Exploring the Depths of “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist”
In the ever-evolving landscape of indie games, “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” stands out as a unique narrative RPG that blends life simulation with card-based mechanics. Developed by Northway Games and published by Finji, this game invites players to spend their teenage years on the alien planet Vertumna IV, where every decision shapes the future of their colony.
Sarah Northway’s vision for the narrative was to create an organic world where players actively shape their own stories. Collaborating with co-writer and narrative designer Lindsay Ishihiro, they crafted a complex narrative with approximately six novels’ worth of text and 800 triggered events. The narrative structure is not a linear visual novel but a vast, interconnected web of events. Main plot events occur in every playthrough, providing consistency and anchoring the game’s timeline. These events include annual occurrences like birthdays, the Vertumnalia harvest festival, and significant challenges during the Glow season.
Sequential threads are a key component of the game’s narrative. For example, spending time in geoponics might lead you to discover a friend’s secret pet, which grows into a significant problem over ten events. Working in the command wing could involve you in a secret club aiming to free the colony from tyranny. These threads offer world-building events as you progress through various school, hobby, or career paths, often giving you choices between cards to build your deck, representing your character’s growth. Sequential events always happen in order but might be skipped if your character is too old. They are triggered alongside main plot events after you complete an activity for the month. If multiple events are triggered simultaneously, the game prioritizes the highest one.
Exocolonist spans 10 years, with time advancing every week as you decide how to spend it. Inspired by life sims like Princess Maker, you can work in your parent’s greenhouses, learn to repair the colony’s failing robots, or join a survey crew to explore the jungle. Your parents, geoponics engineers who fled a war-ravaged Earth, imagined a simple, peaceful life on a new planet. However, Vertumna is covered in thick jungle and fraught with alien monsters and strange phenomena. But to you—a teenager who suddenly has an entire world at their feet—it’s all opportunity. Each activity raises certain skills and provides different opportunities to help your colony. The game concludes when you turn 20—assuming you and the colony survive that long. Who you become is up to you.
In “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist,” you won’t be the only one aging over the course of the game. Your childhood friends (or not-so-friends) from the ship will grow and change along with you. Relationships play a crucial role in the game. With 10 dateable characters, including unique personalities like dogboys and aliens, the game provides a diverse range of romantic and platonic interactions. These relationships can significantly impact your story, leading to one of the game’s 50 possible endings. As you and your friends grow through puberty, you’ll experience innocence, awkwardness, and all the hormonal changes and decisions that come with it.
Characters like Anemone, Cal, Tammy, Marz, Dys, and his sister Tangent each have their own dramas that play out over the ten years, whether you witness them or not. Your involvement may change the course of their lives for better or worse, but you won’t have time to befriend everyone. Characters in the game have love meters that trigger sequential events as you get to know them. These events are less connected to the larger colony plotlines and are optional, requiring you to interact with characters when they have a speech bubble over their heads.
Reflecting on the game’s development, Sarah Northway shared insights from the original design document. Themes like the importance of thinking about the future, the impact of politics, and the flaws of colonialism were central. Early character designs were inspired by archetypes from previous games, evolving into the rich, diverse cast players interact with in the game. These characters evolved significantly over the years, especially with the input of co-writer Lindsay Ishihiro. Sensitivity readers helped identify and address early issues, leading to deeper, more unique character development.
Gameplay Changes from Early Prototypes
The development of “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” saw significant changes from its early prototypes. Initially, the game included many more adult characters, most of whom were cut to focus on the teen characters. While some adults are still mentioned in passing during events, they were never given art. These cuts allowed the team to concentrate on developing the main cast and their intricate relationships.
One of the most notable shifts was the abandonment of a Handmaid’s Tale-esque storyline involving forced childbearing to populate the new planet. This concept was ultimately deemed too heavy, and the focus shifted to creating a utopian world where gender, race, and sexuality are as inconsequential as possible.
