Only one way to find out.
First of all, though, let's make sure you know what Terraforming Mars IS. I think that I would summarize it as a hand- and resource- management game with some area control mixed in there. You're trying to make Mars habitable by changing it, increasing the planet's oxygen, temperature, and amount of water. Raising these three also raises your Terraforming Rating (TR) which also increases your income. That's good, because you'll need money to play cards and perform the standard actions that will allow you to increase the big three. The cards include a variety of things from strip mining, crashing meteors into the planet, launching nuclear bombs, and growing bacteria. Different actions will also allow you to increase your income and production of plants, energy, heat, steel, and something else.
That's the gist of how you play. But did I like it?
TOTAL PLAYS: 10 solo
COMPONENTS
One of the first things that seems to turn people away from this game is the art style. I get it, Mars is probably a pretty boring place to be with it's muted colours and orange tinge to everything. However, that doesn't make for a very aesthetically pleasing board game. The art on the cards as well is just kind of "bleah" and doesn't grip me at all. The copy I borrowed had a 3D printed cube holder thing-y for the player boards which was super nice as I could imagine bumping those cubes happens ALL the time. That's something I'd like a publisher solution for. As for the cards and components, their quality was all fine. The chits were sturdy, the cubes felt satisfying to pick up, no complaints in that department. 3/5
RULES
The rulebook is surprisingly short for a game with so much going on. It's not short, mind you, just shorter than expected. There is a lot going on here, but the rulebook does a good job of explaining the general sense of how to play and the cards fill in the rest. There is definitely a high dependence on reading in this game because of that. The difficulty of the rules is not necessarily understanding how to play, but remembering the consequences of specific actions. The two pages near the end of the book that show all the symbols is a great review of all the rules and permanently stays open when I play. There were a few rules that still escaped me, especially a few cards involved raising and lowering global requirements. I ended up just playing them how I wanted them to work and hoped that was right. 4/5
GAMEPLAY
This may be sacrilegious to say, but I've only played this game solo. I'm sure it's just as good if not better as a multiplayer game, but (a) we're living in a worldwide pandemic right now and it's hard to get together and (b) I'm a sore loser so I prefer playing solo/cooperative games anyway. That being said, I can't comment on the multiplayer game, although my understanding is that the feel is quite similar to the solo experience.
Wow, the gameplay. There are SO many cards and SO many different ways to win. You could focus on pure income and buy your way to victory. You could make sure that you produce a lot of heat each turn to increase your temperature and then focus your cards on water and oxygen. It really all depends on which cards come up too - you've got to make and change your strategy on the fly to fit with what's available. You could have a lab full of bacteria that increase the oxygen. It's really amazing to me the number of choices you have in this game.
I'm not a scientist, but it seems like the creator of this game really did his research on terraforming Mars. All of the different cards make sense, at least to my uneducated brain. 5/5
REPLAYABILITY
Yes. 5/5
Should I explain more than that? There are 208 different project cards and it usually takes me three games to work my way through the deck. Not actually USING all of those cards, but just having them go through my hand and into the discard pile. Plus, there a bunch of different corporation cards you can use (I've only used the standard ones) that come with their own starting abilities and powers. Every game plays out differently.
FUN
Ok, so slowly altering a planet is not usually my idea of fun. I prefer a katana or shotgun in hand when playing a board game - I love the action! Terraforming a planet is not really my ideal theme, which made it even more surprising when it turned out to be so much fun. I don't really feel immersed in the theme, I mostly don't even read the cards (should I admit that?), I just look for the symbols to know what to increase and then BOOM! I move around a zillion cubes.
What I really like about the game is how many things there are for you to control. Your different resources, the temperature/water/oxygen on the planet, the cards you keep and play, the cards you have in play that give you special abilities, etc. Also, every game is different because the cards you have at your disposal really change your strategy. You can't focus on a lot of greenery if you don't get the right cards. Terraforming Mars is fun - good ol' fashioned, science-y fun! 8/10
TOTAL SCORE: 25/30
There you have it, a Euro game that I've willingly played solo multiple times. Does this mean I'll give up my dice-chucking, deck-building ways? Probably not, but this game has made me think about the kinds of games I will try and being more open to new things. Wherever I go from here, here is one game that has surprised me and will definitely be in my top solo games of the year!
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