One thing that seems to be missing from board gaming are single player games, and Tharsis proves they can work, specially in this medium. Very well designed game, it's punishing but with each play you'll learn how to best use your crew and the ship. Each turn is meaningful and will have you thinking through your options and best course of action.

The game could do with some graphics optimization. I get big FPS drops on the main menu and during cutscenes, which is odd for such a simple game. During gameplay it works great, so it's not such a big issue.

If you're looking for quick but intense play sessions and a game whose mechanics will provide tons of replay value on their own this game is for you.

"Its the journey, not the destination that matters" -Said someone sometime

This is a dice game with a Random Number Generator at its core. I want to stress the word RANDOM. That means you will lose and lose a lot because the game randomly decided to make you lose. The same as when you roll dice in real life and they land however they land. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

If you do not like to lose, then do not buy this game. Your crew will die, your ship will explode, and you will lose the game because of a completely random bad roll of the dice and it will happen often.

Ok, if you are still interested, then the game does have other elements to it besides random dice rolls. You can use research cards with special abilities that help. Each module on the ship has a special ability that can be activated, and there are random events that occur in between turns that have choices that can help and hinder you. Your crew also have a different special ability each.

There is a easy and quick tutorial, gameplay is pretty straight forward and does not vary much throughout the game. You will get random events that you need to roll dice to resolve. These events themselves can be many different random things, but besides the random hazards, they all are resolved the same way by rolling dice. Hazards can be putting your dice in "stasis", "voiding" your dice, and causing injury to your crew if you roll the number associated with the hazard.

The dice themselves represent your crew members "energy". They can eat food or use abilites or cards (research) to get more dice. With no dice (energy) the crew will not be able to fix the ship. The ship itself has a health bar as well and when it takes too much damage from events not being fixed it will fall apart and its game over. Another mechanic that comes into play is crew stress levels. The higher the stress, the crazier the crew member gets and possibly worse consequences will follow if they do not destress.



I tried to cover as much as possible. Overall I find the game to be interesting and fun. It does get somewhat repetitive after playing it for a bit, but I am still having fun playing a round or two every once in a while. I am also excited to see what the developers will offer for DLC and patches.

Its fun and I would recommend the game to anyone who loves to play dice. I also like the space theme too so that helps some. Good game for the price in my opinion. Good Luck!!

I adore it! I think it's a really good game.

It is quite challenging, but I came to appreciate it. By now I even continuously randomise my crew. You will fail often! After a while you get the hang of it. Still, there will be plenty of missions where everything seems to be going just fine and then within 1-2 moves you will see your ship destroyed and your crew annihilated. Sometimes it’s just a game of luck, but you can find strategies that narrow down the probabilities.

Pros:
- Great graphics!
- Well thought out gameplay
- Nice character skills
- Great story
- The factor of randomness
- Space survival theme

Cons:
- It’s tough!! It will depress you sometimes ;)

Tharsis is a great example of how to get a lot of game out of a little but very good idea.

Reviewers were too harsh on this game - yes, it's hard; punishing, even. But that makes victory all the sweeter, and victory is certainly possible. Also, with the addition of the missions/scenarios, there are some easier game-modes for newbies who feel the main game is unfairly difficult.

The game is hard, but it's much more managable when you realise that what you have to do is not necessarily to fix everything, but to mitigate the damage as best you can, while keeping your margins thick enough to deal with new problems, which will occur. There is of course a large element of chance but good manegement can mostly neautralise bad rolls... but not always, and that's fine, because space is difficult - not every emergency is solvable!

The game looks great, sounds great, and the mechanics are very neat. There's a lot of depth here because each character and each room has its own ability. With the addition of the damamge events, the player actually has a lot of coice re. what they are to do next. And of course there is no one path to victory.

If you like roguelikes, FTL, and space in general - and don't mind a challenge - then go for this game.

In my opinion a real gem.
An unforgiving dice game where the odds are against you.
A tale of brutal survival in space.
I won 3 out of something like 300 games.
The rules have a fairly steep learning curve. It takes knowing them all to succesfully launch a good strategy, but It's all worth it. Considering each game takes up to 10 turns (often less) it's pretty amazing that I've logged in 20 hrs and keep playing.

The developer is actively working and updating the game. The last couple of updates made some positive changes but even in the early stages this felt like a complete game.

If you enjoy making tough decisions and taking calculated risks this game is for you.

For a punishingly difficult game with events that make you want to tear your hair out, this is pretty fun. The fun comes in deciding how to best use what you roll and how to try to overcome the challenges with your limited resources...

It's kinda like Yahtzee... Only people die.

Its like Dark Souls and FTL had two babies,
but one baby ate the other for two dice.

10/10 (No babies were harmed in the writing of this review.)

A challenging and fun game. Make a mistake, you lose. Play every situation perfectly, still may lose. The game is pitting you up against a seemingly no-win situation. Trial and error and more errors give you the experience to perform better, but then something crazy gets thrown in and you still may not win. Research and decreased stress are my keys to hopeful success.

I think I've finally found a game to cure my FTL addiction.

Tough as nails with surprisingly deep core gameplay mechanics considering the RNG nature.

I absolutely love it.

6+6+6+6+6+1 out of 10

Would die horribly in deep space again and again.

At first, I didn't really like the game. But, (mostly because I could not refund it :p) after 6 months or so I decided to run it again and it had some replay value. Plus they just added another patch full of content.