Early prototypes also considered various gameplay mechanics that were eventually cut to streamline the narrative and character development. These included:
Card-Based Battles and Timeloop Mechanics
“I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” features a unique card-based battle system where your deck is made up of memories. Every decision you make and event you witness becomes an ability to use in battle. These “battles” can be any kind of challenge you face, such as taking a math test, calming a crying child, performing at a talent show, or even rescuing your teacher from tentacle-faced horrors. Battles can challenge any skill and are played out the same way, whether your Combat skill is being tested during sparring practice or your Engineering skill is needed to fix a robot or take a math test. These even included Empathy battles!
The card-based battle system, loosely based on poker and Yahtzee rules, adds a strategic layer to the gameplay, requiring players to think critically about their moves. Interestingly, this mechanic was a late addition to the game and took years to finalize, despite initially being dismissed as “silly” in early development notes. 
As you develop your skills, reaching milestones at 30%, 60%, or 100% unlocks perks that grant permanent effects. For example, Creativity unlocks crafting recipes, Organization lets you equip more gear, and Perception makes collectible resources easier to find. Some perks unlock new career choices, shop items, or give you a boost in battles, adding depth and replayability to the game.
A key narrative feature in “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” is its timeloop mechanic, allowing you to relive your teenage years multiple times. Each playthrough offers new experiences and insights, and as you reach age 20 and start a new game, you’ll remember certain things that happened before. These memories, called “groundhogs” in the code (a nod to the classic Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day), manifest as premonitions or memories of things that will happen—or could happen if you don’t act to change them.
On your second playthrough onward, new choices appear in events you’ve previously encountered, allowing you to shortcut difficult challenges, like curing a disease without spending years researching it. This mechanic enables you to combine the knowledge of many past lives into one “perfect” life, making each playthrough unique and rewarding. 
Music to Accompany Every Possible You
The soundtrack of “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” is a masterpiece, blending ambient electronic and acoustic instruments to perfectly complement the game’s emotional journey. Composed by various artists including C418, scntfc, A Shell in the Pit, and Gabriel Koenig, the music is divided into two parts: the first half is bright and optimistic, reflecting the innocence of youth, while the second half becomes moodier and more tense as the colony faces challenges.
The game begins when you’re an innocent ten-year-old on a new planet and ends (if you survive!) at age twenty after many trials. The soundtrack needed to capture this dramatic shift in mood. Daniel Rosenfeld (aka C418) suggested a diverse soundtrack made by various artists to represent the different stages of life. With Gordon McGladdery from A Shell in the Pit, Northway recruited artists whose styles matched the game’s vision. The result is 27 tracks totaling 2 hours, featuring 14 artists including Gordon McGladdery, Daniel Rosenfeld, Shannon Mason (Pongball), Andrew Rohrmann (scntfc), and Gabriel Koenig (Ghost Time Games).
The lighting system also underwent significant optimization. Initially, plants had embedded point lights, but this approach was too performance-intensive. Instead, baked lighting was used for key areas, matching the plants’ glowing colors and adding post-process effects like Bloom and HDR to enhance the visual impact.
The art of “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” has received much positive feedback. Initially, Sarah Northway considered doing the art herself, amassing a Pinterest mood board and experimenting with styles. However, as the project grew, it became clear that professional help was needed to create characters that players could connect with.
Sarah Webb was discovered at the VanCAF comic fest, where her environments, casual yet lively line work, and rich color schemes stood out. Webb joined the team to work on concept art and help find a style that was both hers and Exocolonist’s. Her ability to blend pencil, watercolor, and digital techniques created the desired look for the game’s illustrations and environments.
Meilee Chao then joined to design and illustrate the characters, adapting the concept art to a vibrant, breathing alien jungle. The game embraces a palette of pink and purple, fitting the science of Vertumna’s flora, which photosynthesize using a red pigment instead of green.
Conclusion
“I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” stands as a testament to the power of collaborative creativity, seamlessly blending innovative gameplay mechanics, a captivating soundtrack, and stunning visuals to craft an unforgettable gaming experience. The game invites players into a richly detailed world where every decision and event shapes the journey, making each playthrough unique and engaging.
The strategic card battles, inspired by poker and Yahtzee, challenge players to think critically and adapt their strategies, while the timeloop mechanic offers endless replayability, allowing players to explore different paths and outcomes. The narrative depth, enhanced by the dynamic and emotional soundtrack, ensures that players are not just playing a game, but living a story.
