Mars Base

Mars Base
N/A
Metacritic
53
Steam
33
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Release date
17 October 2022
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
53 (32 votes)

Welcome to Mars Base, humanity’s foothold on the Red Planet! Join the expedition as an interstellar botanist and make history: turn barren soil into fertile farmland, grow food for colonists’ tables, and unearth the secrets of Mars! Are you ready to science the “crop” out of everything?

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Mars Base system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Microsoft 64-bit Windows 7
  • Processor: 2.0 Ghz
  • Memory: 1 GB RAM
  • Graphics: 256mb Video Memory, capable of OpenGL 2.0+ support
  • Storage: 1 GB available space

Recommended:

Recommended requirements are not yet specified.
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Sparkbomber
Sparkbomber

Unplayable mess

TLDR: unless they majorly fix it, don't bother with this one.

I've had this one on the wishlist for a while and despite the mixed reviews decided to give it a shot. It's got the elements that tickle my fancy: sci-fi, farming, exploration and invention. But unfortunately, whomever coded this must have used their rear to do so. If you have used any other program on your computer? The game won't launch, just stick at 'running' on the in-library page. Restart the comp, launch Steam and the game? Kinda works. But then you come to the suit/character creation and it just freaking crashes to the desktop if you press the wrong button or spend too long in the character editor. Yes, it still has potential, but the technical maladies just tank this one. Refund requested and I urge you not to spend money on it unless it gets majorly fixed.

KagekaNecavi
KagekaNecavi

This game has the potential to be very good. At the moment, though, it is not worth purchasing.

To put it lightly, the game is incredibly unintuitive, almost to the point of being unplayable, and certainly to the point of being not particularly enjoyable.

One of the basic mechanics of this game is planting, and I kept thinking I was doing something wrong when I tried to figure out how to plant. Because I got information about planting from a character in the lab, and at approximately the same time I got a plan for a bio park or something, I assumed that would be where I would plant. But I needed grown crops to make the plastic to make the bio park, so what gives? Turns out I needed to sleep another couple of nights before the farmer showed up to give me the blueprint for the greenhouse, which was where I ended up farming.

Luckily, while I was searching the Steam forum trying to figure out how to get farming, I found out that if you press the Y button, you’re given a whole bunch of stuff, so I ended up getting a pretty good haul of crap to get me started.

When farming you use L to go into the crop menu and press A and D to cycle between crops, then L again to select and either click or use space to plant. But if you press the corresponding number of the crop (1-0) you can’t use A or D to cycle, and if you have selected the crop then A and D will move you. It would be much easier to use scroll or another button to move between the selected crops.

In order to get to your any kind of menu, you have to go into your main menu using either M or Esc, then go into the build or inventory or player menu. There’s an item menu but equipable items are never there.

When you’re assigned quests in order to track them they go under the character that assigned them to you, under the player menu. Unless the quest involves building something, which doesn’t seem to be tracked at all??

Getting into and out of the rover (thanks Y button for giving me a rover, I think) uses the same button as activating your extraction tool, and but the game seems to prioritize using the extractor, so I found myself extracting every time I tried to get into the rover.

When you’ve built a building there’s a little green icon next to it in the build menu, except I kept thinking that was an indication that I had enough stuff to build the building.

birdofglass
birdofglass

More guidance in the beginning to show what is expected, how to find items and other tasks. It sucks it doesn't have that because I get to the point where I'm frustrated and want to give up. Players get stuck between the first to and masses with quest that have no hints where to find anything. Very frustration. This game had potential. They need to update this game to make it player friendly.

Honor
Honor

Game feels unfinished in its current state. Wouldn’t be a problem is it was marked for early access.

Quahyn
Quahyn

Current game version is 1.015
And there is one of the error reports that I saw after a crash:
___________________________________________
###########
ERROR in
action number 1
of Other Event: User Defined 0
for object oWeaponsIcon:

I32 argument is undefined
##########
gml_Script_DropFoodItem (line 1468)
gml_Object_oWeaponsIcon_Other_10 (line 20)
gml_Object_oDungeonHUD_Step_0 (line 15)

Marimba
Marimba

I'm very on the fence about recommending this one. I got some mild enjoyment out of it, and if you'd like a Mars aesthetic for a farming game, maybe buy on sale and check it out. I did have a bit of fun with unlocking new buildings and exploring the different minigames for a few hours.

