You ever play a game that makes you feel like you’ve lived a thousand lives in the span of a weekend? That’s I Was a Teenage Exocolonist. It’s messy. It’s colorful. Honestly, it’s one of the most stressful "cozy" games you’ll ever touch. You start as a ten-year-old kid on a colony ship landing on a vibrant, alien planet called Vertumna. By the time the credits roll, you’re twenty. You’ve probably seen your friends die, fallen in love with a moon-worshipper, and maybe accidentally caused a famine. Or saved everyone. It depends on how much you’re willing to learn from your own failures.
The game is a narrative RPG built on a card-battling system, but the cards are just your memories. Every time you learn a new skill or experience a trauma, you get a card. It’s brilliant. Northway Games managed to turn the literal concept of "growing up" into a deck-builder. But the hook—the thing that actually keeps people playing until 3 AM—is the groundhog day mechanic. Your character remembers past lives. You, the player, remember that a certain character dies in year 13 unless you have a specific medical skill. So, in the next life, you study harder. You become the person they need you to be. It’s a game about the weight of knowing too much and the desperation of trying to fix a world that is actively trying to eat you.
The Brutal Reality of Life on Vertumna
Vertumna isn't Earth. It’s pink and orange and filled with "Hopeye" creatures and massive "Xenofauna" that don't want you there. Most sci-fi games are about conquering the frontier. This isn't that. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is about survival and, more importantly, coexistence. If you go in thinking you're the hero of a space marine shooter, you’re going to have a bad time. The colony is fragile. Food runs out. The seasons—Pollen, Dust, Wet, and Glow—dictate whether you’re celebrating a festival or hiding in a bunker while the planet literally tries to poison you.
I remember my first playthrough. I thought I was doing great. I spent all my time in the school because I wanted to be a scientist. I ignored the defense of the colony. Then Glow came. The shimmer in the air turned into a nightmare, and people I cared about didn't make it. The game doesn't pull punches. It’s rated for teens and adults for a reason; it deals with grief, gender identity, politics, and the ethics of colonialism with a level of nuance you rarely see in gaming.
The characters aren't static tropes. Dys isn't just the "edgy loner." He’s a kid traumatized by the rigid structure of the colony who finds solace in the wild. Anemone isn't just the "childhood friend." She can become a hardened, cynical soldier or a broken shell of herself depending on how the war goes. You watch them grow from toddlers to adults. You see their portraits change. You see their dialogue shift from playground gossip to complex debates about whether the humans are actually the villains of the story.
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Why the Card System Actually Works
Usually, when a game says "card-battler," I roll my eyes a bit. It feels like a shortcut. But here, the cards are your brain. If you spend a year working in the kitchens, you get "Cooking" cards. If you spend it exploring the wilderness, you get "Perception" cards.
The "battles" are actually just mental challenges. You’re trying to arrange your memories into poker-like hands—straights and flushes—to overcome a challenge. Maybe the challenge is "Convincing the Council" or "Surviving a Monster Attack." If you have a "Trauma" card in your hand, it’s a zero. It clutches up your deck. It’s a literal representation of how PTSD or bad memories can hinder your ability to function. It’s smart design. It’s not about being "powerful" in the traditional sense; it’s about having a well-rounded life. Or, if you’re a power-gamer, it’s about manipulating your past to ensure you have the perfect deck to force a peaceful resolution with the planet’s indigenous life.
How to Actually Get the "Good" Ending
Most people finish their first run of I Was a Teenage Exocolonist and feel like they failed. That’s intentional. You are supposed to fail. The game is designed around the "New Game Plus" being an actual part of the story. Your character, Sol, starts getting flashes of the future.
- Don't ignore the collectibles. Those weird little alien artifacts you find while exploring? They aren't just for show. They unlock memories that can trigger different dialogue options in future lives.
- Specializing is a trap. In your first few years, it’s tempting to just do "Engineering" every single month. Don't. You need a mix. If you don't have enough social skill, you won't be able to talk your friends out of making terrible decisions.