The soundtrack, a masterpiece in its own right, features contributions from renowned artists like C418, scntfc, A Shell in the Pit, and Gabriel Koenig. It perfectly complements the game’s emotional journey, with tracks that evolve from bright and optimistic to moody and tense, reflecting the changing seasons and challenges faced by the colony on Vertumna IV.
Visually, the game is a feast for the eyes. The lush, alien landscapes, inspired by the jungles of Central America and the coral reefs of Southeast Asia, are brought to life through innovative lighting and rendering techniques. The art style, developed by talented artists like Sarah Webb and Meilee Chao, creates a vibrant and immersive world that feels both otherworldly and familiar.
The game’s development process, marked by collaboration and creativity, has resulted in a product that is not only visually stunning but also technically impressive. From the optimization of plant animations to the efficient lighting system, every detail has been meticulously crafted to enhance the player’s experience.
Moreover, the game’s embrace of modding and community involvement ensures that it will continue to evolve and grow, with fans adding their own events and translations. This openness to community contributions highlights the game’s commitment to inclusivity and player engagement.
In the ever-evolving landscape of indie games, “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” stands out as a unique narrative RPG that blends life simulation with card-based mechanics. Developed by Northway Games and published by Finji, this game invites players to spend their teenage years on the alien planet Vertumna IV, where every decision shapes the future of their colony.
From the moment you step onto Vertumna IV, the game immerses you in a richly detailed world. The watercolor art style beautifully captures the alien environment, making every scene a visual delight. As you navigate through ten years of your character’s life, you’ll encounter over 1000 story events, each offering different paths and outcomes. Exploration events appear as signposts, creatures, or floating question marks in the wild, resembling miniature RPG encounters. Many involve card battles or skill challenges and are scattered semi-randomly based on the region, season, and year.
Sarah Northway’s vision for the narrative was to create an organic world where players actively shape their own stories. Collaborating with co-writer and narrative designer Lindsay Ishihiro, they crafted a complex narrative with approximately six novels’ worth of text and 800 triggered events. The narrative structure is not a linear visual novel but a vast, interconnected web of events. Main plot events occur in every playthrough, providing consistency and anchoring the game’s timeline. These events include annual occurrences like birthdays, the Vertumnalia harvest festival, and significant challenges during the Glow season.
Sequential threads are a key component of the game’s narrative. For example, spending time in geoponics might lead you to discover a friend’s secret pet, which grows into a significant problem over ten events. Working in the command wing could involve you in a secret club aiming to free the colony from tyranny. These threads offer world-building events as you progress through various school, hobby, or career paths, often giving you choices between cards to build your deck, representing your character’s growth. Sequential events always happen in order but might be skipped if your character is too old. They are triggered alongside main plot events after you complete an activity for the month. If multiple events are triggered simultaneously, the game prioritizes the highest one.
Exocolonist spans 10 years, with time advancing every week as you decide how to spend it. Inspired by life sims like Princess Maker, you can work in your parent’s greenhouses, learn to repair the colony’s failing robots, or join a survey crew to explore the jungle. Your parents, geoponics engineers who fled a war-ravaged Earth, imagined a simple, peaceful life on a new planet. However, Vertumna is covered in thick jungle and fraught with alien monsters and strange phenomena. But to you—a teenager who suddenly has an entire world at their feet—it’s all opportunity. Each activity raises certain skills and provides different opportunities to help your colony. The game concludes when you turn 20—assuming you and the colony survive that long. Who you become is up to you.
Skills, Jobs, and Relationships
One of the standout features of “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” is its deep skill system. With 15 skills to develop, ranging from empathy to bravery, players can tailor their character’s growth to their playstyle. The game also offers 25 different jobs, allowing you to explore various roles within the colony, from a depot clerk to a survey team member.
