Releasing a game called Terraforming Mars so soon after (the recently much-improved) Surviving Mars probably ain’t great for the ol’Google rankings, but in fairness Terraforming got there first. It’s an adaptation of an extremely well-received 2016 cooperative-but-competitive boardgame, retaining all the rules, but removing the need to pollute your home with a thousand pieces of cardboard or the festering presence of other meatbags.

The game’s due later this year, but yesterday a free beta-cum-demo snuck onto Steam, which gives a good sense of what to expect as well as how to play.

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Bits are both the joy and bane of board games. You know, bits – those fiddly counters, miniatures and cubes of plastic, wood or metal (oooh, fancy). On the one hand, the tactile sensation of slamming down a plastic train in Ticket to Ride, cutting off your opponent s train route to their howls of anguish, is one of life s greatest pleasures, and a feeling that s near impossible to replicate in videogames. On the other hand, what a motherclucking pain in the posterior they are. When they re not being eaten by the dog, they re being ricocheted off the walls by a careless dice roll or nudged into oblivion by inebriated players slamming into the table on their way back from the loo. Harold, you absolute numpty, what have you done? Can anyone remember how much wool I have?

Terraforming Mars suffers more from calamity Harolds than most board games. This massively popular strategy game was released in 2016, and it s currently sitting at number five in the BoardGameGeek top 100. Now, it’s coming to PC. (more…)