Terraforming Mars

I want to be honest about the setup time before I say anything nice about this game, because it colors everything else. Sorting the card market, dealing corporations, laying out the tile boards, all of it eats a solid ten minutes before a single card gets played, and teardown isn’t much faster. If you’re the kind of person counting how much of your game night is actually game versus logistics, keep that in mind going in.

That said. Once it’s running, the engine building here is some of the most satisfying I’ve played. You start with almost nothing, a handful of megacredits and one weak little production track, and by round eight you’re chaining plant cards into ocean tiles into temperature bumps like you actually know what you’re doing. The moment it clicks, and it does click, usually somewhere around your third play, is genuinely a good feeling. I had one game where a single greenery card triggered three separate bonuses down my tableau and I just sat there for a second appreciating it.

The complaint I keep coming back to, and I’ve seen this same thing from plenty of other people, is that it can feel like four people playing four separate games at the same table. You’re mostly optimizing your own board, glancing at the shared Mars tiles when someone else’s placement threatens your plans, but the actual interaction is thinner than the theme suggests. I don’t mind this as much as some people do. I like a good solitary engine puzzle. But it’s worth knowing that before you buy in, because at three hours a session it’s a lot of solitaire to sign up for even if it’s dressed up as a group activity.

New players struggle here more than with most things I own, and I’ve had to walk people through a full round before they stop looking lost. Once it clicks though, most of them ask to play again the next week, which says something.