Skills are organized into social, mental, and physical suits, which matter mainly for card battles. It was hard to narrow it down to only 12, so some are a bit overloaded – most knowledge is shoehorned into Engineering (the dry sciences) or Biology (the wet ones), while social sciences, arts, and humanities are absorbed into your Creativity skill. With survival on the line, some skills will come up more than others, like your ability to recognize and interact with alien species (Animals skill).
One of the standout features of “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” is its deep skill system. With 15 skills to develop, ranging from empathy to bravery, players can tailor their character’s growth to their playstyle. The game also offers 25 different jobs, allowing you to explore various roles within the colony, from a depot clerk to a survey team member.
Skills are organized into social, mental, and physical suits, which matter mainly for card battles. It was hard to narrow it down to only 12, so some are a bit overloaded – most knowledge is shoehorned into Engineering (the dry sciences) or Biology (the wet ones), while social sciences, arts, and humanities are absorbed into your Creativity skill. With survival on the line, some skills will come up more than others, like your ability to recognize and interact with alien species (Animals skill).
In “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist,” you won’t be the only one aging over the course of the game. Your childhood friends (or not-so-friends) from the ship will grow and change along with you. Relationships play a crucial role in the game. With 10 dateable characters, including unique personalities like dogboys and aliens, the game provides a diverse range of romantic and platonic interactions. These relationships can significantly impact your story, leading to one of the game’s 50 possible endings. As you and your friends grow through puberty, you’ll experience innocence, awkwardness, and all the hormonal changes and decisions that come with it.
Gameplay Changes from Early Prototypes
The development of “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” saw significant changes from its early prototypes. Initially, the game included many more adult characters, most of whom were cut to focus on the teen characters. While some adults are still mentioned in passing during events, they were never given art. These cuts allowed the team to concentrate on developing the main cast and their intricate relationships.
One of the most notable shifts was the abandonment of a Handmaid’s Tale-esque storyline involving forced childbearing to populate the new planet. This concept was ultimately deemed too heavy, and the focus shifted to creating a utopian world where gender, race, and sexuality are as inconsequential as possible.
Early prototypes also considered various gameplay mechanics that were eventually cut to streamline the narrative and character development. These included:
- Base-Building Feature: Originally, players would move to a new colony every year and design it themselves.
- Farming Mechanic: A farming system was planned but later removed.
- Colony Defense Minigame: This feature was also cut.
- More Contact with Earth: The game initially included more interactions with Earth, which were reduced to focus on the colony’s internal dynamics.
Card-Based Battles and Timeloop Mechanics
“I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” features a unique card-based battle system where your deck is made up of memories. Every decision you make and event you witness becomes an ability to use in battle. These “battles” can be any kind of challenge you face, such as taking a math test, calming a crying child, performing at a talent show, or even rescuing your teacher from tentacle-faced horrors. Battles can challenge any skill and are played out the same way, whether your Combat skill is being tested during sparring practice or your Engineering skill is needed to fix a robot or take a math test. These even included Empathy battles!
The card-based battle system, loosely based on poker and Yahtzee rules, adds a strategic layer to the gameplay, requiring players to think critically about their moves. Interestingly, this mechanic was a late addition to the game and took years to finalize, despite initially being dismissed as “silly” in early development notes.
As you develop your skills, reaching milestones at 30%, 60%, or 100% unlocks perks that grant permanent effects. For example, Creativity unlocks crafting recipes, Organization lets you equip more gear, and Perception makes collectible resources easier to find. Some perks unlock new career choices, shop items, or give you a boost in battles, adding depth and replayability to the game.
A key narrative feature in “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” is its timeloop mechanic, allowing you to relive your teenage years multiple times. Each playthrough offers new experiences and insights, and as you reach age 20 and start a new game, you’ll remember certain things that happened before. These memories, called “groundhogs” in the code (a nod to the classic Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day), manifest as premonitions or memories of things that will happen—or could happen if you don’t act to change them.
On your second playthrough onward, new choices appear in events you’ve previously encountered, allowing you to shortcut difficult challenges, like curing a disease without spending years researching it. This mechanic enables you to combine the knowledge of many past lives into one “perfect” life, making each playthrough unique and rewarding.
