You should play I Was a Teenage Exocolonist at least twice. Ideally, you’d play through it way more than that. Northway Games’ narrative-driven resource management sim has 29 endings based on the decisions you make in your playthrough, and certain possibilities can’t even be unlocked until at least your second time through.

There are a couple of moving parts to the story, including card games that determine the outcome of specific events and various relationships that will ultimately affect your fate. At its core, however, I Was a Teenage Exocolonist runs on 12 skills.

 

Every skill in I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

Skills fall into one of three categories: Social (yellow), Mental (blue), and Physical (red). Social skills have to do with expressing and influencing emotions. Mental skills represent academic and intellectual proficiencies. Physical skills relate to your body and how you interact with animals.

All of these categories matter to a degree, but some matter more than others.

Skills determine what you can do in I Was a Teenage Exocolonist. Sometimes, you’ll receive a prompt with different actions you can take, but some options will be locked behind a specific skill level. After all, you can’t win a science fair without a high enough Reasoning skill to put a project together, or fend for yourself on a battlefield without Bravery or Combat skills.

As a result, you might find in later playthroughs that previously closed-off paths are suddenly open, now that you have a high enough level in a skill you neglected in the past.

Skills also make a difference in who you can befriend and date. Most potential partners are associated with a particular skill. You can also gain relationship points from participating in activities associated with those skills. Tangent, the young genius of the group, leans heavily into Reasoning. You’ll often find her at the school, where you can get relationship points from studying or researching alongside her. On the other hand, you need a high Bravery skill to get her brother Dys to open up to you. If you want to befriend him, you’d best join the Exploration team.

Here’s a deep dive into I Was a Teenage Exocolonist’s twelve skills and what they can do for you.

 

Social Skills

Social skills have to do with expressing and manipulating emotions. The four Social skills are:

• Empathy
• Persuasion
• Creativity
• Bravery

They might not make a difference in do or die situations, but they do influence the world around you and change how people are living, even if they don’t change if they are living. Social skills didn’t stand out to me in my first playthrough, but I found myself leaning heavier into Persuasion in my second. Next thing I knew, I was hanging with the local cool girl and overthrowing a dictatorship.

Empathy

Empathy closely matches its real-life counterpart. You can raise it with activities that involve caring for other people. For example, you gain Empathy from babysitting, tutoring, and assisting others in the medbay. Lack of Empathy means you might not have the emotional intelligence to comfort a character when the option pops up. Tammy, a sweet girl you can only interact with starting with your second playthrough, represents this stat with her nurturing persona.

Persuasion

Persuasion is more akin to charisma. You need it to finesse your way out of complicated situations or convince others to see your point of view. Mars, a headstrong girl who has a habit of bossing others around, shows you how to use your Persuasion to its fullest. If you end up maxing out your Persuasion skill, you might just end up running the colony.

Creativity

Creativity gauges your problem-solving and artistic skills. You might need it for a few activities like drawing and writing, but it also will come in handy for more scientific problems like Engineering. Nomi-Nomi, a colorful colonist with a knack for writing stories and tinkering with robots, especially appreciates a Creative mind to bounce their ideas off of.

Bravery

Bravery has two meanings: the feeling of overcoming fear or being without fear. You need a high Bravery stat to go through with the gutsiest actions. Will you wander out of the safe zone during an alien invasion? Attempt to save your comrades despite the risk? You’ll need plenty of Bravery to keep up with Dys, Tangent’s quiet but adventurous brother.

Mental Skills

Mental skills are your booksmarts, plus some soft skills that make learning an easier process. The four Mental skills are:

• Reasoning
• Organizing
• Engineering
• Biology

All of the Mental skills have the potential to affect your contributions to the colony as you grow older. You can make scientific discoveries in Biology and Engineering that can save lives, so keep an eye on those in at least one of your playthroughs. You’ll also have to field requests from and conduct research with the local scientists from the Engineering building.

Reasoning

Reasoning is your equivalent of common sense and knowledge. You can get more of it from attending STEM classes at the Engineering building, such as Life Sciences. You can also get it from tutoring children in the sciences. Most of these activities will raise your friendship level with Tangent, who is Reasoning embodied.

Organizing

Organizing focuses on how efficiently you complete tasks and, in some cases, how you rally others. The tasks you have to complete can vary between something as simple as filing paperwork or studying for class. It complements Persuasion, another skill you need to gain political power in your colony when you’re older.

Engineering

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist takes place in a sci-fi setting, so technology plays a big part in building the colony and steering the plot. You can unlock the Engineering class later on in the story, which can lead to major plot points that you wouldn’t have access to if you hadn’t studied Engineering as in-depth.

Biology

Biology enables you to study foreign life on your planet, whether strange plants or dangerous animals. Familiarizing yourself with the local flora and fauna can lead to special events you wouldn’t otherwise experience. Studying Biology means studying wildlife, but it also encompasses medicine and bioengineering.

 

Physical Skills

Physical skills encompass four traits that might seem fighting-related, but that’s not necessarily the case. The four Physical skills are:

• Toughness
• Perception
• Combat
• Animals

Physical skills have to do with bodies, whether that’s the ability to quickly view and analyze your surroundings or tame wild animals. Sportsball is another big one—it'll be the main way you level up your Physical skills before you unlock Combat-raising activities like Defense Training and Guard Duty.

Toughness

Toughness isn’t necessarily the same as strength or combat ability, but it is related. Toughness is a willingness to fight or a fondness for physical activity, something that goes hand-in-hand with other Physical traits (as well as Bravery). Anemone, a rowdy childhood friend, will be your toughest companion early on in your playthrough.

Perception

Perception is like situational awareness, although it often has to do with sight. You can raise Perception from delivering supplies in the Supply Depot early on, but Lookout Duty and exploration end up being the main ways to improve your Perception stat. It might not seem like much, but Perception does offer you more options when making life-changing decisions.

Combat

Want to be a military brat? A higher combat skill means being able to defend your colony against deadly alien intruders. These attacks will become more and more frequent toward the end of your playthrough, and being able to hold your own is the only way to reach certain endings. Expect to spar with Anemone and Vace, an arrogant soldier, in combat training.

Animals

The Animals skill is similar to Biology, but it leans heavier into the physical aspects of studying animals. You can defend against hostile creatures or look out for them at the Garrison, but you can also tend to friendlier wildlife in Geoponics. If you end up studying Biology alongside Animals, you’ll likely get to be close friends with Cal, the pacifist “hippie” of the group.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is available on the Epic Games Store.