Colonize Mars and discover her secrets, with minimal casualties.
Welcome Home! The time has come to stake your claim on the Red Planet and build the first functioning human colonies on Mars! All you need are supplies, oxygen, decades of training, experience with sandstorms, and a can-do attitude to...
Colonize Mars and discover her secrets, with minimal casualties.
Welcome Home! The time has come to stake your claim on the Red Planet and build the first functioning human colonies on Mars! All you need are supplies, oxygen, decades of training, experience with sandstorms, and a can-do attitude to discover the purpose of those weird black cubes that appeared out of nowhere. With a bit of sprucing up, this place is going to be awesome!
Surviving Mars is a sci-fi city builder all about colonizing Mars and surviving the process. Choose a space agency for resources and financial support before determining a location for your colony. Build domes and infrastructure, research new possibilities and utilize drones to unlock more elaborate ways to shape and expand your settlement. Cultivate your own food, mine minerals or just relax by the bar after a hard day’s work. Most important of all, though, is keeping your colonists alive. Not an easy task on a strange new planet.
There will be challenges to overcome. Execute your strategy and improve your colony’s chances of survival while unlocking the mysteries of this alien world. Are you ready? Mars is waiting for you.
Building a sustainable colony in space - Building on a planet not fit for human life challenges you to build a smart, functional colony. Bad planning isn’t about traffic jams, it’s about survival of your colonists. You really don’t want rolling blackouts in a city constructed in a place without oxygen.
Individually simulated colonists - Each colonist is a unique individual with problems and strengths that influence the needs and behavior of the other colonists. Things can get really interesting if your chief scientists develops alcoholism after one too many long nights in the lab.
Futuristic Space Dome construction - Retro-futuristic super structures housing colonists, factories and commercial buildings with their own “neighborhood personality.” Create colonies that value science over everything else, while tired workers drink their pay away at a local bar, or attempt a utopia among the stars.
Exploration of Mars’ secrets - Inspired by the classic sci-fi of Asimov and Clarke, Surviving Mars holds many secrets. During each playthrough players may encounter one of Mars’ individually crafted mysteries. Uncovering these secrets might bring your colony great fortune, or terrible ruin. What is that sphere that manifested itself outside colony HUB B, and is it friendly?
Randomized research tree - Combine static and random research through experimentation, which allows for a different experience for each journey through the game. Attain new scientific breakthroughs by exploring the uncharted terrain of Mars's surface.
Unique retro-futuristic aesthetic - A sleek, modern take on the bright futurism of the 1960s. A time of exploration and adventure.
Expansive mod support - Craft your own fantastic buildings, parks or even a mystery to share through Surviving Mars’s extensive and convenient modding tools. Share your finest creations with the community to build the perfect society.
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Please Note: Modding tools are currently available only on Windows
Recommended system requirements:
By playing any game published by Paradox Interactive AB, you (i) agree to be bound by the User Agreement and (ii) confirm that you have read and understood the Privacy Policy.
they are still putting out new content and a lot of the issues from the start are still not fixed such as edge scrolling at times the game is unplayable. it is a good game when it is working.
state: playing the Linux version, currently around 10 hours into the game's first map and enjoying myself immensely
It is basically a city builder, with heavy emphasis on a technology tree that you gradually research, and revolving around exploring and exploiting the scarce resources that you find. In the beginning (and well into the game) you need to import a lot of goods and also building components from earth. You do that by controlling a finite number of rockets that you can order back and forth between Earth and Mars. They take a long time to travel and are very expensive, so a little planning is essential. The more technology you research, the more self-sufficient you (can) become.
The first map is supposed to be very easy and indeed it allows for mistakes and you can still keep going. In this respect, it really feels like colonizing a remote planet, since you do not get second chances there either. It is still a challenge, because resources (and colonists) are always scarce.
The AI does a reasonable job, for example controlling transport drones, so you can stick to your planning without too much micro-managing.
The controls are functional and do their job without getting into your way - I suppose that makes them qualify as good. However, there is no real tutorial or anything. You get thrown into the game with just a few help texts. These let you completely lost after the first few minutes, and you have to find out the rest yourself. For me, I considered this a challenge, but it might put you off.
Technically, the Linux version is running smoothly, despite my rather unusual setup with Radeon graphics.
I did encounter one defective save game that crashes upon loading, but all others worked fine so far. So, while annoying, this seems like a rare problem.
So far, I am enjoying the game a lot. It is slow paced, but I never found myself waiting for anything to finish, because there is always something else to do. Perfect for my taste.
Were it possible, I'd rate 4 1/2, but since it's not, I'll round up.
It's an enjoyable city-builder with limited resource-choices and amounts and a goodly number of buildings and research choices, and for a nice change from a lot of builders, there are difficulty settings with obvious (though simple - mainly starting-cash-based) effects.
Depending on the difficulty you start on, Mars will either be harsh or downright unforgiving, so you'll need to conserve your cash and resources and not waste them, and _think_ about how you're building and deploying. Thankfully, you do _not_ have to worry about traffic patterns, though you need to keep in mind that colonists work only in their own domes.
It's not perfect.
As others have stated, it's lacking a tutorial, though things seem straightforward enough I didn't find that a major negative. Keypress instructions are onscreen if you need them, and buildings and research state what they do. The interactions and resource costs of factories aren't clearly stated, however, which takes learning.
There are also some additions that would have really helped in some situations. The big one for me? The question of why your colonists didn't bring _birth control_ along. Later game population growth can balloon out of control, so a 'policy' control mechanism would have been nice.
Still overall fun, and I'm glad I purchased.
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