Music to Accompany Every Possible You
The soundtrack of “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” is a masterpiece, blending ambient electronic and acoustic instruments to perfectly complement the game’s emotional journey. Composed by various artists including C418, scntfc, A Shell in the Pit, and Gabriel Koenig, the music is divided into two parts: the first half is bright and optimistic, reflecting the innocence of youth, while the second half becomes moodier and more tense as the colony faces challenges.
The game begins when you’re an innocent ten-year-old on a new planet and ends (if you survive!) at age twenty after many trials. The soundtrack needed to capture this dramatic shift in mood. Daniel Rosenfeld (aka C418) suggested a diverse soundtrack made by various artists to represent the different stages of life. With Gordon McGladdery from A Shell in the Pit, Northway recruited artists whose styles matched the game’s vision. The result is 27 tracks totaling 2 hours, featuring 14 artists including Gordon McGladdery, Daniel Rosenfeld, Shannon Mason (Pongball), Andrew Rohrmann (scntfc), and Gabriel Koenig (Ghost Time Games).
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| I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Original Soundtrack) album art by bkomei |
Finding the Style
Northway started with a playlist of inspirations, featuring favorite game soundtracks (Stardew Valley, Wandersong, Jettomero, and Minecraft), ambient electronic artists with heavy synths (Boards of Canada, Jean-Michel Jarre, Hologramme, Home), and unique instruments (Plaid, Four Tet, Rone, Nine Inch Nails). Plus, more tinkly piano, new age (Enya!), Beyoncé, and Bulgarian choir to keep things weird. Exocolonist is science fiction after all! One sound Northway particularly liked was instruments recorded then played backwards, a prompt given to artists along with the playlist.
The soundtrack is split into three parts: the first half is innocent and bright; the second half is moodier and tense; and the exploration biomes are ambient and nature-inspired. Some tracks appear throughout both halves to tie the game together. They’re also divided by season, matching light piano to the peace of Quiet season, and darker synths to the tension of Glow season.
Local Connections
The exploration areas, where you survey, forage, or hunt, needed longer, more ambient tracks to illustrate the feeling of being away from the colony. A friend discussing modular synths on his stream played a sample of Jogging House’s videos. Jogging House’s music, with its soothing lights and analog tape deck effects, sounded perfect for Vertumna. Northway licensed six tracks from him, including “Pines,” which appears during Wet season. These tracks were pre-released by Jogging House through his label Seil Records. Another artist, Crooked Walking, was discovered through the label and later found to live in the same city as Northway.
Northway started with a playlist of inspirations, featuring favorite game soundtracks (Stardew Valley, Wandersong, Jettomero, and Minecraft), ambient electronic artists with heavy synths (Boards of Canada, Jean-Michel Jarre, Hologramme, Home), and unique instruments (Plaid, Four Tet, Rone, Nine Inch Nails). Plus, more tinkly piano, new age (Enya!), Beyoncé, and Bulgarian choir to keep things weird. Exocolonist is science fiction after all! One sound Northway particularly liked was instruments recorded then played backwards, a prompt given to artists along with the playlist.
The soundtrack is split into three parts: the first half is innocent and bright; the second half is moodier and tense; and the exploration biomes are ambient and nature-inspired. Some tracks appear throughout both halves to tie the game together. They’re also divided by season, matching light piano to the peace of Quiet season, and darker synths to the tension of Glow season.
Local Connections
The exploration areas, where you survey, forage, or hunt, needed longer, more ambient tracks to illustrate the feeling of being away from the colony. A friend discussing modular synths on his stream played a sample of Jogging House’s videos. Jogging House’s music, with its soothing lights and analog tape deck effects, sounded perfect for Vertumna. Northway licensed six tracks from him, including “Pines,” which appears during Wet season. These tracks were pre-released by Jogging House through his label Seil Records. Another artist, Crooked Walking, was discovered through the label and later found to live in the same city as Northway.
Northway also met Kiyoshi Iio (Koku) busking in Vancouver. Koku, a talented synth composer, incorporates acoustic instruments like guitar, didgeridoo, and handpan, fitting perfectly with the game’s aesthetic. The handpan, a relatively new instrument combining cultural traditions from South Asia and the Caribbean, is associated with travelers and boho culture, much like the multinational hippie commune vibe of the Exocolonist colony. The handpan’s beautiful and ethereal sound, especially the way Koku plays it, complements the mysterious beauty of the planet Vertumna.
