Speculative fiction often turns the lens back on the reader, making the previously unknown become knowable by turning it into story.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s long been used as a vehicle for representation, from Star Trek exploring new frontiers of romance, to Octavia Butler positioning a Black woman at the forefront of humanity\u2019s escape to space in Parable of the Sower, to dystopian YA like The Hunger Games tapping into every young woman\u2019s desire to change the world by burning it down.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m Lindsay Ishihiro, and as the narrative designer of I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, I\u2019d like to tell you about the ways our game follows in this tradition, breaking new ground in how players represent themselves and their gender, sexuality, and relationships in a video game.<\/p>\n
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is a genre-spanning game about growing up on an extrasolar colony: part life simulator, deck builder, roleplaying game, and dating simulator. You play Sol, a child whose parents \u2013 unhappy with their life on a dying Earth \u2013 flung themselves into space intending to create a new human culture from the ground up on the planet Vertumna IV.<\/p>\n