As most people people already know Epic Games give games away for free on a weekly basis. I tend to just pop on to check what they have each week, claim it and then never play it. Often it's games I've already played or games that don't really fit any of my likes. Why I even claim them is beyond me but I guess getting stuff for free is really satisfying. This is why I own 240 games across Steam, Epic and GoG.
This weeks free game was Surviving Mars. A colonization simulator set on the red planet of Mars. I remember seeing this one back when it released in 2018 but I never tried it then. I've just forgotten all about it up until now. I grabbed the game and took it for a spin. The first game I ever play through Epic Games even though I own 32 games on their platform.
Surviving Mars
As I already mentioned Surviving Mars is a colony-simulation game set on Mars. It brings both strategy, city building and survival elements into the mix. You start off with nothing but a rocket carrying resources and from there you have to build a base of operations. Using drones and rovers as your tools you expand your base and start gathering resources like metal and concrete. From there on out it's a long road to getting your first humans to Mars. Either as colonists or tourists.
The game is made by Haemimont Games and published by Paradox Interactive. Haemimont are the developers of Tropico 3, 4 and 5 alongside several other city-building and strategy games. There's no doubt that they have some experience under their belt. Paradox Interactive are known for publishing a well of games including Cities: Skyline and yet another well of city-building and strategy games. This developer and publisher should go hand in hand.
Taking it for a spin
I was quite excited to try this one out. I've really enjoyed city-builders and simulation games in the past. I've spent many hours building huge cities in Cities: Skyline and well planned out zoos in Planet Zoo. I've also of course played the good old Age of Empires games and several Anno games. It's a genre I quite enjoy.
Booting up Surviving Mars for the first time it's quite clear that I needed to go through the tutorial first. I became nauseous just looking at all of the details on the screen. I started building some stuff but there was no thought, plan or understanding behind it. A tutorial was needed for what seems like quite a complex and thought out game.
The tutorial starts off easy. You build some gathering hubs as you often do in these kinds of games and you watch as your drones gather materials. With materials like metal and stone you can start constructing buildings that create essential resources like fuel and water. These buildings require power so you'll need to build a power generator and connect the buildings together with cables. This is all part of the many micro management processes you need to go through.
Further on in the tutorial you learn how to gather other kinds of resources, how you can make resource runs back to earth for convenience and eventually what you need to get your settlers and colonists headed over. You learn about research and other wayt to expand your colony. All the basics for laying the foundation of a great and thriving colony.
It's the wait that kills you
Sadly I was already put off by the game before the tutorial had finished. I started loosing focus quite easily and the tutorial felt more like a chore than something I was interested in doing. As tips and prompts popped up I didn't bother reading and learning what they said in the end and just did the task. I knew as I was doing it that I wasn't actually learning the game and rather I was just doing my best to get through it.
What killed it for me was the wait. There was so much waiting. There are buttons which allow you to speed the game up but still it's slow. You're just sitting there watching the screen waiting for a certain number to reach the right threshold. It would be way more interesting if the game would send you to finish some other tasks while waiting so that we could come back to it instead.
This could just be a deliberate design to not make the tutorial feel overwhelming. There's a lot of stuff to manage and keep track of as you get further into it. It could also just be that I'm not patient enough and the game just isn't for me. I didn't ever get the feeling that the game was bad or badly design but I was just bored by waiting for things. I want things to be more hands on instead of click, wait, click, wait.
The verdict
I ended up finishing the tutorial before deciding that the game wasn't for me. I owed it that much instead of giving it up halfway through. I guess I'm just not in the mood for a slow paced city-builder or strategy game these days. I can see the game being fun when you get a large colony going and you need to keep track of everything, but I want a game to be fun from the get go instead of eventually becoming fun. And it's not even a guarantee that it will be fun once you get there.
I would still recommend this game to anyone who likes slow paced city-building strategy games though. There's a lot of depth to it accompanied by a great learning curve. If you manage to get to know the game well I can see it being quite satisfactory to get a proper well functioning base and colony going.
Remember that Epic Games are giving away games for free every week. Surviving Mars was this weeks game and next week we're getting The Fall. I'll admit straight away that I'm probably not going to play that one, but I'll go claim it at the least.
All pictures in this post are screenshots taken by me from within the game Surviving Mars, unless sourced otherwise.
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