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.
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.