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The year is 2179, and Earth’s future seems bleak. Years of pollution have tarnished the landscape, and the world’s supplies of natural resources have dwindled to abysmal levels.The use of electric vehicles, solar technologies, and other energy-saving solutions have slowed the problem, but the long-term abuse on the planet by previous generations has been hard to reverse. Most Earthlings seem to have given up hope, yet a group of optimistic explorers are trekking to Mars, which some believe may turn around their fate.
In search of knowledge, these explorers hope that understanding the demise of alien populations can assist them with preventing or at least slowing the rapid deterioration of Earth. They’ll need to replicate Martian technologies, translate their languages, and avoid gaining too much radiation along the way in order to end up with the most prestige and save Earth as they know it.
In Ruins of Mars, players compete to build out their arsenal of knowledge, attempting to understand the languages of ancient civilizations that colonized Mars and made it a hub of economic activity. The game is played around a board with five locations and eleven communal action tiles that are laid out at random underneath the board as evenly as possible.
On a turn, you choose one of the locations, optionally pay to shift an action tile from an adjacent location to the active one, take the action of the location — the effect of which will be based on the tiles below that space — optionally replicate alien tech by paying resources and adding it to your board for personal use, then reallocate the action tiles from the active site in a mancala-like fashion.
Over the course of the game, you learn the Martian languages and re-discover and study their technologies, which come in three levels and multiple classifications and which grant you special abilities. Along the way, you might pick up radiation from various actions, and you’ll want to ditch that if possible so as not to lose points in the final scoring, which is mostly based on the tech you’ve assembled and your skill with languages.
Ages | 14+ |
---|---|
Players | Solo, 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players |
Play Time | 60m – 120m |
Designer | Don Riddle |
Mechanics | Action Queue |
Theme | Science Fiction |
Publisher | Atheris Games |
Scottyglc
Received like new in math trade. This game was not bad at all. The wood action pieces definitely make it better. The game is simple to learn and play, with five action options you can take on your turn. You can manipulate the action tiles to get a more powerful turn. You are basically just gathering resources to buy tech cards and going up five language tracks. Not much else. No compelling reason to keep this one. Sold.
Legomancer
it's not terrible, but it lasts waaaayyyy too long because you can't plan your turn. The available actions change on every turn. You also can't really long-term plan. You just do whatever makes the most sense in the moment and often that is fairly obvious. There are some good ideas but the payoff just isn't there. Possibly better at 2p but the line of games I want to play at 2p is very long and probably won't make room for this.
Cheryllion
The art sold me; The box art is fabulous. And at a great price. Hoped it would be more thematic, but it wasn't at all. The cards had nice art on them but it was tiny and it had nothing important to do with the game. It's basically just a racing game. You are trying to be the first to get to the top of a board or to fill your board with cards by doing the same thing over and over and over. So it got a little tedious after a while. For example, one of the things you have to strive for is getting three of the same card in a row. And the way the cards are divided up is by A, B, C, D... Such a shame! A missed opportunity to include some theme. Like instead of A it could have been ancient artifacts. Instead of B it could have been robots. I don't know. Something that gets you a little excited and makes you remember that you're supposedly on Mars. I wanted to love this game, but I definitely have better Mars themed games in my collection. Sorry! :(