Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Nov 11, 2021

  The November patch is terrible. The game is unplayable and most games end with someone unable to play and everyone just has to leave the game. Everyone should get a refund if this is what we bought.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 1, 2023

  TLDR: New update made the game literally unplayable yet developers claim "it is the most stable version of the game so far" instead of acknowledging any issues with the game. Before 2.0 update, there was a few minor bugs but the game was mostly playable and since I love the board game, I also enjoyed playing the PC game. However, 2.0 is by far the worst patch for a game I have ever seen in my life. Instead of fixing the existing bugs like any reasonable patch would do, they introduced not one but several game-breaking bugs. First of all, mac users simply can not open the game after 2.0 update. These people paid for the game and are unable to play it because the new update broke it. Secondly, when a player leaves a game or runs out of time, AI would normally take over that player and the game would continue as usual before 2.0 update. Now when a player leaves/runs out of time, AI takes over the player but it doesn't play, hardlocking the game. There is no time limit for AI turns so it is simply impossible to continue the game. Imagine being the winning player in a game and opponent just quits and you have to abandon the game and take a loss because developers don't know how to code. This also causes you to lose karma and if you have low karma, you will be forced to play with leavers, resulting in a vicious cycle. Additionally there is a bug that causes all texts on cards to disappear if you look at your cards in hand while in card draw phase, which is something you frequently do to decide if you should buy a card or not. Unless you memorized all the ~250 cards in the game, enjoy playing them randomly. So when your new patch causes all these game breaking bugs and a plethora of other bugs, what would any reasonable developer do? Probably apologize first for the bad quality patch and say they are working on a fix. Or even roll the game back to previous version to make it at least playable until the new bugs are fixed. But what did these developers do? They claimed that "THIS IS THE MOST STABLE VERSION OF THE GAME SO FAR!!!". I'm not joking, you can't even play the game and they claim this is the best version of the game! The audacity of these guys is simply unbelievable! On top of this they even raised the price of the game in my region SIXFOLD! Because apperently making the game unplayable with a patch is worth charging 6 times the price. At this point I feel like the developers did every single wrong thing a developer can do and the only advice I can give is this: Regardless of how good the board game is, don't buy the digital version. And not just this game, I would also suggest not buying anything Twin Sails Interactive publishes in the future either. It is insulting how little respect they have for their playerbase. If you made it to the bottom of my lengthy rant, thank you for reading this far and I hope I was able to convince you to not buy the game.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 7, 2023

  Don't buy this game. I love Terraforming Mars the board game. It is perhaps my favorite board game of all time; certainly the one I've spent the most time playing over the last several years. Unfortunately, this digital adaptation of the game was not particularly good to begin with and has somehow become progressively worse as time goes on. It is a testament to how good the original board game is that I continue to play the digital version nearly every day, despite this version's many, MANY problems. But with the latest updates, the game has become essentially unplayable, and I now regret supporting this company with my purchase, since their development team clearly is either incompetent or doesn't care to deliver an acceptable level of quality to the customers. Where to begin? Several bugs make the game play incorrectly, according to the rules. To name just one example, the Tharsis corporation should only gain income when a city is played on Mars, but with the latest patch, the digital version increases income for the Tharsis player whenever ANY city is played. Other bugs are just incredibly annoying to deal with, like the fact that if you are playing with the Draft option enabled and you happen to be looking at the cards in your hand when the next round in the draft comes around, the information on the cards in your hand is erased for the rest of the game. You can still check the information by clicking on each card individually, but this can be a huge hassle if you have more than a few cards in your hand, especially if you're playing with a time limit on turns. Yet other bugs make the game nigh impossible to play. When playing online, the game seems almost guaranteed to lock up at least once before the end. A player will have taken their turn, but the game doesn't advance to the next player. It just sort of... forgets. To the player who ended their turn, it will look like the game is stuck on the next player's turn, but to everyone else, the game will look like the current player is still taking their turn. The only way to resolve this seems to be to have one or more players disconnect and reconnect (which takes at least a minute or two), but even then this doesn't always work or prevent it from happening again. Sometimes the game even gets stuck on an AI player's turn and remains stuck even after their turn timer has run out. In this case, there's no way to finish the game at all, which can be immensely frustrating if it comes after 1-2 hours of playing, when the game is nearly done. I won't even get into the laundry list of strange UI and design choices that, in my opinion, make the digital version a significantly less approachable and engaging experience than the physical version. I could go on and on about that aspect of it, but in the end, that's just my personal preference. We can all agree, at least, that bugs are bad, and this game, by any account, is absolutely riddled with them. The worst factor of all is that the development team seems to be actively making the game worse, Many of these bugs had been fixed in earlier patches, only to be reintroduced, along with dozens of new bugs, in later patches. No version of the game has worked completely, but almost without exception, the newer the patch, the more new bugs you can count on appearing. Many of these bugs are apparent upon the first playthrough after a new patch, which raises the question: does the development team just not bother to playtest their game? And if they can't be bothered to do that, why should people pay money for this product, as if it's finished or will ever be finished? In short, I know Terraforming Mars is awesome, and I can understand wanting to play it online with friends. But Asmodee (or Twin Sails, or whatever they're calling themselves now) does not deserve your money. Don't buy this game.
• schalkhammer.tibor

