This is an okay game and depending on the price point, it might be the game for you, but while I got some play out of it, it wasn't really fun.

One of the core mechanisms is a kind of unseen card builder mechanic ... where every turn you get a choice of a set number of random technologies that, as you level up your career, you can expand (which actually makes the game harder as basic staples get mixed in with the new stuff, so seemingly become more rare). It's not a system I really like, that one 'year' you might be given access to a greenhouse but next 'year' you suddenly can't build a greenhouse if you didn't pick that 'card' last year.

Each biological type (microbe, plant, animal) can only be deployed once per zone and it doesn't seem to spread on its own (so microbes know where borders are and don't transgress them).

The one thing it does nail well is resource scarcity ... you'll likely be running 'lean' most of the game just to get by and will want to have more of everything ... more power, more transportation hubs, more slots.

The gameplay is based around static images that are sometimes augmented with a few moving parts, but there are no 3D models in the game so looking at each area will be a set viewpoint of every building. It's an aesthetic that can work, but should be noted in a review.

Big events, like Mars declaring independence, were handled in a couple of text boxes with no real fanfare or lasting reprocussions.

Overall I can best compare it to Surviving Mars that felt much more engaging with random events and an overall arc of a particular playthrough, while Terraformers felt more managerial and spreadsheet optimization.

A nice mixture of a 'Civilization-like' play loop with some elements of a card game. You basically have to adapt your strategy to the card(s) you get each turn, and the goal is to develop a promising colony on Mars. I liked that playthroughs are relatively short and that you have different victory modes depending on the kind of scenario you are playing. This allows for quick decisions that keep turns short, so you can squeeze some play time even if you are on a tight schedule.

I want to love this game... But it feels unreasonably punishing. There is a game clock on every game where your support will start increasing by unreasonable amounts, every other turn, after turn 50. You absolutely have to win the game before turn 65 or you will fail the scenario, every time.

I've played the game on lower difficulty, but those games are trivially easy. The game has a bunch of different difficulty levels but in reality there are 2. Easy and Why Bother.

I'll spend my time playing something else. I've sunk hours into other deckbuilders, but Terraformers feels unfair at any reasonable difficulty. It feels like this game is pointing and laughing at you as it gives you no power cards for 10 turns.