Race To Mars – Preview
As our home planet Earth is changing, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that humankind will eventually have to leave in search for another home planet. Some candidates have already been found and one of the most promising is Mars. All kinds of space organisations are already developing ways to get and live there but maybe you don’t think it’s going fast enough? Maybe you’re wondering if you can do a better job? How about a shot at running your very own space organisation and leading the charge to Mars?
Race To Mars is a turn-based, space company simulation game. It’s being developed by Intermarum, a Polish independent game development studio and is currently still in early alpha. Obviously, the goal of the game is to reach Mars but after that there’s also the challenge of building a base there. Don’t expect to get a “Kerbal Space Program”-like experience here. You don’t actually build things and you don’t pilot the rockets. The game is more of an economic simulation where your goal is to keep your income high enough to allow for research, development of new parts, hiring more staff and the construction of additional facilities. More income is achieved by working the media or accepting military contracts and the likes.
As mentioned above, the game is still in alpha and that’s quite obvious while playing. A lot of menus and textures aren’t implemented yet but that’s to be expected. Another problem is language. Everything was originally written in Polish and not all translations seem to be correct however that is improving with every new build. The game’s art style is actually quite nice. You start off with a patch of land and that’s where you’ll be building all facilities on. Building something new takes a couple of turns to complete, as does research. However you can speed research up by hiring more scientists and researchers to work on a project which naturally raises your monthly outcome.
Building a rocket is not that easy. At first, you’ll have to start your research and start collecting resources. The different research trees are enormous. They contain over 200 different technologies and thus will offer a lot of replay value. It takes quite a bit of different materials to build something that lasts in space and they all have to be purchased which can be quite a tedious task. I guess that’s probably common to a simulation game but all the different menu’s can be quite overwhelming and there sure is room for improvement on that front. The great thing about the game though is that it’s your own choice how you want to approach your mission to get Mars. You can start off by building satellites or just go for a rocket right away. It all depends on what contracts you accept and what you promise the general public through the media. At the moment, gameplay features are limited and I don’t know if it’s already possible to reach Mars. I haven’t been able to thus far.
Conclusion
Race To Mars seems to be going in the right direction and it’ll be interesting to see how the developers are going to implement all various features. It’s certainly a popular and interesting topic they’re exploring. I can’t really recommend buying the game at this stage but certainly keep an eye out for its release.
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