  Jul 27, 2023

  This is a revised version of my original negative review (end of July 2023) where I didn't recommend it, as the most crucial aspects of the game has been since updated to a sufficiently working level. --------------- I do love this board game. Very much. But I want to let others know of its "characteristics" before purchasing it here, especially if they consider it and its DLCs at full price. SHORT VERSION: Recommended with caution PROS: - faster game speed and general flow compared to IRL - good looking UI - costs and benefits of actions are done automatically (hence digital edition, duh) - 200+ players online, community is nice - expansions are being developed and added to the game as DLCs with Preludes and Elysium+Hellas boards already available, Venus Next almost finished CONS: - extreme likelihood of bugs after each and every update, some of which are game breaking (see state of the game at the end of July 2023 which was horrendous) - some bugs are still present since day 1 despite being reported numerous times - no "undo" option even just for most recent single action - beware if you misclick of miscalculate often - scores are not visible during the game and thus have to be calculated manually or require modding - matching players with similar ranking (ELO) is nonexistent, any opponent can join if their karma is sufficient - AI's laughable skill level --------------- LONG VERSION UPSIDES: Overall the Steam version is enjoyable and since the most recent early August 2023 update it seems stable enough. The UI and general feel of the game are solid, it's nice to look at, and the flow and speed of the game are smoother and much faster than in person, and without errors due to the game calculating everything for the players and doing the necessary steps after each action (if no bugs intervene). So resources, production, points, placement bonuses, discounts, rebates etc. are calculated and given automatically, card tags and number of cards are visible and so on, all of which are very convenient. In my opinion this is the main advantage of the digital edition along with the constant availability of 200-300 players in online multiplayer. The community in general is nice (although rage quits do occur). The board game's expansions are being developed and added as DLCs, with Preludes and Elysium+Hellas boards already available, Venus Next is almost finished (time of release not known at the time of this review). DOWNSIDES: The game always has been buggy, but the community who loves playing it learned to live with them. Some bugs have been around since day 1 (Arctic Algae's interaction with plant destroying ocean asteroids like Comet or Giant Ice Asteroid). With every update or patch there has been an enormous risk the game will provide a terrible experience for a time due to numerous new bugs being introduced. Here's a (probably incomplete) list of issues that have/had been plaguing this game in the past years: - connection/network (having to rejoin the game numerous times, predominantly during the draft phase) - seems to be working okay now, was remarkably common (10+ occurrances in a single game) before the most recent early August 2023 update - corporate and card effects not working properly (Helion's payment with heat, Olympus Conference's resource management, Aquifer Pumping's and Water Import from Europa's action, various payments with minerals just to name a few) - most of these work as intended now, some just got ironed out recently, unnecessary overpayment with minerals is possible though (pay 3+ steel for a 4 cost building tag for example), Arctic Algae's issue is still present - certain cards breaking the game completely (interaction between Research and Mars University) - OK now - card details disappearing (only cost and image is left) - still present, but less common - chat ceasing to function - still present - AI breaking the game that takes over players who forfeit - introduced with July 2023 update, couldn't test yet due to no one forfeiting but reportedly is no longer an issue (fingers crossed) Not all times were equally bad, some were enjoyable but during some periods the game was practically unplayable in online multiplayer. Another aspect that may concern players who wish to be matched with others of similar skill is that the online multiplayer only provides open or private hosting, meaning any player can join any open hosted table if their karma is high enough, there is no "ladder" or any sort of skill dependant match-making. The ELO and karma system are in a very rudimentary state, so players who wish to play competitively at a high level should be cautious. Additional info for players who care about solo play against AI opponents, the AI's skill level is very low, to the point that I suspect playing random cards can be enough to beat it. For this reason, online tables are commonly made without AI subs, to prevent the AI messing up a player's plan due to a random disconnection, where the AI would step in until the player returns. But in turn this allows toxic players to "rage quit" by exiting the game and others need to wait for quitter's timer to go down to continue, which can take 30+ minutes depending on table settings. Be warned. --------------- All in all if you love this game at least half as I do, and especially if you have friends with whom you'd play here regularly, it is worth it, preferably at a discount. But if you easily get frustrated due to bugs, or you don't want to risk 90+ mins of playtime going down the drain due to some error or mishap, sticking to playing the game elsewhere might be a better idea. I hope my review was useful. Wish you all a nice day!
• ДимASSтер

