The limiting factor there will be your research however as the small domes you get at the start are too small to be useful. Still most of them are easy to avoid even though there’s no base overview panel or similar to keep a track on all the colony’s key stats.īuilding up your colony can be done relatively swiftly if you make good use of the resupply mechanic, allowing you to spend capital to get resources from Earth. Whilst I’m all for emergent gameplay elements like that, indeed one of my favourite stories is trapping all my colonists inside their first dome in Planetbase with no oxygen and no power to get out, forcing them takes away much of their charm. I believe this is intended, mostly to keep some mechanics a bit vague in order to generate those desperate moments when you forget to do something and suddenly your colonists are running out of food or something. This leads to maybe an hour or two of screwing around to figure out what you should do, in what order and what each of the mechanics is best used for. It gives you a few basic instructions here and there but unlike other simulation games, which usually give you a simple mission which will help you establish a basic colony, Surviving Mars does no such thing. Getting started in Surviving Mars is a bit of a struggle as even the quick game option doesn’t really give you a lot of direction to start off with. For some that’s part of the charm but unfortunately, for this writer, it was what ended up killing it.
There’s certainly a lot to do and, in true simulation fashion, it may take some time to get to the next thing you want to do. Your win condition will depend on which nation you align yourself to and it could be something as simple as reaching a colony of 200, building multiple domes or researching enough tech.
Along the way you’ll research new tech, explore new terrain and grow your colony further. You’ll use that to build up the minimum set of infrastructure required to start bringing humans down which in turn leads onto bigger and better things. Initially you’ll just be commanding a drone army, one that needs little more than a stable power source to survive the harsh martian terrain. You’ll be given a starting location and a set of infrastructure to get you started but beyond that you’re left on your own.
SURVIVING MARS BUILD ORDER SIMULATOR
Surviving Mars is a colony building simulator with all the essentials you’d expect from such a game. I only wish the game gave you a little more reason to enjoy them up close (more on that later). Whilst the simple visuals are necessary, due to the game’s heavy simulation load and potential for a lot of items on screen, they’re certainly not one of the game’s negatives. There are some cool bits of visual flair like vehicles, buildings and infrastructure all getting dusty after being around for a set period of time. It has a similar visual style to that of Cities Skylines with heavily stylized visuals including simple textures and bright colours.
On first glance I thought it had a little bit of that Unity engine feel to it but they apparently have their own, custom built engine which was upgraded for Surviving Mars.
SURVIVING MARS BUILD ORDER SERIES
Now I’ve never played any of the Tropico series or other titles that Haemimont Games is known for so I don’t have much of a baseline to compare it to. At the same time you’re still at the behest of your supporters who are keen to exploit the natural resources of this yet untapped world. Mars isn’t a particularly hospitable place though, devoid of much of the resources that you’ll need to keep your humans alive and happy. You’re given a base set of infrastructure, a truckload of cash and a set amount of time to build the colony up to a respectable level. The premise of the game is simple enough, you’re part of a mission to establish a colony on Mars. It’s rare that one manages to bore me into not wanting to play again which is unfortunately what Surviving Mars managed to do. Since then I’ve played quite a few of them (even an Early Access one, breaking my rule!), usually getting to my first victory until I moved onto greener pastures. Looking back over my gaming history it seems to have started with Anno 2070, a game I never would have played if it wasn’t for a gentle prodding from a good friend of mine. I’ve started to grow rather fond of these little city simulation games, each of them bringing a different bent on the same genre.
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