The box also doesn't have any inserts of any kind for storing components - just a handful of plastic, zip-lock bags. You may want to invest in some third-party replacements or overlays in order to solve this problem. There aren't any slots or grooves for the production cubes to sit in, so they slide around very easily if the table is jostled, or if the economy board is shifted around. The player economy boards are printed out on basic card stock. Other components besides the resource cubes are kind of cheap and flimsy though. The resource cubes are pretty, but shift around very easily on the flimsy, card stock economy boards. Science and space nerds will probably really appreciate these efforts at scientific accuracy.
it's like the kind of thing you might expect if Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote a board game. The rulebook also includes little footnotes that explain some of the scientific bases for the game's rules and mechanics. The resource cubes are very shiny and pretty, and have an appropriately sci-fi aesthetic to them. Unfortunately, the board only covers one half of Mars' surface, so there's some notable landmarks that are not included at all (perhaps the other side of the planet is an expansion?). The board itself includes a map of Mars' surface, and has notable landmarks on Mars clearly labeled. However, if you're avoiding placing tiles on the board, then you're probably going to lose, as I've yet to see a predominantly card-based strategy win the game. If you're not actively placing tiles on the board, then the whole board can pretty much boil down to a score and prerequisite tracker. The rulebook includes footnotes explaining the scientific basis for the rules and mechanics.ĭepending on how you play, however, the actual game board and your tableau of cards can sometimes feel very disparate. It's also not terribly hard to simply play a sample round to teach the game flow, and then mulligan the game if any players feel they dug themselves into a hole. So it's not overly burdensome to learn and play. Regardless, I've been able to get through learning games with new players in about three or three-and-a-half hours (including the rules explanation). It's just a lot of different concepts that you have to explain. It's not an overly-complicated game, however.
It also makes it a little difficult to teach the game to new players efficiently. Terraforming Mars has a wide variety of gameplay mechanics, which makes it kind of difficult to clearly categorize it.
It's pretty fun, and in celebration of the latest NASA probe landing on the surface of Mars, I thought I'd launch a review of the board game. I haven't played the digital version (which is getting "mixed" and negative reviews at the time of this writing), but I have played the board game version. Steam recently released a digital version of the board game Terraforming Mars.