I Was a Teenage Exocolonist News

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:

[h2]📖The Storyteller's Festival📖[/h2]

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

❄️ 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! ❄️





ːexobrainː Sol Plush: https://www.makeship.com/products/sol-plush ːexobrainː

ːexoflexː Vriki Plush: https://www.makeship.com/products/vriki-plush ːexoflexː

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.




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

Get your Vriki and Sol plushies here for a limited time ending Jan 5th 2024.



[h2]Twenty-five days to meet our campaign goal[/h2]

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!

ːexobrainː Sol Plush: https://www.makeship.com/products/sol-plush ːexobrainː

ːexoflexː Vriki Plush: https://www.makeship.com/products/vriki-plush ːexoflexː

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.



[h2]Two little buds stuffed full of surprises[/h2]

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

Join us on September 11-14 for SAVE&SOUND: an online music festival celebrating the fusion of innovation and artistry in gaming audio.

🎧 September 13 at 12pm PDT: Exocolonist sound designer Em Halberstadt shows us how the sounds of Exocolonist were made on the official festival stream.

🎮 All week: the Exocolonist demo is up for a limited time.

🎉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.

[h3]🎈 Exocolonist just turned one! 🎈[/h3]

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.
  
• 📝 They've posted countless works of fanart on Instagram, The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter, and yes, even Tumblr.
  
• 🏆 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