Yes, we can confirm there is most definitely life there. But it’s hard
ON MARS
Designer: Vital Lacerda | Artist: Ian O’Toole
As any scientist will (probably) tell you, a sure way to lose weight is to move to Mars. Given the Red Planet’s surface gravity is only 38 percent of Earth’s, anything on Mars will be almost two-thirds lighter than it is here, right? Yet, for all our dusty neighbour’s light and bouncy appeal, it does seem to attract distinctly heavyweight board games.
Following First Martians (4.18/5 complexity rating on BoardGameGeek) and Terraforming Mars (3.24/5), we now have On Mars, the latest, ultra-crunchy Euro game from the Portuguese Count of Complexity (not his real title) Vital Lacerda. Anyone familiar with Lacerda’s ludography – which includes Lisboa, Escape Plan and Vinhos (see page 9) – won’t be surprised to hear that On Mars has a whopping 4.61/5 complexity rating on BGG. It comprises a multiplicity of intricately interlocking mechanisms which both bear out its ambitious frontier-pushing theme (colonising another planet is bloody difficult) and combine to make a game which has a mile-high barrier to entry but once all its rules are fully absorbed, in turn proves rewardingly absorbing.
There is so much going on, it often feels like you’re playing three or four cubepushing, tile-laying, meeple-placing, resource-managing games at once. Each player runs a company expanding out from Mars Base Camp after the first settlers arrived in 2037. As in Terraforming Mars, you all work together, to a degree, to make life on Mars viable. Here, that’s all about levelling up the colony, which happens when a certain number of buildings are established, regardless of who constructs them. Rewards are given to the players who build the required structures – by spending the relevant resources and laying them as hex tiles on artist Ian O’Toole’s striking map board – while levelling up the colony expands options for everyone and provides an end-game trigger.
But the game is more likely to end before that happens, when all three randomly assigned missions have been completed by the players as a group, with the final scoring taking in how many building complexes each player has constructed, how many rocket ships and colonists they’ve welcomed up from Earth, how much they’ve developed their technology (represented by tiles that move along an upgrade track on each player board), how many advanced buildings they have, and how busy their scientists have been, among other things.
But while there is always a lot going on, and game progress will often be slowed by repeated rulebook checks and studies of the reference guide (mostly there to explain all the action icons, as there’s barely any text on the board or cards), each turn is actually a relatively simple matter of taking an action and then perhaps spending resources to gain a bonus ‘Executive’ action. These actions cleverly depend on whether you’re on the orbital Space Station, developing tech or buying resources, or down on the planet’s surface with your industrious Bots and Rover. So there is a lot of shortterm planning to be done; you don’t want to be stuck up in orbit after the shuttle’s just left when there’s a mine to be dug, for example.
Of course, this neat, theme-driven board-dividing mechanism only focuses your choices to a certain degree, and you will often find your brain spinning as all the possible strategies pile up. But that is the great joy of On Mars. It is so deep and broad and multi-layered that you never settle into a routine or think you’ve got it cracked. As such, it is a game that you’ll crave returning to again and again – assuming, that is, you don’t mind things getting heavy.
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
On Mars is an impressive looking Euro, and one which is both challenging and rewarding to play. But be warned: it’s strictly for heavyweight game lovers only.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
◗ 1 Game board
◗ 4 Player boards
◗ 4 Astronaut markers
◗ 4 Point-tracking tokens
◗ 16 Bot meeples
◗ 32 Advanced building markers
◗ 48 Colonist meeples
◗ 4 Rover meeples
◗ 20 Ship markers
◗ 20 cubes
◗ 6 Scientist meeples
◗ 1 Colony level marker
◗ 1 Shuttle marker
◗ 4 LSS Track markers
◗ 55 Building tiles
◗ 1 Removeable building tiles display tray
◗ 100 Resource tiles
◗ 30 Crystals
◗ 8 Research tiles
◗ 19 Discovery tiles
◗ 20 Tech tiles
◗ 3 Mission cubes
◗ 1 Remaining missions tracker
◗ 3 Mission markers
◗ 8 LSS reward tiles
◗ 6 First Colonist tiles
◗ 12 First Colonist cards
◗ 1 Scientists and Earth contracts board
◗ 24 Blueprint cards
◗ 6 Scientist cards
◗ 12 Earth contract cards
◗ 16 Private goal cards
◗ 9 Mission cards
◗ 12 Solo cards
◗ 4 Player aids
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… TERRAFORMING MARS
Same theme, same blend of cooperative and competitive, similar level of complexity