And now, for something completely different!
Most people who follow me here know me for my fanart or comics, but one of the reasons I've been pretty quiet on Tumblr is because... I was writing a game!
The game is called I Was A Teenage Exocolonist, and you play as a person who was born during the long trip to humanity's first extrasolar colony. You grow up, explore, build your skills and relationships, unravel mysteries, fall in love with your friends, discover adults are just as scared and clueless as you are, and make a life for yourself in the stars...
...and then you die. But because of the wormhole that brought you to this planet, you're reborn to play those years all over again, armed with the knowledge of your past life to make better decisions.
Can you save your friend who died when you were kids? Can you make someone different fall in love with you? Can you broker peace between the humans and a planet that seems to reject you at every turn?
Systems-wise, the game is a life simulator RPG along the lines of Princess Maker or Persona, looks and reads like a visual novel, and has resolves conflicts by simple puzzles using cards that represent your memories. Don't like card builders? No problemo, me neither: you can turn it off.
And what's really cool is the level of representation that we crammed in here. This isn't a game engineered in a boardroom for maximum points; it's an organic expression of love featuring tons of queer relationships (including ace and aro ones), neurodiversity, body diversity, disabled characters, polyamory, and more. Right from the beginning, Sol’s gender is entirely customizable, even down to teaching the game your bespoke pronouns set.
It's teenage years in space, and it's also pushing right at the edges of what it means to colonize space. It's funny, momentous, grim, heartwarming, tragic, horny (so horny), and overall hopeful of what we can be when we purposefully think about who we are and how we relate to each other and the planet.
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is available on Steam, PS4/PS5, and Switch right now, and I hope that if you've enjoyed my art over the years you'll give it a looksee. I'm really terribly proud of it and what we've made.