It's so good. Especially if you like science fiction/speculative fiction, especially if you like shit like, ecology, politics, the politics of ecology, and also growing up, the passing of time, the fleetingness of life, finding your place in society, finding your place in the ecosystem, and also if you're at all interested in narrative design? How narrative, how a life can branches, how your choices shape who you are and what you'll see. How society is shaped by its people and the things they do. There's so much here, and every bit of it is so thoughtfully written.
There are a lot of stories about humanity escaping a barren earth to find a new home. Exocolonist asks, well what if there's already someone living in that new home you've found? And the two of you speak languages so different you can't tell if what you're doing to survive is hurting them and the other way around. Ok, then what if you know it's hurting them, and vice versa, but you both still need to hurt each other to survive?
Also you're aged 10 to 20 and having to grapple with this along with all the drama of growing up.
It's so good. It's so good as a story and it's so good as a game. The sort of thing that's impossible (or at least will have a very different shape) in another medium, because the choices, the many different versions of you, is also part of the point.
It's also gorgeous. The user interface/experience is great (barring some slight bugs), the writing is snappy and never feels like they're outstaying their welcome, and the card-based battles works really well to break up the narrative.
PLAY I WAS A TEENAGE EXOCOLONIST thank you
Oh one more thing I want to add. It's very contemporary, in a good way. You know how some stories taking place in the future, but written in the 1900s, end up sounding very different from the future we're living in now? Yeah, because stories about the future is written from interpolation of the present, and by reading it you also circle back to how you think of the present. Exocolonist makes no attempt to hide that. It's definitely a future written with today in mind, with what's considered progressive and conservative today in mind, and it's so unapologetic about that. "Games are always political" hell yeah they are.