Terraforming Mars started out as a physical board game and recently got a digital version for PC. Now, it has also made its way over to Google Play and the App Store, allowing you to help humanity prosper on Mars anywhere, anytime you want with your Android/iOS device.
This mobile version comes as a courtesy of Asmodee Digital, whose name you might find familiar as it has been responsible for many other digital board game releases in the past such as Zombicide or Gloomhaven. As always, the studio strives to recreate as faithful of an experience as possible, but the user interface has been redesigned to better fit the touchscreen.
In terms of the gameplay, Terraforming Mars is a turn-based strategy game where you place down several cards on the field every turn to achieve certain goals. These can range from getting a high Terraform rating to constructing infrastructures, and upon completing any of those things, you’ll get Victory Points. However, there will also be other corporations that will attempt to prevent you from achieving these goals. For example, they might put an asteroid into your new forest to destroy it.
Of course, you can do the same to them as well, so essentially the entire game boils down to finding a balance between trying to get Victory Points for yourself while at the same time hinder your opponents.
The game also offers several different modes with some alternate rulesets. For instance, the Corporate Era ruleset adds some new cards. While these don’t help with the terraforming or contribute to your Victory Points, they do offer more choices and thus more strategic depths.
You can choose against AI or up to 5 other players via online multiplayer and the game also supports cross-platform plays.
Terraforming Mars is currently up on both Google Play and the App Store as a premium app priced at £6.99 (Rs 650) and £8.99 (Rs 850) respectively.