Terraforming Mars can now be played alone thanks to its new solo game expansion
Alongside fan-designed cards.
A new expansion for Terraforming Mars, the board game about planetary migration, will enable players to experience it alone.
Terraforming Mars is a space board game that sees up to five players attempting to build their own civilisation on the red planet. As rival companies, players will be competing to collect their own victory points, whilst also cooperatively altering Mars’ atmosphere, temperature and environment to make it suitable for humans. Each business has its own unique ability that players can use in conjunction with the cards they draft throughout the game. As long as players have the money and resources, they’ll be able to complete projects that will gain them more points.
Throughout the game, players can improve their resources systems so that they will receive more of them at the end of every round. The more resources players have, the more they’ll be able to do during their turn – including contributing towards terraforming mars. Whichever player has the most points by the end of the game is the winner.
Terraforming Mars Automa is an upcoming board game expansion that allows players to experience the board game without other players needing to be present. Designed by David Turczi – who has created solo game modes for various tabletop titles including Kanban EV and Teotihuacan: City of Gods – and Nick Shaw, Automa attempts to simulate a Terraforming Mars game with a real opponent by using an artificial intelligence system.
The expansion features various boards, automa corporation cards and bonus cards to offer different options for the kind of AI opponent they want to compete against. Throughout the game, players will be placing components and playing cards to simulate the opponent’s actions, with each one providing players with a unique challenge. The AI opponent is also designed to be compatible with the other expansions released for Terraforming Mars.
These expansions will soon also include Prelude 2 – a collection of new corporation cards, project cards and prelude cards for players to introduce into their games of Terraforming Mars. According to the expansion’s publishers, Fryxgames and Stronghold Games, the companies worked with fans for part of Prelude 2’s content.
A crowdfunding campaign for Terraforming Mars Automa and Prelude 2 is currently live on Kickstarter, with players able to get both expansions for a pledge of $35 (£28): which are set to arrive in July 2024.