Occupy Mars: The Game

by Aethyna Jun 14, 2023 | 1 Votes | 95 Played | 0 Reviews

8 rate

Genres:

Simulation , Adventure

Graphics:

Labels:

Sandbox Game , Open World , Management , Adventure , Survival , Exploration , Space Games

Platforms:

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PlayWay S.A. Occupy Mars: The Game is a Martian survival simulator that puts you into the shoes of a colonist who was separated from the others when the base you were all in blew up. Tap into your knowledge and resourcefulness as you try to survive the harsh Martian environment and climate by setting up a base to call your own. Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Graphics/ Sound Conclusion Disclaimer: Occupy Mars: The Game is currently in early access and hence, this is simply a first impression, EA review of the game. We’ll definitely be updating our review once the game is officially launched to include all the changes that have been introduced.

Summary

Occupy Mars: The Game is a Mars survival simulator that puts you into the shoes of a Mars colonist separated from the others when the base you were all in blew up. Tap into your knowledge and resourcefulness as you try to survive the harsh Martian environment and climate by setting up a base to call your own.

Plotline

Featured only in the campaign, Occupy Mars: The Game puts you into the shoes of a new colonist, an electrical engineer, who was sent to Mars to work at the Martian base there. However, your training was cut short when a failed rocket launch fell back onto its launch pad, causing a massive explosion that wrecked the base you’re in nearby.

In the chaos that ensued, the only escape rocket on the base left the planet without, but thankfully, you’ve managed to get yourself into an escape pod and launch yourself into space. Unfortunately, the pod failed to reach orbit and reentered Mars’s atmosphere – you found yourself back on the surface of the red planet in the middle of nowhere completely alone.

Luckily, the escape pod comes with some resources that are enough to get you started and so you go about making the most of the time you have to set up a rudimentary base and various infrastructure that will ensure your needs will all be met.

Gameplay

To start, you’ll need to first create your character. There’s a range of customization options you can choose from for your avatar, along with a palette of colors and designs for your spacesuit. Note that although you can choose the age of your colonist, it doesn’t really impact the game – For instance, the stamina you have as a young colonist is the same as an old one.

Occupy Mars: The Game also comes in two game modes, namely the campaign and the free play mode, and a tutorial. Although you’d technically want to start with the tutorial, the game will nudge you towards starting a new campaign game instead due to the story intro that goes with it. Oh, and you can choose to play the game in first-person or third-person mode too! It’s easy enough to switch between the two as needed.

As with any survival game, you’ll be instructed to set up all the infrastructure you’ll need to survive the bitter cold nights on Mars as well as to produce all the essentials you’ll eventually run out of once you’ve exhausted your starter supply from the escape pod. This includes setting up a well in a place with some underground ice to tap into (make sure to use your scanner!), some solar panels, and of course, your workshop just so you can start planting some potatoes – Matt Damon’s The Martian reference, anyone?

The workshop isn’t unlocked right from the start though. You’ll need to first perform relevant activities to earn research points that are allocated to each category or branch in the tech tree, namely Botany, Electricity, Materials, and Mechanics, like growing crops and building structures. There’s another new branch on the tree called Chemistry, but it’s still under construction and is something that players can definitely look forward in future updates.

Now, setting up a base is the main highlight of the game (for now) since there’s really no missions or objectives in this game, even in its campaign mode. However, the game doesn’t really hold your hand here, and you’re expected to figure out how to get even the necessities up and running, such as electricity and water. Some common sense, along with plenty of patience when it comes to trial and errors, can be helpful here as well.

On your tablet, there’s a Knowledge database that’s supposed to explain how things work in the game, but it’s not doing such a good job of it. It offers more of a general explanation of how something work, rather than how you could set that thing up yourself. A more detailed step-by-step would definitely been a lot helpful here.

The same goes for the tools you’ll have access to in this game. Besides the grinder and the blowtorch, you’ll have to figure out how certain tools work and what they can b useful for. For example, right from the start, you might want to check the scanner just so you can locate a place with some water for you to tap into. Once you’ve got your rudimentary base up and running, you can also use your scanner to scan seemingly innocuous rocks in hopes of finding precious minerals in them, which you can then mine, process, and use.

Exploration is also a huge part of the gameplay, allowing you to explore the vast expanse of the red planet, not only in search of minerals, but also of various abandoned outposts for precious materials. Occasionally, you may even stumble upon some interesting points-of-interest like a dusty red convertible which may bring to mind the red Tesla Elon Musk shot out into space, or the gorgeous aurora that is splashed across the skies when the conditions are just right.

The game makes exploration easier with the introduction of vehicles that you can build and use, somewhere mid-game. However, since Mars is still supposed to be rather barren, there’s really just so much you can see.

Mars doesn’t exactly have the most hospitable of environments either, with it kicking up dust devils, some of which can be devastatingly huge, or having freezing temperatures at night. If you’re unlucky, your base might be visited by meteor showers that could just lay waste to what you’ve built.

At the moment, although Occupy Mars: The Game has some fun base-building features and challenges to go along with them, there’s nothing much to do once you have everything up and running, especially once you’ve unlocked the entire tech tree. There’s no final mission or goal besides to survive, even for the campaign where you could supposedly attempt to communicate your presence to your fellow colonists who escaped the destruction of the old Martian base. I mean, surely, they are in a spaceship that’s safely orbiting around Mars, right?

It'd be nice to have some decoration options to spruce up the interior (and maybe exterior) of our bases as well.

Graphics/ Sound

The graphics in this game are pretty good for a survival simulator, albeit looking somewhat old-school in some places. As an early access title though, there are bound to be some graphical bugs here and there such as having your rover sometimes clipping through the terrain. They aren’t exactly game-breaking but they do break the game’s immersion.

In terms of sound, the game features a selection of soundtracks that play in the background as you go about base-building and exploring. There are also sound effects that help to indicate danger or to add sound to what you’re currently doing, be it scrapping items or blowtorching a new structure.

Conclusion

All in all, Occupy Mars: the Game shows a lot of potential as a challenging Martian survival simulator with a fun base-building aspect and progression. As an early access title, the game is still a work in progress and as such, they have plenty more technologies and buildings to add to the game, further adding longevity to the game. Of course, there are also glitches to fix and some aspects to polish up a bit. The playtime the game can offer makes its asking price worthwhile too!

So, if you’re into a no-hand-holding and somewhat realistic, Martian survival simulator where you can set up your own base, you might want to check out Occupy Mars: the Game!

New Game Added: Occupy Mars: The Game

by Aethyna Jun 14, 2023

Occupy Mars: The Game is a Martian survival simulator that puts you into the shoes of a colonist who was separated from the others when the base you were all in blew up. Tap into your knowledge and resourcefulness as you try to survive the harsh Martian environment and climate by setting up a base to call your own.