Preview | I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

LifeisXbox’s I Was a Teenage Exocolonist preview | In this upcoming narrative life sim with card-based battles, developed by Northway Games, you spend your teenage years on an alien planet. You, your family, and your parents are part of humanity’s first extrasolar colony so you’ll be growing up where no human has ever grown up! Everything about I Was a Teenage Exoconolist intrigued me: the graphics, the card-based battles, the story, it all seemed so wonderful! Thanks to this game participating in LudoNarraCon, a demo was made available, and of course, I had to try it out!

The demo

The demo of I Was a Teenage Exocolonist includes the first year of teenage life in an exosolar colony. In the full game, you’ll experience no less than 10 years, following a character from age 10 to age 19. When starting the demo, there is an announcement that says bugs and typos might be present, and audio is still lacking. I’m very glad to report I did not encounter any bugs. I did spot a few typos every now and then but seeing as I was made aware of this before starting the game, I didn’t mind like I usually do. I am looking forward to the audio very much though! Right now, some music was playing in the background, but I didn’t really pay that much attention to it. It was just some background noise. I’m very curious to see if the characters will get audio as well because I would absolutely love to hear all these different voices!

Gameplay

From what I experienced so far, I liked the gameplay a lot. In the beginning, you choose a name and a gender. And thank you developers, the genders were not just ‘girl and boy’ but actually included ‘non binary’. This is the first time I’ve seen this in a game and I can only applaud this!

You start every day and it’s totally up to you what you do. Will you go to class? Or will you go to the lounge to chill? Maybe you’ll help out your parents or you’d rather help out with deliveries? You can even play sports or go explore beyond the borders (even though you’re not allowed, you sneaky little kid). It really feels like you’re becoming your own person thanks to the various skills. Are you leaning towards creativity, or is toughness more your thing? I loved creating friendships, and also being rebellious a little!

Combat is card-based, as I mentioned in my intro. I loved how the developers are turning everything into cards, from memories to friendships, and I’m very curious to see more of this in the full game. The battles we’re talking about aren’t always actual ‘battles’. So far, I had to use my cards to get through tests, like a biology test!

Apparently, I Was a Teenage Exoconolist will feature 50 different endings, based on how you decide to live your life. There will be multiple ways to die, you can become a botanist (I’m sure I’ll love this one), and so much more. Honestly, this just screams hours and hours of gameplay, and I’m all for it!

The graphics of this game are amazing, by the way. Every year has 9 (!) different seasons, and my favorite was definitely the last one which featured a dark atmosphere but with bright bulbs of light everywhere. Every season made my little colony look cute in a different way.

Characters

In the short time that I’ve played this game, I’ve already grown to love the characters. Each of them is unique in both their looks and personalities and making friendships was really one of my favorite parts of the game. I can only recommend you try out this demo, and maybe later the full game, and meet these adorable characters yourself!