TERRAFORMING MARS by Stonghold Games

Review by: Circleville Boardgaming Group

Looking for a simple, quick playing and no thinking boardgame?

DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!

One of the hottest boardgames out there right now is TERRAFORMING MARS. The game is for 1 to 5 players about changing the Mars atmosphere/climate into an Earth Like / life capable one.

This game is NOT for the beginner gamer. The tough decisions, the multiple options and the possible outcomes are very numerous and a couple wrong choices can hinder your progress and possibly cost you victory. The game plays from setup to takedown in about 3+ hours for two players and despite what you would normally think the game decreases in time and turns with more players as the planet is getting terraformed more quickly with more players. This game also features a solitaire version where you try to reach a living planet in a minimum number of turns for victory.

Each turn the players as leaders of various corporations will get to fund and implement different actions to bring new resources to Mars to help its conversion. It could be capturing a nearby ice asteroid and slamming it onto the surface to create an ocean or it could be nuke explosions to raise the temperature. There are many varied options within the base game and with numerous expansions for the game, the game will never play the same way twice. You can send your trade fleets to nearby moons for mining to bring back to Mars and/or you can introduce microbes/bacteria/plants and animals at the right time to make Mars livable. It will take you many plays of the game to get the strategy and timing down as you begin to learn the varied paths to victory.

There are expansions to the base game that add more options and depending on which are used can shorten or even lengthen the game. The newest expansion TERRAFORMING MARS – TURMOIL – hit Kickstarter (that’s another article) in April and due out in October adds POLITICS to an already chaotic game. Soon the politicians will have to be dealt with as well as the dangers of MARS itself. Thus its name TURMOIL!

TERRAFORMING MARS is NOT – REPEAT NOT – for the newbie to hobby boardgaming …

So if you are an experienced boardgamer, looking to scratch that long involved hard core strategy based boardgame itch, TERRAFORMING MARS may be just the game you are seeking.