  Aug 22, 2023

  Fix this fucking crap. Do nut buy this shit. Lots of bags
• zsmithz

  Aug 29, 2023

  Unfortunately, after quite a good run, the recent update has made the game unplayable. Quite frequently, the dialog for viewing one's cards cannot be dismissed (and indeed persists even after forfeiting the game and quitting to the main menu).
• 比齐鲍易兹

  Sep 5, 2023

  Don't buy it, just play it in board game simulator, and you can play all the dlcs in board game simulators too. I think the developers really should focus on developing an official board game simulator script instead of further developing this software.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 2, 2023

  This might be the best board game with the buggiest digital implementation of all time. On the tabletop, Terraforming Mars is phenomenal. But the digital implementation has, for years, been flopping around, face-down in the red Martian soil. Humanity will probably terraform Mars in real life before Twin Sails/LuckyHammers fixes the game that depicts it.

  Oh My, The Bugs

  Normally, I won't downvote a game due to bugs, because I think as long as the developers are active, bugs will eventually get fixed. However, Terraforming Mars is the rare exception. It has been out since 2018, and each release is a mixed bag of fixing bugs for some players, and introducing new bugs to other players, ad infinitum. Over time it has been a slow downward spiral. It has gotten so bad that my friends and I have stopped playing. Take a look at the comments on every developer update this year. It's filled with people lamenting the game-breaking bugs. I honestly wish the devs would just throw in the towel and put this title on Board Game Arena. You may think that's unlikely, but it has been done before (see Memoir 44). I've been burned by Terraforming Mars on so many updates that I have given up the hope that it will ever be in working order. How bad are the bugs? Well, let's start with the worst. The game regularly hardlocks AT THE END of a two-hour match, when we are in our final turns, before we can see the end score. There's no way to get around it, no way to skip to the end, you're just done; hours wasted. Besides the dreaded end-game hardlocks, every match is usually plagued by softlocks. The affected players have to exit and reload the match to clear them. Sometimes doing it a few times in a row is necessary. I've encountered numerous other bugs, but I'll leave it at that. Actually, no I won't. There's also...

