Terraforming Mars

I haven't played the boardgame version yet. However, this digital version seems very entertaining! Many people are commenting on the UI gripes. In my experience it is not as bad as in some of the comments; it doesn't take that much time for the turns to complete. However, maybe the game synchronizes more slowly with human (online) players; I've played against AI only so far. Sometimes the UI does feel a bit too clunky. I.e. too large buttons (maybe designed for a touchscreen?), choices being made despite there being only one. Buttons hitboxes (blue arrows) being a bit ambiguous, and it closes a dialog when miss-clicking. There is no good overview of the whole game situation, but instead the status is split into several different windows. Both approaches have their pros, but I'd still like an overview button (all resources, all cards affecting play etc. in view, for all players or at least per player). The interface could be revamped and it does feel in some ways they've released the game with a prototype / beta-phase UI. It seems like it's partly coded badly / bad coding style choices; the UI is tied too much to the game code; for example the game does unnecessary refreshes / is unresponsive for a few seconds after any action, when it should not be necessary). That might sound like much, and it kind of is, but one can get used to the UI quirks quite soon. And the game flows quite nicely IMO after getting tuned to it. It would get 5 stars but I drop off one because of the UI.

First I played the boardgame. Loved it. Then I bought the game (on Epic, but it seems to be the same, v2.0 update). It's a gem. It's a flawed gem. You may want to occasionally throw the computer at the wall. Most of the time you'll enjoy it. Because the base game is good, and the adaptation (once you climb the first wall of interface learning) is good too. If you're prepared for the glitches, you may be less frustrated. I would give a round 5-star rating if not for the glitches. The game: It's a resource management / strategy game with a little luck involved. The "hard" AIs are easy, the easy ones are very easy, and they all commit laughable mistakes every time. So, fun to play solo, but don't search for deep challenges. It's quite light. A game can be from 20 min (on max. speed, no animations, 2 players), to a good 100 minutes (normal speed, 5 players), or more. The "standard" way of playing, by Word of God (the author on BoardGameGeek) is Corporate Era without drafting. Drafting is cool, in a way, but it also makes the game much longer, and does not really increase or decrease randomness. "Standard" games, on the contrary, where you have a starting production of everything, are much too short, and have less strategical depth. The glitches: The Unity engine crashes frequently. That's the main one. Most of the time, you can continue your previous game (there's auto-save built-in), but even that, first, takes time (I don't understand why loading takes soo long), and second, even that may fail! (happened just last night, the save files are even there, with the actions recorded, but the game stubbornly refuses to load them). So, frustrating. But since it's not a campaign, you can always start anew. And the fun is in the playing. All in all, a recommended buy, specially at a discount. Cannot comment on the expansions, since I don't have them (yet) but since I've already played dozens of games, that is probably a matter of time.

The physical board game is great, but this digital adaptation has provided me no entertainment... The computer keeps interrupting, so I can't review my own cards outside of my turn, I have to follow and checkout every opponent move. Most importantly most online game crash. That counts as a leave in the karma system, damaging my repitation. Only one piece of advice: don't waste your time with it.

I love Terraforming Mars. The boardgame is damn near perfect imo. However this implementation has two things that really make it fall short: 1) the "randomness" is abysmal. I've played more than 6 games to completion (and I play *slow* with regard to filling terraform reqs so I've gotten a deck reshuffle more than twice) and I went through and counted: there were over 70 cards I'd never seen once. Not from my draws OR the AI using them. And that included a LOT of really good cards that I've been sorely missing. Moreover, there are 7 corporations that I haven't seen drawn for the AI or me, that's MORE THAN A THIRD of all corporations, and that's with about two dozen attempts to set up games because I really wanted to play something other than Tharsis, Helion, Thorgate, or Inventrix (these come up the most in my experience). 2) The interface is slow. You have to wait for everything to refresh after you or the AI does ANYTHING before you can move forward. It gets annoying especially if you're playing long sessions. I'm definitely going to keep playing this, so it's worth it I think especially if you're fond of the boardgame, but at the same time if you're really familiar with the boardgame this is going to feel less satisfying and hobbled because some of the best cards never get drawn and other cards you see in every single game.

I love Terraforming Mars the board game, and I love this computer realization. First a few words on the game, then a few words on the computer version I hesitate to call TM a "Catan" style game, but it seemed like a good tag-line. I say that because trading resources, that core Catan mechanic, is absent. Still, you generate resources, random cards, you build cities... These cards are much more important, and take the form of single-use cards, cards that enable some new active or passive special activity, or cards that let you place an object on the board (a city, ocean, or forest...or something more exotic!). Meanwhile, you're trying to fill 3 "terraforming meters". The game ends when they're all full, and you get victory points and income for filling them. Graphics are crisp and pleasant, though I'll admit sometimes I get a little impatient, and you can't look at your own cards during other peoples' turns, which is annoying. It has hotseat, which is great, and uses Asmodee's client for multi-player, which is decent and unremarkable. The only thing missing is the ability to combine local hotseat with remote multi-player to allow 4 friends in 3 locations to play.