But after 7 hours in, I am on day 36, and as far as I can tell, my only remaining objective is "keep playing until day 200". I don't think I want to do that, without any hints of anything else to look forward to.

There are some other design choices I especially feel aren't optimal in this type of game:

* Equipment upgrades mostly only mean I run out of energy more slowly, i.e. my reward for advancement is I get to do MORE repetitive chores in a day if I choose to.

* Thoroughly filling out my recipe list actually seems to make me less profit, because complex ones just take more time but don't seem particularly more valuable.

* The dialogue trees feel a little clunky to navigate. Some things are insufficiently explained (like a quest I didn't know was aimed at the park building), sometimes I keep opting out of a quest because I'm trying to make the dialogue display faster and click the decline option, sometimes I feel punished for talking to someone because I get a 5-step set of instructions I can't opt out of.

There are several things I had trouble figuring out how to do. I couldn't find a wiki or forum for the game, not sure if it doesn't exist yet or if "Mars Base" is a little too common a phrase.

Anyway, if you go in with patience, persistence, and not-too-high expectations, you might find it to be a reasonably fun little game.

sarah.lavoie022
sarah.lavoie022

It's a cute little game where you're building your village without being a city builder. You are one of the colonists and you build the colony which is something I like.
It's cute, graphics wise, at least if you like pixel art. I'm not very far in the story as I only played 30 minutes, but I can see myself playing this game a lot.
Two things that kinda bug me. 1. It's played with 2 hands on the keyboard, which irritates me, but I'll get over it. 2. There is no quest menu, or at least not one that I have found yet. For someone like me who has the attention span of a dead goldfish, it's hard to keep track of them. It's not a deal breaker for me, but it's a nice feature to have and one I expected to find.

Edit 1: After a few extra hours of gameplay, I finally found a way to reread my active quests while on the go, not a quest menu per se, but they are listed next to the characters' description but going there is like a whole journey through the different menus, reminds me of when we had to open 10 different folders just to play Solitaire in the '90s.
There's also a few texture glitches where if you plant a "tall" crop like corn or wheat in front of a smaller crop, it blinks on and off when you are near it. Annoying a bit, but easily fixed.
One more con I came across by playing a bit more was that you can't rotate the buildings so you can't really make a street corner, I mean you can but the entrance won't be facing the road and that annoys me to no end.
Doesn't change the fact that I like this game, but I like nitpicking stuff.

L_YXCVBNM
L_YXCVBNM

The game is fun but it is in an unfinished state. It is also full of bugs.

Early access would have been the best. The developers need to make significant improvements.

Not only fix all the bugs but also improve the quality of life.

At this point I can't recommend the game. I hope it improves with the updates.

bugs list in the comments

Wardog
Wardog

A little over an hour into this game so far. I'm finding it intriguing so far with graphics reminiscent of the 16 bit console era. There have been a couple of minor niggles that I've easily worked past nothing unexpected for an indie game IMO.

So far I've taken a look around and found a second area which I won't go into due to spoilers, an area that looks like it'll open up into a dungeon with combat, taken a rocket into space with a minigame taking place in that sequence, built some stuff and started growing some plants in a greenhouse... it's unclear as to whether the latter is Matt Damon style... :S

Zithis
Zithis

I will preface this by saying I got this cause steam said in its like others you played tab that it was like Littlewood, a game I loved and played through multiple times, So I know i'm not judging it fairly on its own merits, but this is how it was presented to me and i feel others that it might present to need to know. Now I haven't completed the game yet, but I can see where the like Littlewood suggestion came from, it has very similar gameplay loop of start a town from nothing, build up your town by using up your energy on daily tasks, slowly unlock more features as time goes on and your town grows. light farming and building while having to use lower materials to upgrade to better ones.