  Bugged Achievements

  Even the d*** achievements are bugged. I was erroneously awarded two-thirds of the achievements when I simply started the game for the 2nd time. Getting free achievements isn't much to complain about, but I'm not done! The achievements are also bugged in a bad way too. Just take a look at the achievements they pushed out a few updates back: "Unnamed Achievement 1", "Unnamed Achievement 2", etc. Holy crap, they didn't even bother naming their broken, unearnable achievements!

  Besides the Bugs, A Few Good Things

  If it weren't for the bugs, this would have been a pretty good digital port for a board game. When it worked, it was a great experience and would have earned a positive review. The sounds and music all set the right ambiance. The interface was intuitive, and you could easily access most of what you wanted to see with little clicking. Despite being a terrible implementation, it's a good design (at least aesthetically). A few other details could have been added, such as counts for tile types played (cities, greenery, etc), but those are minor.

  No Undo Button

  There is no undo button. Instead, the game asks you "Are you sure?" after every choice you make. While it's better than nothing, it's a much more annoying alternative than simply having an undo button. There are times that asking "Are you sure?" incessantly isn't enough. I still get trapped into some things that should have no consequence for backing out. For example, when choosing an action that consumes microbes, I'll change my mind after selecting the action, but before using the microbes. I should be able to back out since I haven't consumed anything yet. Well, you can't.

  Solo Play

  I haven't had any issues with solo play. If playing against AI is all you care about, then by all means, it's probably worth purchasing. But what good is a board game, that's entirely intended to be multiplayer, that you can't play with other people? I would downvote any board game that fails this test (the only exception being board games designed to be solo play).

  The Board Game

  Aside from the buggy digital implementation on Steam, the tabletop board game is amazing. It's currently sitting in the top ten board games of all time on Board Game Geek and it definitely deserves it. It checks off nearly all of the features I think a good board game should possess: <*>✔️Balances pure randomness and complete control/predictability - Card draw in a deck of cards will always be a random element in any game, but the fun is still in figuring out the best way to maximize what you've been given. <*>✔️No "one right move" - You'll want to do everything, but you simply can't. Every turn you need to make the tough decision of which strategies you will pursue, and which you will sacrifice. <*>✔️Balance of rules (not too easy and not overcomplicated) - It's a heavier game, sure. But none of the rules feel excessive or unnecessary. <*>✔️Defined game length - Technically there is not a set number of turns, but a match snowballs the further you get into it, making it harder and harder to not end it. <*>✔️Replay Value (i.e. feels like a different game every time) - While the board layout is the same every time, you'll never get the same hand twice. <*>✔️All players in it until the end - Players don't get eliminated, and I've had a few surprise leader changes at the end. <*>✔️Decisions affect other players (Not separate games of solitaire) - Not every turn affects the other player, but you're still all competing to place tiles on the same planet, and there are some attack cards that affect other players. <*>❌Total knowledge at game start (All possibilities on the table, not hidden in a deck of cards that only experienced players know about) - I have to fail TM here on a technicality, but I still think it's a great game. Just be aware that experienced players who know what kind of cards are in the deck will have an edge over newer players. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they abandon this Steam port, and implement Terraforming Mars on Board Game Arena. Follow Summit Reviews for more high-quality reviews.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 17, 2018

