Surviving Mars - Game Overview

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There was a time when I would not play any game that didn't involve shooting people, aliens or monsters. Alas my reflexes are not what they once were so I approached more cerebral games.

One of my favourites, which I have put some 477 hours into, is Cities Skylines. I was intrigued recently when the publisher, Paradox Interactive, announced a new game called Surviving Mars, created by Haemimont Games. Of course, with Paradox backing it, I was definitely interested. The game is another city builder of sorts, whereby you are given the task of setting up a permanent human colony on Mars.

Your first task is to set up some parameters for your mission. Your choice of mission sponsor can have a dramatic effect on the difficulty. For example, some only give you one rocket to launch to Mars while others can give you up to five in order to keep your colony restocked with resources. Next you choose your commander profile which gives you certain perks. For example, the rocket scientist gives you access to an additional resupply rocket.

You then get to select which company logo you want. Some are based on prior Mars missions like Curiosity and Voyager, others are a little more silly like aliens or brussels sprouts. Your logo will appear on the top of your rockets and on some of the buildings you construct.

Next you have to decide on a load out for your first rocket. The game will give you a good selection but you can customise it if you like. You can load up on resources needed to build your colony, prefab buildings that don't require you to research them in order to build them on Mars and extra drones.

Finally, you must decide where on Mars you will settle. Some locations have greater resources. Others are more prone to disasters like dust storms, meteorite strikes and dust devils, which can damage your base. There are pre selected landing sites but you can land anywhere on Mars that you would like.

Finally, we arrive on Mars. You are presented with an overhead view of the map and you select where you want to land your first rocket. There will be one square selected for you with some resources, but if you use the orbital probe, you can scan for more suitable sites if you wish.

Once landed, your rovers and drones quickly disembark.

The autonomous vehicles, under your control, will set up the beginnings of our colony.

You might think that water and oxygen production would be quite high on priority. You would be wrong: in order to build the base you need resources, particularly concrete and metals. Here I set up my first concrete extractor. Naturally, all buildings need power. Here I placed a Stirling Generator - which I brought from Earth - and wired it to the extractor. You also have other power choices. You can build solar panels and wind turbines. The panels won't work at night, obviously, and the wind turbines produce more electricity on higher terrain. Like everything else in Surviving Mars, they take resources to build and maintain, either produced on Mars or transported from Earth. If you have the require amounts, your little drones will set to work building and looking after structures.

Dotted around the Martian landscape you can find surface metals. Your drones will gather the resource, or you can order your transport to grab them.

As you scan sectors, different resources are revealed along with anomalies. You send your RC explorer to analyse them. This one is a research anomaly which generates research points to spend on your current research or technology.

This is the research screen which allows you to spend research points on discovering new technologies which will greatly assist your mission. For example, instead of having to rely on prefabricated buildings sent from Earth, your scientists can create the tech to build them on Mars.

Your initial mission is to ready the base for your first colonists, so it makes sense to tap into underground deposits of water. Here I have built a water tower to store it for their eventual arrival.

A moxie creates oxygen and I have built one and paired it with an oxygen storage tank. Pipes carry water, oxygen and fuel. As with all things on Mars, the pipes and electricity cables need regular maintenance by the drones. Some events like meteorite strikes can also damage infrastructure. Again, the drones will use resources to repair them.

Your colonists will live and work in domes. Within the domes you build housing, medical care, farms, factories, diners and all manner of structures to keep them happy and productive.

My current base is on the top of a tall mesa. In order to traverse the uneven terrain down to the plain below, you can build tunnels.

An added benefit is that tunnels house electricity cables and pipes, protecting them from possible damage caused by dust storms and meteorites.

Once your base is ready you can send for your colony founders.

You have a set amount of time to prove that your colony is sustainable, before you are allowed to send for more people from Earth. This means keeping them happy, employed and safe.

From here on out, it is a resources management game - making sure you have enough gathered, built, or sent from Earth in order to expand your base, build factories and keep up with demands for water and oxygen. Eventually you can mine rare metals to either use to build electronics or to earn money by exporting them back to Earth. You can build ever larger domes, populating them with more colonists, other building types and decorations. At times you will have random mysteries to discover, adding further depth to the game.

Surviving Mars can be initially confusing but easy enough to get started after a little exploration of the menus. Juggling resources, disasters and expansion can get a little overwhelming once the difficulty starts to ramp up. Even so, I really like the game and the premise of setting up an off world colony. Whether I spend anywhere near the same amount of time playing it as I have Cities Skylines, remains to be seen.

Surviving Mars is available on Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Playstation 4 and Xbox One.

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