These similarities at least at the moment feel surface level at best, like someone looked at Littlewood and said that was neat, lets do that in space, without any of the heart. The Npcs are soulless cutouts, all of them have like one quest (a few as of yet don't even have quests) and then they just repeat the same 1-2 lines everyday, again unfairly comparing to Littlewood where each npc has a distinct personality, their own wants out of the town, you can hang out with them, flirt with them ect. The town building is equally flat, you can place things however you like and build roads and walls, but you have one road option and one wall option (preface there may be more later and i just have not unlocked them). The little scraps of story are something, but not really compelling thus far.

Its been 3 hours and I don't really feel like I did anything of substance, wake up, talk to new colonist, get new building, place new building, add one new thing to the routine maybe, go to bed, rinse repeat. In and of itself isn't a bad thing, like I said the gameplay loop is very similar to Littlewood, but it lacks the push Littlewood had. You can go up to the NPCs and talk to them everyday, it won't change a thing, they will still just say the same stock phrases. There are only three areas, at least at the 3 hour mark, one of those areas is a really shallow combat dungeon that you press one button and nothing will ever hit you, and one is a big open space that you only go to for like four quests thus far and it just sits there, other then that you are stuck walking around your base. Compare again to the varied locations in Littlewood where you could realistically plan a whole day around going to the forest for trees, or the mines for rare minerals, or town for buying stuff and a fishing trip.

In conclusion, This really feels like it should of been early access, a lot of the basics are there, it just doesn't go much deeper then that. My opinion might shift if i play it more, but right now I have to say i don't feel like its in a state to be worth the price tag I paid of 20 CAD. I say if you are looking for something that you can just turn your brain off and build for a bit, I'd say it will do that, but wait for a sale. If like me you were drawn to it by the like others you played suggestion, I'd say don't get your hopes up and know what you are going into. For me personally If i was talking to my past self, I would have to give it a not recommend, tho i do acknowledge there is something there that could net someone, Just Steam set me up for an expectation it just could not live up to, and that is completely on me.

The Beast
The Beast

Couple of hours into the game now, and here are my first impressions:
It is pixel art, has a variety of mini games and seems slightly different from other typical farm sims/base builders, chef mode reminds me of overcooked. Overall I’m enjoying the chilled nature of the game, the music is very relaxing and I love the pixel art.

khloke
khloke

A rather unique take on the farming sim genre and reminds me of harvest moon, which is a game I truly love so that says something. Love the art style. Gameplay was also good, but would've loved to be able to change the key bindings as I'm used to the WASD+IJKL keyboard-only play for games like this. On my first run I managed to soft-lock myself by using up all the resources needed to move the game forward, but that was no big deal since I was only minutes in. I have not played long enough to comment on the storyline if there is any. I see this as the perfect game to be played on the Switch, so I'm really looking forward to that!

tdubzx
tdubzx

I've been looking forward to this game and first things first, I absolutely love the graphics in this game. It kind of brings back Pokemon type/pixel art graphics but in an outta space setting. I've only put about 30 minutes into this game but I definitely see myself putting more into it. The music has also been a good choice, coming from someone who normally mutes the music in the games I play. I hope there's more different tracks as I progress! I've got a few game play improvement/suggestions which I will list in comments. Seems to be a very self-paced game so I'll definitely be putting hours into it from time to time :)

Hyori
Hyori

This game is fun and I love the retro style graphic design. Been playing for couple of hours and still learning how to build in the game. Hopefully able to shoot some Aliens in Mars.

Bibz741
Bibz741

Hi there! Let me preface this by saying:
If you're looking for a challenging game, this isn't it.

It's a fun relax little game by a single dev and small team. So far I'm just shy of 10 hours played and I'm liking it, The Pixel art graphics are great, the characters although lacking in dialogue have good looking portraits. The Music is great too, looking forward to finding more tracks as the game expands.

The game starts out with little to do but that quickly expands once settlers arrive and add different activities to your routine. What starts out as little more then extracting soil from mars turns to farming, then fishing, then combat, then cooking, and so on.

There are also quite a few bugs but the Dev and his team have been pretty quick to respond and try to patch as much as possible. So I'm looking forward to the future of this game.

TL/DR: Good game, Not hard, quite a few bugs but the Dev is present to address the issues on Discord!

See you in space