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Build Mars
October 27, 2003
Build Mars puts you in the shoes (or should that be space boots?) of an expedition to Mars that is attempting to get the red planet ready for human colonization. There are two modes of play: mission or map. I consider the mission mode to be something of a tutorial that can get you ready to play the map mode of the game. In mission mode, you are given tasks that increase in difficulty each time, such as collecting enough water to meet the basic needs of the colonists to raising the oxygen levels in the atmosphere, building research labs and spaceports, and resuing trapped miners. If you pay careful attention to the missions as you go through the game, you’ll find that they give you a very good basic understanding of what you would need to do at each stage in the map-based portion of the game. Trying to terraform and colonize a planet is no easy task, and it requires the careful management of resources and equipment. In the first mission, for example, you have only one drone and one factory. You have to quickly mine the necessary materials to create another drone and a water refinery in order to mine enough water for the approaching colonists. If you don’t mine 100 units of water before the colonists land, you fail the mission. There are 20 missions in all, and six different maps to choose from.
The game is very challenging and certainly requires you to think carefully in order to meet the mission objectives. Since this is a turn-based strategy game, instead of real time, you plan out your moves for each turn, tap the end turn button, and then watch those actions unfold. You can choose to do things such as build drones and refineries, explore fogged-in territory for new resources, mine iron, water, and other resources, and much more. There is no reward for hasty “button mashing” action here, and I like that change of pace. And while all of the various steps and missions may not be completely scientifically accurate, they do provide more background than can make your next sci-fi read all that more interesting, if you happen to like that sort of thing. The Kim Stanley Robinson Mars series has been on my reading list for a very long time, and playing this game has made me all the more eager to read those books.
The only thing to remember with Build Mars is that it is a thinking person’s game, and therefore the focus is on strategy and interesting gameplay more than fancy graphics and sound. That does NOT mean that Build Mars is “ugly” by any stretch of the imagination, but don’t expect to find fancy high resolution graphics and stereo sound. Of course if you have an older Palm OS device, you’ll certainly be glad to know that Build Mars requires only 156K of memory, and will run on Palm OS 3.5 and higher. All in all I’ve really enjoyed playing the game for the last few weeks, and if you have a taste for strategy games, or even if you just want something a little different, then check out Build Mars. A free demo is available, so you have nothing to lose. If you decide you want to purchase the full version, it is available for $15.00. For more information, or to download a demo, please visit the developer’s web site.
PocketGoddess Rating for Build Mars: 
