I Was a Teenage Exocolonist prioritized a robust content warning system

Teenage Exocolonist is a game about growing up on an alien planet — from age 10 to later teenage years. It’s about discovering and surviving in a new world called Vertumna, and part of that means exploring darker areas of life on the planet and, well, life in general. Developer Northway Games did not want to shy away from any of these more complicated themes, whether that’s death and dying, sex, abuse, or large-scale traumatic events. The company wanted the players to know what was ahead.

I come from a fandom family. Teenage Exocolonist Lindsay Ishihiro, cartoonist and writer is used to warnings about content. In fan communities more explicit content warnings tend to be accepted. Another popular example is Does the Dog Die?. This community-run website started out tracking dogs in movies and has since expanded to include crowdsourcing details of other triggers. With the go-ahead from Northway Games founder Sarah Northway, Ishihiro took inspiration from the game’s visual and gameplay language — it’s a visual novel with point-and-click elements — to build out a content warning system that felt like a choose-your-own-adventure game.

You can access the content warning system right now Teenage Exocolonist’s main page, and there’s also a reminder when you hit play — a reminder to check that page if you need to.

Image: Northway Games/Finji via Polygon

“We’ll tell you right at the beginning, ‘Here are the major content warnings,’” Ishihiro said. “And then give the choice. If any of these are related to something that’s your trigger, click on the button and get lightly spoiled.”

If you’re sensitive to, say, eye trauma, Ishihiro said, you’d click on the button that’s labeled body horror and see if it’s listed there. Players will now be able read about potential triggers and other aspects of the game without having to spoil them. You can also access more information through the content warning system.

You can find many different levels in the death content warning tags. The first level of the tag references the fact that characters in the game can die in many ways — and some of them can’t be saved. But there’s another option there for people who need to know more. “You can click through to another level where it just straight up tells you everything,” Ishihiro said. It’s full-on spoilers, with a detailed list of which characters die and how.

“This was really important to us because we’ve seen, in the indie sphere, a lot of games be unexpectedly dark and it having a knockback effect on their audiences,” Ishihiro said. “We’re not perfect, but we can at least try to get ahead of some of it. What else can you do but try?”

Teenage ExocolonistAvailable now for Mac, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 as well as PlayStation 5 and Windows PC.