For one week only, the demo is live and game is on sale as we celebrate the best of deckbuilders on Steam! I LOVE deck building games. Some of my recent favorites (all roguelikes):
But there will always be a special place in my heart (and a not insignificant part of my brain) for Magic the Gathering. It's been years since I've played online, but I have an unopened box of Lord of the Rings in my closet just waiting to be drafted. Something about the feel - and that smell - of glue and cardboard.
So naturally when I was designing the deckbuilding component for I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, I was already thinking about how to make a physical game out of it.
These are made to order (so it might take a while to ship) and feature 52 UV-coated cards in a cute mint tin, with card art from the game. I originally designed them as promotional merch so I'm selling these at cost.
And yes it includes instructions for a playable 1-person game, a simplified version of the minigame in Exocolonist. Shuffle and draw 7 cards, then play a hand of 5 which scores at least 3 points to win the round. Points come from straights, flushes, pairs, or total score, and yes, order matters.
Or screw playing the game, just enjoy the feel of your favorite Exocolonist cards right in your hands. Breathe deeply and smell that hot ink and glue. Ahhhhhh.
- Sarah ːcccatː
Regency Exocolonist Bundle
🚀We're celebrating the launch of our friends' game Regency Solitaire II with a limited time bundle.
🎁Buy both I Was a Teenage Exocolonist and Regency Solitaire II this week for 10% off, or complete the set for a 10% discount on whichever game you're missing.
Like Exocolonist, Regency Solitaire II features a mix of story and card game, but set in a Jane Austen-esque world of romance, intrigue, and shifting fortunes. You play as Bella, the heroine from the original 2015 casual hit Regency Solitaire, who finds herself embroiled in a new maze of family secrets.
Revisit romantic Regency Britain and build a glorious garden, in this charming solitaire sequel. Brought to you by the creators of the hit casual card game, Regency Solitaire.
Resolve a tangled web of family secrets to help Bella silence the gossips, and host the season’s most anticipated soiree.
Unlock gameplay features with your makeover project, and reveal bonus 'Collector's Edition' levels and a love story. Don't miss the party everyone's talking about!
From January 29th - February 4th, I Was a Teenage Exocolonist will be featured alongside the best recent and upcoming interactive fiction and narrative games on Steam. If you like stories that move you, choices that matter, and word counts in the hundreds of thousands, this festival is for you:
We'll be celebrating with a discount, looping restream of me playing the game, and the Exocolonist demo will be up for a limited time.
Happy reading!
- Sarah ːnyaaː
Winter Sale and Limited Time Plushies!
⛄ Merry various winter holidays!
❄️ It's that time of year, ❄️ ❄️ full of cheap games and cheer, ❄️ ❄️ Exo plushies are near- ❄️ ❄️ ly gone, ❄️ ❄️ So don't miss out, it won't be long! ❄️
Sol and Vriki dolls are flying off the (figurative, preorder) shelves. This limited run campaign is ending January 5th. We don't plan to sell them again after that, so if you've had your eyes on one make sure you preorder soon.
🎁 Winter Sale discount, demo, stream
Exocolonist is 35% off for the Steam Winter Sale, a magical time when I impulse buy far too many games even though I'll never have time to play them all. I tell myself it's important for "market research", but really I just love all the games and I can't resist a good deal.
The demo is also up for a limited time, and we're re-streaming a cut of 💎 Syafire's 💎 August 2022 launch day playthrough. She's so lovely! She designs her own VTuber characters and posts tutorials on how it's all done on Youtube and Twitch.
- Sarah ːnyaaː
Exocolonist Plushies (limited time only!)
ːexosmileː ːexothumbsupː ːexosmileː It's plushie time friends!! ːexosmileː ːexothumbsupː ːexosmileː
We've partnered with Makeship to do a limited run of Sol and vriki plushies. It's like a Kickstarter thing, where we need to reach a minimum order size (200 of each) for the campaign to succeed and the plushies to get made. Once that happens, they'll manufacture and ship them out by March/April.
The campaign runs from now until January 5th so preoder yours now!
Get a 10% discount if you buy both together! And the first 200 purchases of each comes with a free Steam key - share it with friends if you already own the game.
Two little buds stuffed full of surprises
They sent me some samples to play with and I looooooove them. The minky material is so soft and pettable, they're sturdily constructed with dyed fabrics and embroidered details. Exocolonist artist Mei worked on the production design for these to make them look just right, and finally we know just how many tentacles a vriki has.
I took them out to explore the wild and alien world of my houseplants and deck and they fit right in.
One last time - we don't plan to make or sell these again after Jan 5th, so preorder yours today!
- Sarah ːnyaaː
Save & Sound Music Festival
Join us on September 11-14 for SAVE&SOUND: an online music festival celebrating the fusion of innovation and artistry in gaming audio.
🎉Also all week: listen to rad soundtracks and amazing sound design in the other festival games.
🎶Also-also all week: We're streaming the Exocolonist soundtrack on Steam.
Our soundtrack features two hours of tracks from fourteen artists, including Em and Gordon from A Shell in the Pit (who did our sound and trailers too). If you want to know more, I wrote a blog post about it!
Really don't miss Em's deep dive stream - her process for making the Exo ambient tracks is magical. Spoiler: It involves CAMELS.
Hosted by Bedtime Digital Games and a group of amazing creators, the live SAVE&SOUND show will stream here on Steam, and on Twitch and Youtube. See the official site for more info.
Happy Exoversary!
