Skip to content
Login / Register
Menu
Kickstarter – Gamefound
Board Games
Strategy
Family and Children
Party
Adult
Thematic
Ελληνικα Παιχνιδια
LCG
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Marvel Champions: The Card Game
The Lord of The Rings: The Card Game
RPGs
D & D
Pathfinder
Gamebooks
Others
Accessories
Game Mats
Bags
Dice
Sleeves
Sapphire Sleeves
Paladin Sleeves
Other
Novels – Books
Plunder boxes
Marvel: Crisis Protocol
Search for:
Home
/
Shop
/
Board Games
/
Strategy
Add to Wishlist
On Mars
90m - 150m
1 - 4 Players
Ages 14+
Hand management games are games with cards in them that reward players for playing the cards in certain sequences or groups. The optimal sequence/grouping may vary, depending on board position, cards held and cards played by opponents. Managing your hand means gaining the most value out of available cards under given circumstances. Cards often have multiple uses in the game, further obfuscating an "optimal" sequence.
Hand Management
This mechanic usually requires players to pick up an item or good at one location on the playing board and bring it to another location on the playing board. Initial placement of the item can be either predetermined or random. The delivery of the good usually gives the player money to do more actions with. In most cases, there is a game rule or another mechanic that determines where the item needs to go.
Pick-up and Deliver
Tile Placement games feature placing a piece to score VPs, with the amount often based on adjacent pieces or pieces in the same group/cluster, and keying off non-spatial properties like color, "feature completion", cluster size etc.
Tile Placement
Variable Phase Order implies that turns may not be played the same way as before and/or after.
Variable Phase Order
142.00
€
30 day low:
Out of stock
Search for:
Kickstarter – Gamefound
Board Games
Strategy
Family and Children
Party
Adult
Thematic
Ελληνικα Παιχνιδια
LCG
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Marvel Champions: The Card Game
The Lord of The Rings: The Card Game
RPGs
D & D
Pathfinder
Gamebooks
Others
Accessories
Game Mats
Bags
Dice
Sleeves
Sapphire Sleeves
Paladin Sleeves
Other
Novels – Books
Plunder boxes
Marvel: Crisis Protocol
Login
Cart
Your cart is empty!
Return to shop
Skip to content
Open toolbar
Accessibility Tools
Accessibility Tools
Increase Text
Increase Text
Decrease Text
Decrease Text
Grayscale
Grayscale
High Contrast
High Contrast
Negative Contrast
Negative Contrast
Light Background
Light Background
Links Underline
Links Underline
Readable Font
Readable Font
Reset
Reset
alessanbgg
Exceptional! Although heavy and complicated all rules bond masterfully and it never feels punishing, random or unbalanced! Board gaming at its finest! Instant hit in our playgroup.....Kudos to Mr Lacerda...
4Corners
Own the [boardgame=278241]Alien Invasion[/boardgame], the [boardgame=296981]Upgrade pack[/boardgame]. and the [boardgame=278431]Beacon promo card[/boardgame].
Abdul
Expansive and sprawling yet focused. Complex and intuitive at the same time. On Mars is the game that has finally made me a believer in the cult of Lacerda. I found his previous games so byzantine that the process of scoring points effectively was obfuscated behind all the complicated, intertwined mechanisms, and that it took at least a couple of games to learn how to jump through the hoops. On Mars in comparison, is refreshingly straight forward. All your major scoring options are directly tied to building up infrastructure on Mars, whether it's collecting blueprints and scientists to use for advanced structures, or constructing buildings that are required to advance the quality of life for your fellow Martians. The excellent thematic integration gives you direction, and I always felt like I knew what to do next. This is Lacerda's most interactive game yet. There are a lot of mechanisms in place for you and your competitors to mutually benefit each other, and it becomes greatly important to take advantage of these opportunities or deny them. It is definitely not a game where you can succeed by sitting back and running your engine in isolation, if you are not reacting and adapting to what others are doing, you will either be missing out on valuable bonuses or inadvertently be feeding points to others. Some ideas I haven't seen in other games are using another player's technologies or your scientist on another player's blueprint to give free bonus actions to both players. The heavily player-driven gameplay is what makes On Mars stand out compared to his other games, and is what will keep me coming back for more. There is a little setup variance, but each play I have had has felt quite different, more because of the influence of the players and the narrative they constructed. While On Mars is relatively easy to learn, the rules are still an absolute beast to tackle. Expect to spend at least 30 minutes on the teach and still leave out some details. Iconography is decent, but sadly the reference book is still required as there are a lot of cards with unique boost effects that have no indication of the benefit on the card. Juggling back and forth between orbit and the surface is very interesting and dynamic in the early game, but as the game progresses, players are more likely to stay put on Mars. This can be quite punitive, as there is no effective way to change turn-order without wasting turns and resources, and actually impossible if the player in first position never moves off it. This is fast becoming my favourite Lacerda. An excellent game that I would happily play anytime (but preferably not teach).