Terraforming Mars: A Game Out of This World
In this board game, Terraforming Mars has a bit of a learning curve, but fun and challenging with plenty of intrigue for any gamer.
The Breakdown:
- Set up: Many small cube pieces, cards and board.
- Play: Can be 1 1/2 hours or more depending on amount of players and knowledge of game.
- Age: Recommended for 12+ but our board game enthusiast 9 year old caught on with some help.
- Players: 1-5
- Price: $$
- Buy Terraforming Mars
Objective:
Gain victory points while you travel through space, trying to terraform and modernize the planet with your gathered resources.
A board game that is deep, complex and has endless variety. It is well established, organized and entertaining game for sci-fi lovers.
Gameplay:
Work to gain victory points by raising the oxygen levels, creating more oceans and raising the temperature. The more you increase, the more options to play cards and increase the viability of the planet. But if you accomplish too much too quickly, there is a downside to gaining all you want.
The complex cards add endless variety of gameplay. With so many options and variations of play, you may not know what is coming next!
Keep track of your individual resources including steel, titanium, plants, energy and heat. All will help you towards your goal to transform the planet into a hospitable land until all the generations are complete.
The Overall Steps:
Choose what faction you will be – anything from a rich agricultural leader to a technology king. Each giving you bonuses to the beginning of the game, then dive in.
- Select four cards per generation and pay for them or discard them. These give you more resources, one time events and more.
- Set up your resources and begin your rounds making two choices per turn: to play cards, buy items, play tiles, upgrade or turn in resources. All will help you forward towards reaching more victory points.
- It’s hard to keep track and focus on everything but your “rating” will help you gain more money per turn the more accomplishments you make. Placing water tiles, tree tiles and more will add to your money and help you buy more. It can eventually snowball into a mass wealth with too many options and not enough time!
- Don’t forget that milestones for most money and highest “rating” are available to grab before someone else does. These also give you a big boost of points at the end.
- When all the water tiles are gone, the temperature is to the top and the oxygen level at max, you can tally up your victory points, count your milestones and see who ends up terraforming mars the best!
The Pros & Cons:
Pros: Multiple options and variations. So many choices and plenty of intrigue. You will grow impatient waiting for your turn to see what will boost you forward and how many more points and money you can gain.
Cons: The board doesn’t have little indents/slots to place the small pieces into so it’s sometimes difficult to keep track as they can move around a lot. Have a steady table that is large and smooth for set up. Sometimes it is hard to keep track of all the cards you play and can get cluttered so you need a lot of space.
Terraforming Mars has multiple variations and expansions if you want more:
Our younger son asked to try it and although difficult at first, with some help, he caught on and enjoyed the many options. It requires reading and many different ways of strategizing. A must for any sci-fi fan and strategy board game-lover.