The Finishing Touches
Gordon McGladdery played a significant role in the album production, from managing contracts to mastering tracks. He wrote the game’s title track and played some morin khuur for it. A Shell in the Pit also handled the game’s audio, with some of Em Halberstadt’s ambient hums featured on the album. Other artists include C418 from Minecraft, Pongball from Kunai, scntfc from JETT and Oxenfree, and Ghost Time Games from Jettomero and Tux and Fanny.
Jake Gauntlett’s ambient piano fit perfectly with all parts of the soundtrack. The final track, a vocal piece for the end game sequence and credits, was found on Bandcamp. Frances Aravel’s “The Child You Were” from her album “Shining Out of the Dark” was chosen for its melancholy lyrics and grungy guitar rock, reminiscent of Northway’s own teenage years.
Bringing Vertumna IV to Life: The Art of the Outdoors
Creating the lush, alien landscapes of Vertumna IV was no small feat. Inspired by the jungles of Central America and the coral reefs of Southeast Asia, Sarah Northway and her team, including concept artist Sarah Webb, illustrators Meilee Chao and Eduardo Vargas, and 3D modeler Sarah Roland, crafted the game’s beautiful outdoor scenes.
The main colony region features plants, terrain textures, and weather effects that change with the seasons. These seasons, named Quiet, Pollen, Dust, Wet, and Glow, bring dynamic changes to the environment. For example, during the Glow season, Vertumna’s two suns dip below the horizon, and the world comes alive with firefly-like particles and light-emitting plants.
Northway’s approach to lighting and rendering was innovative. Using the built-in render pipeline and forward rendering, hundreds of semi-transparent sprite-based plants were layered to create the effect of a painting come to life. The game’s lighting is flat, with painted-in shadows and no normal maps or specular sheens, enhancing its unique visual style.
However, the development process wasn’t without challenges. Initially, point lights were embedded into every plant prefab, resulting in 1600 lights in one scene, which significantly slowed down performance. Through optimization, including custom shaders and batching plant draw calls, a visually stunning and efficient game world was created. Every plant in the game is an individual object, rippling, bobbing, and bending when the player walks through it. Some species even appear to breathe, blurring the line between flora and fauna on Vertumna.
The Finishing Touches
Gordon McGladdery played a significant role in the album production, from managing contracts to mastering tracks. He wrote the game’s title track and played some morin khuur for it. A Shell in the Pit also handled the game’s audio, with some of Em Halberstadt’s ambient hums featured on the album. Other artists include C418 from Minecraft, Pongball from Kunai, scntfc from JETT and Oxenfree, and Ghost Time Games from Jettomero and Tux and Fanny.
Jake Gauntlett’s ambient piano fit perfectly with all parts of the soundtrack. The final track, a vocal piece for the end game sequence and credits, was found on Bandcamp. Frances Aravel’s “The Child You Were” from her album “Shining Out of the Dark” was chosen for its melancholy lyrics and grungy guitar rock, reminiscent of Northway’s own teenage years.
Bringing Vertumna IV to Life: The Art of the Outdoors
Creating the lush, alien landscapes of Vertumna IV was no small feat. Inspired by the jungles of Central America and the coral reefs of Southeast Asia, Sarah Northway and her team, including concept artist Sarah Webb, illustrators Meilee Chao and Eduardo Vargas, and 3D modeler Sarah Roland, crafted the game’s beautiful outdoor scenes.
The main colony region features plants, terrain textures, and weather effects that change with the seasons. These seasons, named Quiet, Pollen, Dust, Wet, and Glow, bring dynamic changes to the environment. For example, during the Glow season, Vertumna’s two suns dip below the horizon, and the world comes alive with firefly-like particles and light-emitting plants.
