Surviving Mars (itch) Mac OS

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This is a game ideally suited for space exploration enthusiasts. The management, scarcity of resources, and first stages of colonization are really inmersive at the beginning of the game, when you only control automated drones and machines. It really feels like taking your first steps on the red planet. Being able to not to depend on Earth's supplies feels important, and there's some fun in getting there.

Between 10 and 30 Sols after the Marsgate trial if you exposed EsoCorp you will be notified that EsoCorp rovers are approaching Mars and gain access to the inexpensive Defense Turret Breakthrough. A few days later the first wave will arrive and EsoCorp rovers will descend all over the map. Surviving Mars is a sci-fi settlement builder all about colonizing Mars and surviving the process. Choose a space agency for resources and financial support before determining a location for your colony. Build domes and infrastructure, research new possibilities and utilize drones to unlock more elaborate ways to shape and expand your settlement.

After that, there's an important stage when you are ready to accept colonists, and they must survive (there's a defeat condition if they die, but only for your first batch of colonists) It's the only event that always happens in every game, and fortunately it's rather short. Some people don't like having a game over condition that seems very easy to trigger.

Then your proceed to the middle game, where you can bring more and more colonists, and create a complicated base trying to include all the buildings, services, etc... The vanilla game has problems getting your colonists to automatically pick the most adequate job, or move to a dome that has enough living space for them instead of living in the streets. I recommend to patch it with an appropiated mod that you can download from Steam Workshop. It feels necessary to me.

Then, there are many different ending events, and all of them being very saucy. Some of them test your ability to mass produce and react to random events. And this is where the vanilla game without DLCs ends. These ending events are rather long, so no complain from me here

Sadly, once they are done, the game stales quite a bit. You can challenge yourself to build more and more domes, but there's little motivation to do so. The Green Planet DLC gives you something to do at this stage to keep your interest in the game, but I felt it wasn't as satisfying as I thought. Even if you complete the terraformation of Mars, there are still many areas in which the grass wouldn't grow until you have played the game for many hours AFTER you have done everything you can do. It's like staining Mars with splotches of green grass.

Lastly, not a complain, but once you have colonists, the game starts to look similar to Cities Skylines, although you have to manage where you want them to work. So instead of managing a big city, you are micromanaging a smaller one, whilst keeping in check many subsystems so your population doesn't die

The in-game radio is great, although it gets repetitive after many hours of playing

Surviving Mars (itch) Mac Os Download

A downloadable game for Windows and macOS

Survive the harsh surface of mars for as long as possible. Made in Unity in 7 Days for the 7 Day FPS Game Jam.

For the best experience, play the post-7DFPS build.

PC version is the best version to play.

Latest Build is 1.0.03

StatusReleased
PlatformsWindows, macOS
Rating
AuthorPhobosLabs
GenreSurvival, Adventure
Tags3D, 7dfps, FPS, Unity

Download

Click download now to get access to the following files:

Development log

  • 1.0.03 - Quality of Life and Polish Update!
    Nov 15, 2018
  • 1.0.02 - Bug Fixes and Tutorial
    Nov 01, 2018

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Hello man! I really like your game. I would love to use it in a classroom setting for students to learn more about space. Please email me to speak more. n6chernin@gmail.com

Surviving Mars (itch) Mac Os Catalina

Wow, this is a really cool game. I've beaten it on the 2nd attempt. I thought it doesn't have any ending, but what a surprise on the 7th day!

In case this will be patched in the future here are the found bugs:
- habitat door likes to close when player near it.
- when electric plug is picked up, mouse doesn't want to move down (pitch under the horison) so it is harder to connect the plug.
- after dying once UI mode didn't change to mouselook mode and I had to restart the game.
- z-fighting on the ground in the canyon.
- violet fog at nights.
- top right electric socket had plug connected in wrong orientation.
- sun shines through the habitat ceiling and dropping a bright line on walls.
- O2 on base gone negative (on screen) after all supplies were exhausted.
- CO2 base filters continued spoiling after O2 gone and player gone to suit supply, but after some time it stopped occurring.
- suit can be refilled endlessly even after base supply becomes 0.
- excessive amount of habitat CO2 filters.
- silly endscreen)))

Interesting game, too bad, once you have died, you need to restart the game because all the buttons are stuck. Or the 'E' or the 'Q' button stay on the screen or you just can't move at all.
Would like to know what is what.
This guy gets too fast hungry and thirsty.
Maybe this game is not meant to play relaxed, but fast. Then this is not my type of game. But overall, looks cool and everything works (for what I know what does what or what is what)

So I can see there is a lot going on here, especially for a game made in such a short period, but there is so little communicated to the player that it's not only difficult to understand what you need to be doing, but how you even go about doing it. A simple control menu would have gone miles to improving the overall feel of the game and mitigated a lot for the frustrations I found from just being dropped in. It's impressive in it's scope for such a quickly made game, but the lack of any information on player control feels like a shot in the foot.

Surviving Mars (itch) Mac OS

Thanks for the feedback! I may do a small update to the game just to add in a controls menu (even though it's outside the 7 day window).

You're 100% right that the game doesn't communicate the controls and goals well enough to properly play the game.

I appreciate you taking the time to check this out!