  Finally we are getting somewhere. By now, the game is in a state where it is, at least technically, playable. I have not encountered any bugs for some time now and was able to finish all of my play throughs vs. AI. At present i would still not recommend the game for the following reasons: 1. The AI plays very poorly. There certainly were some improvements with regard to city placing but the AI really lacks VP optimization and an understanding on which card to draft at which point of the game. There are some cards that are so good, that they should almost always be chosen. As a result: Games vs. AI work, but are not really fun since the player will almost every time win. 2. The PvP is still not very good. I admit, this is a hard one. Converting a board game into a multiplayer online game is very difficult. However the way it currently works is, you may start a game with a given timer for each player. Since the game punishes you (karma loss) for forfeiting a game, people just go afk. Which means you can either wait for an hour or 2 until you can continue your game or forfeit the game (which costs you karma). That way i lowered my karma level to 1 by now. The solution is simple: a: Allow really long timer (10 days, 20 days, 30 days) b: Allow starting of multiple games at the same time c: Sent notifications to the player when their turn is up. 3. The game is still really slow. All the animations take really, really long and are quite unnecessary. That being said: I still think they are making progress and i will continue to ocassionally play a game or 2 just to see, how the game is progressing. I now have played for several months and i am giving up on the game. Games versus AI are pointless. Not only is the AI still ridiculously bad at the game, in many games the AI gets stuck when purchasing new projects, effectively ending the game. So far, no bug fix. So the only interesting thing are games versus other players. But at present 90-100% of the games desync after disconnect at some point. So that part is basicly unplayable as well. The worst part: Literally no comments or fixes from the developers for more than a month now. No hot fixes, not even a comment aknowledging the problem. I have to say: The game is a scam. Lets start with: I LOVE terraforming mars. I have played an endless number of games with friends and colleagues i own all the extensions, so am a fanboy and i consider myself a very good player. Now. The computer-version of the game feels clunky. The interface is needlessly large yet contains little information of what is going on. Everything is hidden behing layers of menus - and its really not all that beatiful. I looks a lot as if it was made for people with poor eye sight. Too much icons, too little text. Which makes the game extremely slow playing. Also: The AI is abysmal (only tried hard AI). It kept on building greenerys, creating perfect places for cities (which i promptly build of course) and even keeps on building greeneries, which will give ME additional VP at the end of the game. They kept on building cards, which were pointless at the time (it is a bad idea to buy and play a card, which gives you 1 VP for every 4 bacteria in the pre last round of the game!!!). The AI never actually played for the special bonuses on the temperature/oxygen tracks. And so on. Right now i am deeply disappointed.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 18, 2018

  Waited for so long and I got this incomplete garbage wth absolutely no playing value. I have played the board game version of Terraforming Mars for over a year and I loved this game, purchased all the expansions released so far and enjoyed them all. I wasn't hoping the steam version to be identical to the board game but this is way too worse. 1. No drafting. Drafting is a must for this game as near 80% of the decision making in this game is involed in the drafting phase, i.e. picking combos for yourself, blocking someone's key card etc. The excitement of seeing more cards and deicde which one is the best for you now or in the future is so high that it keeps me playing over and over. However, without drafting, the game is essentially just a boring solitaire about doing your own things in a correct order.(as you don't fk up yourself is alright) And the absence of drafting makes the game's result is largely decide on luck. If you pull off a great combo like Teractor + several Earth tag + Cartel and other player don't, the game is just basically over. And the worst part is , others have zero information on your cards and your upcoming strategy, there is no way they can block you or at least hinder your development. This makes the game extremely boring and lack of interaction. The drafting shouldn't be called a variant as in a game where every card is unique, drafting is the best and essential way to minimize the random factor. Drating is a must-have part in this game. I will not play Mars without drating as I think rolling some dice may be more fun, and need less time. 2. The UI is anti-human. Overall UI is pleasant to look at and clear on productions/amounts of resources, but other part is total garbage. The milestones and awards are unclear on showing who is winning, the card list is bulky and hard to find a card, the VP tracker is good but why not tracking the VP from Greeneries and cities also? Also, there are no undo button, for a at most 2 action turn, it is not hard to program a undo option. Moreover, after you comfirm playing of a card, like placing a tile or draw and examine a card, there is no way to look at others tableau or your own, you must finish the action first which is totally anti-human. The coloured border of the tiles to indicate the ownership is very unclear, why not just put a coloured cube in the center of the tiles like in the board game? 3. Tons of bug. I have just played a single game against the AI and I already discovered several bugs. Predator can't eat others animals, search for life doesn't reveal the discarded cards, Olympics Conference doesn't work at all...etc. Those errors are inevitable in a game of so many unique cards but they need to be corrected as soon as possible. For the above reasons, the game feels like a rushed incomplete product to me. I will not play it anymore before the above issues is concerned and I will not recommend it to anyone like playing the board game version.