Ridiculously engaging VN! While it can be considered a dating sim, I think it does plot and friendships better. (More later.) Plot is amazing, characters are (mostly) likable and have growth! Epilogues are very detailed, the best in any game I've seen! Love the main gameplay draw, that you remember your past lives and can influence events in your next playthrough! Many different activities with unique scenes that help subsequent playthroughs feel fresh! You can have pets (and interact with them-not just eye candy!) Graphics are pretty, and I like that the seasons are part of the plot too, also not just eye candy! Card battles help add some variety.

My main complaint is that some of the things you need to do (either for friendships or dating) can feel uncomfortable. There are a few characters that you need to break up to be able to date. There are a few characters that will break up with you in the epilogue no matter what. Hence why I'm hesitant to like this game as a dating sim. There's a character that starts off pretty toxic, and while there is growth if the friendship is high enough, to get that friendship up you have to pick options with violence towards creatures. In this same vein: there's a character that will always die, and for a game that's main draw is replaying to save characters, this feels bad.

A smaller complaint, but it can feel repetitive/grindy on subsequent playthroughs. It does a good job of having enough content/adding content, but a lot of big character/plot scenes will repeat.

I still recommend this VN and had a great time! I spent 64 hours on two playthroughs.

(copied from my gg review)

this game is so good it's insanity actually. the premise & gameplay are so simple, and yet it hooks you hard! i've never been THIS invested in a game's worldbuilding - you literally got no choice but to try to do multiple playthroughs to see how each event might turn up with every different decision.

p.s. tangent and rex, you both are beloved to me

Despite its Sci-Fi setting I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, like few other games I have played, encapsules what it is like growing up.
To become an adult, see you friends grow up into real humans with opinions and hopes and dreams that sometimes mesh with yours, and sometimes clash. Some people you will be close to forever, some you might grow apart from.
Discovering romance and sex, in all its innocence and awkwardness and sweetness. Celebrate birthdays. Morn losses.
Look back at it all, years later, realizing that you truly are a combination of everything you ve ever met, and everything that ever happened to you

This was a roller coaster, where I'd experience highs of genuine awe realising just how far I could affect my own character's, and the world's, fate, then lows of utter disappointment at how meaningless so many interactions with the core cast of the game actually are, and how little they truly matter. The art, by Bkomei, is spectacular, and the overall execution of this extremely promising idea is positive, but a core aspect of the game feels unfinished. Still, a game that so effectively blends visual novel elements with a life simulation game and deck building aspects is one of a kind.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is an interesting game with a lot of moving parts that have a distinct take on social simulation VN games like Princess Maker. The game tackles a lot of interesting science fiction ideas, with an engaging story that encourages multiple play throughs so that someone can get various different endings and variations on each playthrough to make each one feel unique as you cannot complete everything in one playthrough, much less your first which does lock you out of certain content.

However, the gameplay does not support multiple playthroughs. Each playthrough is very lengthy and time consuming, while the means of playing the game being tiring after even just one playthrough. The VN portions while having decent albeit young adult writing, can start to feel dull due to the text window needing a bit more refinement. The day to day movement along the map while being charming at the start begins to overstay its welcome due to the way it handles finding collectables which are very helpful with low respawn rates and also when events come up with certain characters, requiring you to run around the entire map every day to ensure nothing new came up. Furthermore, while the card game is interesting and fun at the start, it overstays its welcome and gets extremely tedious later on, especially once you start doing a lot of expeditions outside of the colony where you do multiple card game checks a day. The game just doesn't support multiple playthroughs through its gameplay, since it gets dull halfway through your first playthrough and will only get worse as you get to other playthroughs.

Speaking of, in your first playthrough there are many things you cannot do until your second playthrough, which does lock out some things. This would be really cool and something I would praise the game for, but its rough when each playthrough is so incredibly draining that I do not think I can handle a full second playthrough despite the good ideas behind it. As it is, this does mean the game locks you out of being able to get with one of the 2 women characters that will actually stay with your character in the ending, since 2/3 of the women characters you can date in your first playthrough will break up with you and sleep around with others after it despite you telling said character you're fine with open relationships, which can feel a bit problematic considering everyone in this game is bisexual so 2/3 first route romances with bi women end in getting broken up with for them to mess around feeling like a harmful stereotype. Speaking of, a lot of progressive ideas in this game can feel almost regressive or problematic at times which can be quite rough. While it has some interesting things to say about gender, some stereotypes and how it expresses polyamory, open relationships, and sexuality in general can be very rough. I will say I will always appreciate a piece of media that tries and fails to explore LGBTQ+ topics than one that doesn't bother at all, but it still bears bringing up.

Definitely a very ambitious, creative, and interesting game that is dragged down by a tedious gameplay loop that doesn't evolve enough as the game progresses to be able to support all the content in the game. Which is a shame, since there is a lot of good content in this game post a first playthrough that is worth exploring. I will probably get back to other playthroughs another time, but right now I feel it would be unfair to be trudging through gameplay I am burned out on to get to the new content.

An insanely addictive game with engrossing life sim/RPG elements intermingled with the story. While I generally didn't find the actual writing particularly compelling, the gameplay and story integration is very satisfying and the characters are likeable and interesting enough. I hesitate to give it a full 5 stars because while it's a very finely-crafted experience I don't know that it's one that will necessary stay with me for a while, but it's up there as some of the most fun I have had with a game.

He leído en varios sitios que el juego tarda en arrancar, pero tras 4 horas del mismo bucle jugable, creo que ya le he dado oportunidades suficientes para que me sorprenda. Pese a que la idea es interesante y algunos de los dilemas que plantea pueden estar bien escritos, el juego falla prácticamente en todo lo demás:

- El apartado artístico es muy mediocre. Las ilustraciones de los personajes no varían ni un ápice para mostrar ninguna emoción. Casi ningún evento va acompañado por imágenes, solo por textos.
- El juego de cartas, pese a ser entretenido por momentos, es muuuuuy básico y se vuelve repetitivo con demasiada prontitud.
- Como he comentado anteriormente, el bucle jugable no varía prácticamente nada durante el juego, con la única decisión como jugador de qué barrita subir ese mes.

An incredible game about relationships, capitalism, colonialism, and what it means to be human.

It's one of the most touching video game stories I've played. A story that can wrap around you like a cozy blanket, only to tear you away and toss you out into the rain.

I don’t normally NG+ games because I have so much to play but I immediately jumped back in the moment credits rolled. There’s a compelling time loop mechanic that provides context for it.

I’m kicking myself for not having played it at launch. If you've had even a slight interest in Twine, I highly recommend it.

I saw this recommended a lot by cozy gamers. I LOVED the first playthrough of the game, and was invested enough to replay the game to see variations. However, I felt by the 3rd playthough it became a bit of a chore to play. There were certain story beats that would always occur, especially in the early game for an optimal playthrough. While I enjoy the characters, it got to a point where I was hunting for endings rather than character routes. The card game was okay at first, but it got to a point where you could cheese through any type of challenge with the same deck. At the end of it all, I still loved my first few playthroughs of it. The game is definitely replayable, but not as much as I expected from online discussion.

I can't believe I Was A Teenage Exocolonist and Citizen Sleeper came out in the same year. What a time for tabletop-inspired visual novels.

This game is so cool. The art is unreal, the writing is some of the most natural I've ever seen, and the mechanics are streamlined perfectly.

Everyone should play this.