Terraforming Mars

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Terraforming Mars
Game data
author Jacob Fryxelius
graphic Isaac Fryxelius
publishing company FryxGames , Schwerkraft-Verlag , u. a.
Publishing year 2016
Art Strategy game
Teammates 1 to 5
Duration 90 to 120 minutes
Age from 12 years

Awards

Terraforming Mars is a board game by the Swedish game designer Jacob Fryxelius for up to five people from 2016. The game was first released by FryxGames and Stronghold Games in the United States , in Germany the game is distributed by Schwerkraft-Verlag .

In 2016 it was nominated for the Swiss Gamers Award and was voted fifth, in 2017 it was one of three nominated games for the Kennerspiel des Jahres jury award and received the German Games Award , and it was also nominated for the International Gamers Award and the Portuguese Jogo do Ano game award .

Theme and equipment

The game is a board game in which the players in the role of a corporation try to use project cards to make the planet Mars habitable for people ( terraforming ). The players use cards to build up technologies and use them to gain resources, as well as to change the oxygen content of the atmosphere, the temperature and the surface or the ocean portion of Mars for human settlement and make them habitable. Through these processes, the other players can achieve a good terraform value and collect victory points. The Terraform value determines the base income in MegaCredits (M €) and the player's base point balance. The winner of the game is whoever has the most victory points when the target environmental conditions of the planet are reached.

In addition to the game instructions, the game material consists of:

  • a game board with a map of the world, display bars for the three global parameters and for the terraform value of the players, which also serves as a generation bar, overviews for the standard actions, the milestones and for the awards
  • five player boards with displays for income and production bars for players' resources as well as storage areas for resources and energy,
  • 17 group cards,
  • 208 different project cards,
  • eight overview maps,
  • 195 player markers in the form of plastic cubes,
  • 195 resource markers in the form of plastic cubes,
  • three game board markers,
  • nine ocean tiles,
  • 60 green space / city tiles,
  • eleven special tiles and
  • a starting player marker.

Style of play

Game preparation

At the beginning of the game, the game board is placed in the middle of the table and prepared. Nine ocean tiles and the white markers for the temperature and the oxygen content as well as for the generations are placed on the starting positions of the corresponding display bars. The resource markers and tiles are placed next to the game board. The prepared and shuffled project card deck is also placed next to the game board. The players each choose a color and receive the corresponding player markers and the player board. Each player also receives a basic production amounting to one marker and each player places a player marker on the "1" of each track. In addition, each player places one of his player markers on the starting position ("20") of the Terraform value track. The selected starting player receives the starting player marker. Each player receives two group cards and chooses one of them, after which all players receive the corresponding starting resources. Then each player draws ten project cards and can buy any number of them as starting cards for his hand for 3 M € per card.

Game action

The game is played in generations, with players going through four phases in each generation: the starting player phase, the research phase, the action phase and the production phase.

Alternative actions per turn
  • play a card from your hand
  • use a standard project
  • claim a milestone
  • finance an award
  • use the action of a blue card
  • convert eight plants into a green space tile
  • convert eight heat resources into a rise in temperature.

In the starting player phase, the starting player marker is passed to the next player to the left and the generation marker is advanced one space. In the research phase that follows, each player draws four cards and decides which of them to buy. Each card costs 3 M €, the remaining cards are placed face down. When the stack of cards is used up, the cards in the discard pile are shuffled and laid out as a new pile.

During the action phase, players take turns taking turns choosing up to two of seven possible action types. This is repeated until all players forego further actions and thus pass. The possible actions are:

  • Play a card from your hand, pre-checking the terms, paying the cost and applying the instant effects. Then the card is placed in the player area.
  • use a standard project. Each player has 6 standard projects at their disposal, which are shown on the game board and for which the specified costs must be paid: sell patents, increase energy production, increase temperature, place ocean tiles, place green space tiles to increase the oxygen content, place city tiles.
  • claim a milestone. For 8 M € a player can claim a milestone for himself.
  • finance an award. A player can finance an award for 8 M €.
  • use the action of a blue card,
  • convert eight plants into a green space tile, which increases oxygen,
  • convert eight heat resources into a rise in temperature.

If a player takes no action and thus passes, he sits out for the rest of the phase. After all players have passed, the action phase ends and the production phase begins. All players carry out this phase at the same time. All the energy is converted into heat, after which all players receive new resources and money according to the sum of their Terraform value and their M € production, which can also be negative. Then they get all other resources from their production and put them on their tableau. Finally, the player tokens are removed from the used action cards in order to make them available again for the next generation.

End of game and scoring

The game ends after the generation in which the desired environmental conditions of the planet are reached with sufficient oxygen to breathe (14%), sufficient oceans for earth-like weather (9) and a temperature well above freezing point (+8 ° C). The players then receive victory points for their terraform value, the tiles on the game board, awards and milestones they have won, as well as the victory points on the cards they played.

Development and reception

The game Terraforming Mars was developed by the Swedish game author Jacob Fryxelius and appeared in 2016 as a collaboration between his publisher FryxGames and Stronghold Games . In Germany, the game is distributed by Schwerkraft-Verlag , and it was also published in Polish, Spanish, Russian, Korean, Chinese, Italian, Hungarian, Dutch and French.

The game was first published by FryxGames, and later internationally. In 2016 it was nominated for the Swiss Gamers Award and was voted fifth, in 2017 it was one of three nominated games for the Kennerspiel des Jahres jury award and received the German Games Award , and it was also nominated for the International Gamers Award and the Portuguese Jogo do Ano game award . In the reason for the nomination for Kennerspiel des Jahres, the jury wrote:

"Terraforming Mars" implements the topic so vividly that the conquest of the red planet seems to be imminent. "

Extensions

In addition to the base game, five expansions have been released: Hellas & Elysium , Next Stop: Venus , Prelude , Colonies, and Riot . These expansions provide additional technology and corporate cards as well as new game plans and resource types. In addition, additional game mechanisms such as trading with colonies and political influence were introduced.

computer game

On October 17, 2018, Asmodee Digital published an adaptation of Terraforming Mars as a computer game on the Steam platform . The game principle corresponds to that of the board game, except for minor adjustments. The game can be played solo, against other players or against AI opponents.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h game instructions Terraforming Mars (download from the publisher's website )
  2. ↑ Versions of Terraforming Mars in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on September 18, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b Terraforming Mars on the website of the Spiel des Jahres eV ; accessed on September 21, 2017.
  4. ↑ German Game Award 2017: Winner Terraforming Mars on reich-der-spiele.de; accessed on September 21, 2017.
  5. ↑ 2017 nominees for the International Gamers Award ; accessed on September 19, 2017.
  6. ↑ Terraforming Mars. In: Schwerkraft Verlag (online shop). Retrieved June 1, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Keith Law: Review: Super-hot board game Terraforming Mars goes digital. In: Ars Technica. November 10, 2018, accessed June 1, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Terraforming Mars (app). In: Steam . Retrieved June 1, 2019 .

Web links