Gaming

Diversity, colonization and environmentalism. That’s how the video game wants "I Was a Teenage Exocolonist" talk about these issues

Promotional image of the video game "I Was a Teenage Exocolonist"

( Spanish) — “Representation is very important so that people can see themselves reflected in video games and other media and understand that they are being valued and that they are part of the world.” This is how independent video game designer Sarah Northway, director of “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist”, speaks in an interview with en Español, one of the most prominent indie video games to arrive in 2022 due to the emphasis it places on diversity and queer representation while telling a story about colonization, environmentalism and forming an identity during adolescence.

The title developed by Northway Games and published by FINJI (also responsible for “Tunic” or “Chicory: A Colorful Tale”) wants to make the player live the story of a teenager who grows up in the first human colony on an alien planet. “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” is a narrative role-playing game in which decisions have to be made that affect the story and the way it is presented. Many of these situations will be solved with a combat system with cards that represent key moments in the protagonist’s life.

The other great element is that it is a game in which relationships with other characters have a lot of weight. Precisely this distribution seeks to reflect the commitment to diversity and queer representation, since you can have friendship and love relationships with them. It will be possible to know how these characters change from when they are 10 years old until they turn 19 and how they shape their gender and sexual identity. Some will be trans people, others will have relationships with each other regardless of what sexual orientation you want your character to be.

These are the main characters with whom you can have relationships in “I was a Teenage Exocolonist”

As an RPG, it will allow users to design certain elements of their character. For example, choosing the pronouns of the main character and personalizing them so that they are not limited to the usual combinations. It also makes it possible to choose whether the appearance is more masculine, feminine or androgynous. All this is chosen with some slider or scrolling bars rather than simply being a decisively checked box. The director of the title explained that this is so that players can try to create an avatar that suits how they feel.

“I thought being a huge narrative game it would be hard (because of the amount of text it will have) but it wasn’t that hard and now I think every game should probably do it. Letting people define what they want to be called or referred to in all kinds of different situations. So from the beginning we tried to let the player know that this is a game that is going to embrace diversity, especially when it comes to being LGBTQ,” says Northway.

Why make a game that is committed to diversity and queer representation?

“Obviously, each developer comes from different places and they’re targeting different audiences, but for me, the standard should be that if you can put different characters in your game, they should represent all kinds of people out there. Having characters in a game talking to you about their life and problems, maybe with a different point of view or being different from you is an inspiring thing to experience,” explains Northway.

In relation to the possible negative reactions that could arise, Northway explains that he understands where these problems come from. “When people base their identity on something like video games, you’re going to feel personally attacked when they’re trying to appeal to other people or aren’t made for you anymore. You’re going to feel like your culture has been stripped away or attacked but The truth is that it is not like that.”

“This is about growing up. Video games used to be in a weird little space and now they’re a huge new type of medium. I think these reactions are consequences of growing up as a medium. So I’m a little disappointed that people can’t see that.” , that they can’t see past their own feelings about whatever saga they think is being destroyed, instead of looking at the bigger picture: we’re a society and we’re evolving, moving forward, and in video games in particular we’re still figuring out what a video game can be and how expressive it can be.”

Let the players draw their own conclusions

The designer explained to en Español that in her games she likes to make players reflect and that in “I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” users will be led to think that, initially, colonization is something positive. “The game starts out telling you it’s okay, it’s great, all the characters agree with that. But then over time as you get older in the game and you start to see the things that the adults don’t want to tell you, you start to realize that it is much more complicated than what they are saying… Perhaps this landing on another planet and starting a colony there is not a good idea and it is not right. There is also a massive message about environmentalism, about whether humans they should go to natural areas, build cities and change things. The game doesn’t directly tell you ‘oh colonize is wrong’, but I still want the people who play it to come to these conclusions and think these things for themselves.”

This way of introducing different ideas little by little so that the players conclude for themselves what message they extract applies to the strong pro-diversity message that they have wanted to convey. “As for the diversity of the characters, right at the beginning the characters are stereotypes to make it easier to be able to meet these 10 characters at once like ‘this is the smart one’… Over time you get to know them, you get to know what’s interesting about each one of them, you get to know their gender orientation, their sexuality… So we’re not pushing it, we’re trying to make you part of the world and draw your own conclusions about how you feel about the diversity of people. characters and about the situation in which the game is set.

Northway argues that through this decision-making mechanic, players will be able to see some parts of the story or others. Players can choose to take their characters to class and learn about the history of the place, they can dedicate themselves to interacting only with the other characters and develop their friendship or love relationships or go out to explore the outdoors and learn the truth about the planet and their habitants. Depending on what is done, some parts or others of the game will be discovered.

This is the reason why the video game has a high replayability component, since the character will be able to remember what he did in past lives and this will help him make new decisions. Only by replaying it will it be possible to know the entire history of that colony, the world and its characters.

“I Was a Teenage Exocolonist” will be available from August 25 on PC, MAC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

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