- The 'Glow' is the key. Pay attention to what happens during the Glow season. It’s when the barrier between lives is thinnest.
- Forging Relationships. You can't date everyone at once. Well, you can try, but the game tracks your loyalty. Some characters, like Tangent or Marz, require you to be on their intellectual level before they’ll even listen to your advice about the colony’s future.
Dealing with the Ethics of the Colony
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the "Exocolonist" part of the title. The game doesn't shy away from the fact that humans are an invasive species on Vertumna. You are part of a group that landed on a planet that already had an ecosystem and a sentient population (the Gardeners).
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The political divide in the colony is the heartbeat of the late-game. On one side, you have the "Helios" crew—new arrivals who want to dominate the planet with superior technology. On the other, you have the original colonists who just want to survive. You get stuck in the middle. Do you help the colony grow by destroying the local flora? Or do you sabotage your own people to save the planet? There are over 25 different endings. You can become a Governor, a Gardener, a simple cook, or even a literal god.
Honestly, the most impressive thing about the writing is that no one is a cartoon villain. Even the characters you hate—like Lum—have reasons for their actions. They are scared. They are trying to keep kids from starving. When you realize that the "villain" is just a stressed-out bureaucrat trying to prevent a total colony collapse, the choices become a lot harder.
Technical Performance and Art Style
Sarah Northway and the team at Northway Games chose a watercolor aesthetic that makes the planet look like a dream. It masks the horror perfectly. You’re looking at these beautiful pastel landscapes while the text describes something genuinely harrowing. It’s a contrast that works.
On the technical side, the game runs on almost anything. Since it’s a narrative-heavy, 2D-ish game, you don't need a 4090 to play it. It’s perfect on the Steam Deck. Actually, it feels like it was made for the Steam Deck. Playing it in bed while the sun goes down adds to the atmosphere of the passing years in-game.
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What Most People Get Wrong About the Time Loop
A lot of players think they need to "perfect" every life. They restart the game the moment something goes wrong. Stop doing that. The game is much more rewarding when you live with your mistakes. The "trauma" cards you get from a bad event can actually be removed later through therapy or specific events, and the narrative payoff for overcoming a tragedy is much stronger than if you just cheated your way around it.
Also, the "Congenital" perk? If you're playing for the first time, take it. It makes the early game a bit easier by giving you better stats, which allows you to see more of the story without hitting a wall.
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is essentially a lesson in empathy. It asks you what you would do if you could live your life over and over. Would you become a better person? Or would you become a monster just to see what happens? Most of us start out wanting to save everyone. By life five, you might find yourself making cold, calculated decisions just to see a specific ending. That’s the real "horror" of the game—not the monsters outside the walls, but what the loop does to your own sense of morality.
Actionable Steps for Your First (or Fifth) Journey
- Prioritize the 'Depression' and 'Stress' bars: If your stress hits 100, you’re forced to rest, wasting a month. Use the "Relax" activity strategically. It’s not a waste of time; it’s resource management.
- Watch the seasons: Every season lasts three months. Plan your activities around them. Don't go exploring in the wilderness during the Wet season unless you have high toughness; you’ll just get hurt.
- Talk to everyone every month: This seems tedious, but relationships are the only thing that carry over emotionally. Even if you don't like a character, their questlines unlock the best cards in the game.
- The 'Bravery' Stat: If you want to see the "true" endings involving the Gardeners, you need to pump points into Bravery early. You can't explore the deep parts of the map without it.
- Check the Memory Gallery: Between runs, look at your unlocked memories. They often hint at what you missed. If there’s a massive gap in your gallery, you probably missed an entire branch of the tech tree or a character’s secret history.
- Toggle the Content Warnings: Seriously. The game deals with some heavy themes including suicide, starvation, and child death. The developers included very granular content toggles in the menu—use them if you need to. It doesn't ruin the game; it just makes it playable for people with specific triggers.