like it’s worth much in a fight, but not everything in life is settled by fistfights. Many of your challenges will play out through card games, and your experiences will load your deck with things you can use to help get through the situation. That might mean you need to solve things in unorthodox ways, but you’ve almost always got SOME tool that will help you get through. However, you might need to take a few lifetimes to be able to save the colony. It’s a shame to see your teen fall, but not everything you do is going to lead to a happy ending.
Seeing life experiences come together into unique cards that you used to get through fights with your parents as much as you’d use them to thump a cranky alien animal makes for a neat experience. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist does a fantastic job of showing that the oddest life experiences can shape your life, and makes a compelling ‘battle’ system out of some of the goofier decisions I made as a teen.
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is available now on the Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Store, itch.io, and Steam.