Northway’s approach to lighting and rendering was innovative. Using the built-in render pipeline and forward rendering, hundreds of semi-transparent sprite-based plants were layered to create the effect of a painting come to life. The game’s lighting is flat, with painted-in shadows and no normal maps or specular sheens, enhancing its unique visual style.
However, the development process wasn’t without challenges. Initially, point lights were embedded into every plant prefab, resulting in 1600 lights in one scene, which significantly slowed down performance. Through optimization, including custom shaders and batching plant draw calls, a visually stunning and efficient game world was created. Every plant in the game is an individual object, rippling, bobbing, and bending when the player walks through it. Some species even appear to breathe, blurring the line between flora and fauna on Vertumna.
The lighting system also underwent significant optimization. Initially, plants had embedded point lights, but this approach was too performance-intensive. Instead, baked lighting was used for key areas, matching the plants’ glowing colors and adding post-process effects like Bloom and HDR to enhance the visual impact.
Crafting a Dynamic Narrative
Modding has been embraced by the community even before the game’s release, with fans adding their own events and porting syntax highlighting to other text editors. To facilitate modding, story files were stored in plain text, and there is potential for Steam Workshop support post-launch. Localization remains a challenge due to the narrative’s size, but fan translations may be possible through modding.
Modding has been embraced by the community even before the game’s release, with fans adding their own events and porting syntax highlighting to other text editors. To facilitate modding, story files were stored in plain text, and there is potential for Steam Workshop support post-launch. Localization remains a challenge due to the narrative’s size, but fan translations may be possible through modding.
Sarah Webb was discovered at the VanCAF comic fest, where her environments, casual yet lively line work, and rich color schemes stood out. Webb joined the team to work on concept art and help find a style that was both hers and Exocolonist’s. Her ability to blend pencil, watercolor, and digital techniques created the desired look for the game’s illustrations and environments.
Meilee Chao then joined to design and illustrate the characters, adapting the concept art to a vibrant, breathing alien jungle. The game embraces a palette of pink and purple, fitting the science of Vertumna’s flora, which photosynthesize using a red pigment instead of green.
Conclusion
“I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” stands as a testament to the power of collaborative creativity, seamlessly blending innovative gameplay mechanics, a captivating soundtrack, and stunning visuals to craft an unforgettable gaming experience. The game invites players into a richly detailed world where every decision and event shapes the journey, making each playthrough unique and engaging.
The strategic card battles, inspired by poker and Yahtzee, challenge players to think critically and adapt their strategies, while the timeloop mechanic offers endless replayability, allowing players to explore different paths and outcomes. The narrative depth, enhanced by the dynamic and emotional soundtrack, ensures that players are not just playing a game, but living a story.
The soundtrack, a masterpiece in its own right, features contributions from renowned artists like C418, scntfc, A Shell in the Pit, and Gabriel Koenig. It perfectly complements the game’s emotional journey, with tracks that evolve from bright and optimistic to moody and tense, reflecting the changing seasons and challenges faced by the colony on Vertumna IV.
Visually, the game is a feast for the eyes. The lush, alien landscapes, inspired by the jungles of Central America and the coral reefs of Southeast Asia, are brought to life through innovative lighting and rendering techniques. The art style, developed by talented artists like Sarah Webb and Meilee Chao, creates a vibrant and immersive world that feels both otherworldly and familiar.
The game’s development process, marked by collaboration and creativity, has resulted in a product that is not only visually stunning but also technically impressive. From the optimization of plant animations to the efficient lighting system, every detail has been meticulously crafted to enhance the player’s experience.
Moreover, the game’s embrace of modding and community involvement ensures that it will continue to evolve and grow, with fans adding their own events and translations. This openness to community contributions highlights the game’s commitment to inclusivity and player engagement.
Whether you’re drawn to its strategic card battles, its rich and dynamic narrative, or its beautiful art and music, “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” offers something for everyone. It is a game that not only entertains but also resonates on an emotional level, making it a truly unforgettable experience.
Northway, S. (2022, August 9). The music of I Was a Teenage Exocolonist. Northway Games. Retrieved from https://northwaygames.com/exocolonist-music/
Northway Games. (2011, March 8). Press kit. Retrieved from https://northwaygames.com/presskit/