@nofillerplease 3d ago

Hot Take: Terraforming Mars Is a Bad Game Carried by Theme

Terraforming Mars is a 6/10 game with a 10/10 theme doing incredible carry work.

The good: Amazing theme. Staggering card variety. Real sense of accomplishment.

The bad: Base game card draw is pure luck. Player boards are a crime. 2+ hours with 4 players and 30 minutes is just people doing math.

People rate this a 10 because they love the IDEA of the game, not the actual mechanical experience. Come at me.

1,678 views · 6 replies

Replies (6)

@cardboardAddict 3d ago

Mediocre ENGINE, incredible THEME. The card combo dopamine is real but player interaction is nonexistent.

@eurogamer_anna 3d ago

Strong disagree. The drafting variant fixes randomness and the player interaction comes from tile placement timing.

@ameritrash_mike 2d ago

Based take. Ark Nova does everything TfM does but better and with zoo animals.

@heavyCardboard 2d ago

TfM is comfort food gaming. Not the best at anything but the whole package is satisfying.

@midweightMaven 1d ago

The real hot take: the production quality is genuinely embarrassing. Those player boards are the flimsiest things ever.

@nofillerplease 1d ago

I'll concede with drafting and Prelude it's significantly better. But base game out of the box? I stand by it.

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