From Deliver Us Mars to Deliver On Mars

Developer Shape Shop

Publisher Outersloth

Format PC

Origin Australia

Release 2023

Playing Mars First Logistics, we quickly become aware that we’d never have made it as a NASA engineer. Having been given a rough completion time for this handful of early tasks, we find ourselves exceeding that estimate on one mission alone, our various additions to the basic rover with which we’ve been provided to fulfil a series of deliveries causing it to capsize at the slightest provocation: accelerating up a gentle slope, say, or brushing the right rear wheel against a small rock. Sure, we can reset our haphazardly constructed vehicle in a pinch, but doing so means we have to pick our cargo up again – ajob that is a good deal trickier than it sounds.

Your first goal is disarmingly simple: you must deliver a large watering can from a base habitat to a nearby greenhouse. The route is relatively straightforward, and you’re provided a blueprint that turns your basic rover, appropriately, into a ‘watering can lifter’. The vehicle assembly screen looks like a Lego Technic instruction manual, where we see – extending from the base at a 45-degree angle – an arrangement of pieces that forms a large, gripping claw, the bottom piece attached to a servo motor so it can be manually lowered and raised. As such, you merely need to drive up, ensure the claws are either side of the handle, and then pinch them together to lift the oversized container. Even with this robust prebuilt template, you can feel the effect of the load on your vehicle’s handling, but we make it to our destination with very little trouble.