Content Warnings
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is rated ESRB T for Teen, suitable for ages 13 and older. It does NOT contain excessive violence or explicit sex, however it does deal with sensitive topics which will be uncomfortable for some players.
There are many ways to live your life on Vertumna, and just like in real life, some choices can lead you to dark places. Broadly, content warnings for the game include include the following.
Select one to learn more:
Many characters die during the course of the game. Some are children at the time of their death. Some are family and close friends of your character.
Some may be saved by winning card battles, having a high enough skill at a certain point, making different choices, or unlocking the ability to save them by replaying the game.
Some characters cannot be saved, no matter how you play the game.
Tammy can die in an accident in the first year of the game. It is trivial to save her on a second playthrough.
Your mother can die of starvation during a famine. It is difficult to save her.
Your father can die of a respiratory illness. It is trivial to save him after finding a cure for illness in any playthrough, which can be difficult.
One of your teachers can die violently in an attack on the colony. It is trivial to save him on a second playthrough.
The Governor of the colony can die. She must be saved specifically on each playthrough, but can be left to her fate.
Tammy's father can die violently while on expedition. You can save him by witnessing the event and succeeding a card battle or by preventing him from leaving the colony.
Dys may disappear from the colony in his late teens after doing something truly terrible. He's presumed dead, but is not.
In an ending where all native life on Vertumna is wiped out, Cal is killed while protesting. In this same ending, Tangent will take her own life.
Kom will die during an attack. He cannot be saved.
Sym appears to die. He does not.
One of your childhood friends can die suddenly in the first year of the game.
The brother of one of your friends will die during an attack on the colony.
There are scenes that imply children and babies are among the casualties of a catastrophic event.
Your character is subject to a great deal of peril during the course of the game.
It is possible to witness the deaths of many wild animals, some by your own hand.
A friend's pet can be discovered and killed by the colony government.
You may witness a peer killing an animal.
You may witness an animal being restrained and hurt during soldier training or for sport, or animals being used as test subjects during biology class or for research.
Your own pet will die during the ending where all native Vertumnan life is wiped out.
The player character can run into situations while exploring where they may be violently attacked, swallowed whole and partially digested, ripped apart, and other disturbing events.
Descriptions of various creatures may be disturbing.
Combat is usually optional, but won't always be clean or cartoony. You can kill an animal at the end of the first year by stabbing it in the eye.
Characters will flirt with you, some using explicit language.
Through the course of the game, your character will have a number of opportunities to be intimate with love interests. All scenes fade-to-black. These scenes are not available until your character is sixteen.
All activities are described as consensual. There is one scene where being intimate with someone can avoid a conflict, which could be construed as duress, though it is only one option.
It is possible to convince a love interest to cheat on their partner with you.
Your character can enter into a relationship with a being who is technically thousands of years old, though he's only been in his physical form for the duration of the game.
A ninteen year old may choose to become pregnant and have a child.
Characters are seen drinking alcohol and consuming mild hallucinogenics. Some may be under the age they are legally able to do so where you live.
Your character may be offered substances. Accepting them is optional.
In the barista job route, your character sometimes serves alcohol.
There are many scenes where gory violence is described, sometimes in great detail. There are no gory images.
Your character can be harmed in a number of ways, though they are regularly returned to health by miraculous medical technology. Making choices that result in your healing may cause others to die or become permanently injured.
Other characters can be harmed and may die, both on- and off-screen.
One of your peers is a violent bully and regularly attacks other peers, his romantic partner, and possibly yourself.
Another teen may become disillusioned and violently lash out at the colony in an act of terrorism, possibly causing mass casualties.
You may learn that one character attacked another when they were children.
A woman's hand is broken in a public display of power.
Living multiple lifetimes takes a toll on your character's mental health. They experience disturbing dreams and moments of depersonalization.
Telling too many people about your prophetic dreams can trigger a scene where your character is offered medication and forced to take a month of rest. Further sharing your dreams results in a scene where they are institutionalized and forcibly given medical treatment to 'cure' them. This can be easily avoided by not mentioning your dreams.
Some of your peers suffer from mental health issues such as depression, survivor guilt, and PTSD.
It is possible to learn while working as a nurse or barista that a friend's mother took her own life while suffering from depression.
Two of the love interests will unavoidably form a relationship with each other. The man in this relationship is verbally and emotionally abusive to the woman, with physical abuse implied.
It is possible to convince either of them to end the relationship through befriending one or both of them, though you will witness more of this abuse.
If you befriend them but do not convince them to break up, you may see their unhappiness deepen in their epilogue scenes. Ultimately, she flees the relationship after extensive abuse.
It is possible to avoid this storyline entirely by not speaking to these characters after they connect on your 17th birthday.
Topics include colonialism, genocide, pandemics, famine, terrorism, and climate change.
Your character is positioned as an unwanted settler on Vertumna. There are no indigenous peoples alive on Vertumna, though the remanants of their hyper-advanced artificial intelligence seeks to repel you and eventually destroy the colony.
The late-game colonial government is explicitly fascist in nature and uses colonial rhetoric to justify their actions on Vertumna.
As a child, your character is taught a sanitized version of the colony's history that could be read as cult-like indoctrination, however optimistic and utopian.
Climate change, ecological destruction, and geopolitical unrest are explicitly named as the reason the colonists left Earth. A similar event happens on Vertumna, long before the game begins.
Famine and respiratory illness befall the colony. Many people can die. including those close to the player character.
You may witness or even choose to participate in an extreme act of eco-terrorism which could result in mass casualties.
Your choices may cause a genocide of all native life on Vertumna via bioengineered plague.