Terraforming Mars is a sci-fi strategy title based on the board game for iOS and Android

Terraforming Mars originally started life as a board game and was recently digitised for PC. Now it’s made its way over to iOS and Android devices so you can try and help humans prosper on the Red Planet on the go. Elon Musk would be so proud.

The original game was created by a fellow called Jacob Fryxelius and Asmodee Digital are aiming to recreate it as faithfully as possible. It’s not a straight port either, the UI has been redesigned so that it’s optimised for touch screens.

It’s a turn-based strategy game where each turn you’ll place various cards on the board to try and hit several goals. These include achieving a high Terraform rating, building cities and other infrastructure – both of which earn you Victory Points. However, there will be other corporations who will try to slow you down so you can’t achieve these aims.

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They might decide to steer an asteroid into your newly develop forest, for example. It becomes a balance of trying to earn Victory Points but also ensuring that your opponents don’t manage to rack up many themselves.
There are also a few different game modes you can play that have alternate approaches to the ruleset. For instance, you can add the Corporate Era ruleset which adds new cards into the equation. They don’t count towards victory points or help with terraforming but they do provide you with more choices that add more strategic depth to the game.

You’ll be able to play against both AI or with up to 5 other human players in online multiplayer and it also has cross-play which will hopefully make finding a game much easier as there’s a larger pool of platforms to match with.

Terraforming Mars is now available on the App Store and Google Play. It’s a premium title that costs £6.99 on Android and £8.99 on iOS.