🎈 Exocolonist just turned one! 🎈
We're celebrating with a 35% off sale all this week, and the demo will be available for a limited time ⏳.
It's been a wonderful year of player stories and kudos (the kind you can't spend on soysweets and cake, usually).
🎨 People have written 143 fanfics about Exocolonist on Archive of Our Own.
🏆 Exocolonist was nominated at just about every video game festival last year, and even won a few (Best Video Game at the Canadian Screen Awards, aka the Canadian Oscars!)
We've been celebrating a month-long Vertumnalia festival on the Finji Discord with giveaways and livestreams.
While prepping for a developer Q&A, I took a trip down memory lane and dug out my original design documents from 2017. Read my post about it but beware of spoilers, spicy details about inappropriate romances that never were, and Sol's long lost sister who was cut from the final game.
Stay tuned for streams here on Steam and on Twitch from some very lovely streamers on the 26th, 27th, 28th. Happy Vertumnalia!!! 🎉
Oh - and if anyone was wondering about the outcome of the plushie survey:
We had 3000 responses!
People want: Vriki (73%), Sol (60%), Socks (54%), Hopeye (52%), Dys (42%), Rex (39%), Sym (37%), Nomi (34%), Faceless (29% adjusted for being added late), Tangent (28%), Tammy (27%), Unisaur (25%), Anemone (23%), Cal (22%), Marz (14%), Vace (6%).
14% want a character, 37% want a creature, 49% want both.
90% of survey responders were playing on Steam and 80% heard about the survey from Steam
You're all wrong about Marz!! Marz is the coolest!
Thanks to everyone who shared how their day was going. ːexosmileː
Still no guarantee we'll make these plushies, but we will let you know when we have more news on them! Vriki and Sol are the clear winners!
- Sarah ːnyaaː
Vertumnalia Festival!
🚀 Celebrate a Year of I Was a Teenage Exocolonist with Vertumnalia Festivities! 🚀
Can you believe it's been a year since Exocolonist blasted its way onto Steam and into our hearts? We're setting out the feast table and building the stage for an exclusive Vertumnalia Festival on the Finji Discord!
🎨 Show off Your Talent
Starting now! Dive into our digital talent showcase:
Showcase your Exocolonist fan art, fiction and cosplay magic.
Culinary wizards, cook up and share dishes inspired by Exocolonist
Send the developers your questions for our upcoming livestream!
🎙 Exclusive Creator's Corner Q&A
Mark your calendars! On August 25, 12PM PDT/3PM EDT, join the minds behind the game:
Interact with Lead Developer Sarah Northway and Writer Lindsay Ishihiro.
Watch as Artist Meilee Chao crafts live Exocolonist art inspired by fan suggestions.
Plus, get a chance to win some Exocolonist goodies including Steam keys, exclusive pins, and rare press kits! Start dropping your questions and artwork ideas in our Discord now.
I am still chasing that sweet green checkbox for being fully verified on Steam Deck. Although those in the know can tell you it plays beautifully on there already, there are some sync issues that could make it annoying to switch between deck and PC and downgrade us to only "playable".
While I was tackling that, I went through all the bug reports you lovely, lovely people have sent through the game's feedback menu (thank you! ːexoflexː) and fixed some small issues with particular cards and rare errors. Here's the list:
Typos typos teh-zypos! ("only" 20 of them)
Make Small Skills Boost perk and Clear Minded status roll their chances separately instead of adding them together in a confusing way
Fix Bravely Helping to Fight and other +1 to total cards showing bonus beside the total, but not actually adding it to the total on rounds 2 and 3
Fix Tracking the Airsquid card text to explain it only affects physical cards
Confirmation dialog when forgetting or not forgetting a card while relaxing, so it's much harder to skip by that option by accident
Warn in a popup the first five times any file fails to save during each play session
Slightly speed up first game boot after install or update (stop unnecessarily recompiling story files)
Fix controllers not closing text input popups on Steam Deck
Hide resolution and quality settings on Steam Deck and stop syncing them between deck and pc, just default to what works best on that specific hardware
- Sarah ːnyaaː
Plushie survey!
Would you like a real-life squeezable Cal? A huggable squiggly Vriki? We're still in the early planning phases but we'd like to bring an Exocolonist character into the world as a stuffed toy.
The burning question is... which one??
Don't think of this as a "which is your favorite Exo character" quiz; think of it as "who would look coolest as a teddy bear version of themselves" or maybe "what would I be the least embarrassed to put on my bedroom shelves"?
All questions optional and anonymous. Tell us what you want, and we will do our best to make it happen!
Also! There is a small Patch #4 coming soon to Steam, and now up on the testing beta branch. Feel free to take it for an early spin! Here are the changes:
Typos typos teh-zypos! ("only" 20 of them)
Make Small Skills Boost perk and Clear Minded status roll their chances separately instead of adding them together in a confusing way
Fix Bravely Helping to Fight and other +1 to total cards showing bonus beside the total, but not actually adding it to the total on rounds 2 and 3
Fix Tracking the Airsquid card text to explain it only affects physical cards
Confirmation dialog when forgetting or not forgetting a card while relaxing, so it's much harder to skip by that option by accident
Warn in a popup the first five times any file fails to save during each play session
Slightly speed up first game boot after install or update (stop unnecessarily recompiling story files)
Fix controllers not closing text input popups on Steam Deck
Hide resolution and quality settings on Steam Deck and stop syncing them between deck and pc, just default to what works best on that specific hardware
