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maybe by playing animation that takes big enough space on the center of the screen?
or like player's turn indicator.
Also, add similar indicator when global parameters are completed and tell player that this is last generation
Just like when you pass turn without taking any actions
might be better if the value was changed after the animation is done
the substraction is good, the value was substracted right the moment substraction animation plays
it's more logical like physical reources
"Place your ocean here" indicator is hard to notice
that would makes player's focus back to game faster
I like to read what cards are played previously, maybe it can use the card images as background
Also I cannot click on used action card log, sometimes I need it to jog my memory
But you've already addressed this on steam news. Great!
When I open Card Resources and then I click on Actions, I need to click it twice for closing and open
I think it's better to do so in 1 click
Or you can end turn automatically
That would makes me feel "on control" though it's only tutorial
It should be the other way around, like putting tiles/selecting cards first then asks for confirmation
Keep it up Devs! :D
There were times when I wanted to back up the tutorial to check something I might have missed, but there's no back button.
The arrow is kind of hard to see and I found myself constantly looking all over the screen for it, maybe it should be blinking.
When the player board was being explained it would have helped a lot if there was a flashing highlight over the exact parts the tutorial was referring to, it was a little vague to me which elements of the board were being referred to.
After explaining the megacredits, I was waiting for an explanation of the rest of the icons since we were on the subject of the player board. The Steel and Titanium were a mystery through most of the tutorial and it could have been made clear at that point that those two resources would help with the purchase of cards throughout the game.
When energy reserve is turned to heat is explained, a flashing highlight over the appropriate icons so I could know where they are.
"Are you sure you want to buy these project cards?" is asked when no project cards are being bought.
Milestones and Awards are very important but easily forgotten up there, it would be nice if there were an icon strip along the top of the screen showing us the status/availability so we can easily see what's still available and don't have to keep opening and closing those menus.
Tooltips please.
Overall, a nice job though. Can't wait to play the full game.
Twitchy camera: I didn't like that mars often seems to twitch around and go out of focus and back in all game randomly. I would prefer the board to remain static. The waves running through the board map that include land locations is confusing in its existence for a game of this theme but does look cool-ish.
I have played over 100 games of Terraforming mars over the last 6 months and consider myself an expert. The tutorial was slow to make it through all the talking points and didn't do anything to reinforce understanding after some information was given to the player. I liked that after an ocean tile was placed the player is forced to drop a greenery next to it and get the placement 2 MC bonus. That is good reinforcement on something already done. But not allowing the player to use resources as discounts on cards you are forcing them to buy AFTER explaining how titanium and steel can be used is a missed opportunity to reinforce understanding.
Rules violations:
1) KNOWN ISSUE: this was listed as known in the notes but I will recap it here for completeness. In generation 1 the AI opponent played the card “black polar dust” and in generation 3 one of my card purchasing options was “black polar dust” but that card should not have been in the deck as an option anymore. This happened with other cards during the game too. Permafrost extraction was in my generation 2 options and the AI played it in generation 8 once temperature reached the requirement. Noctis city was played by my opponent in generation 10 but was in my generation 9 hand options. In a separate tutorial instance, the AI played regolith eaters in the first generation and had this blue active card available the whole game and yet that same card appeared in my late game purchasing options while it was already in use on the table.
2) The AI played noctis city in both tutorials I ran through and neither time did the city get placed on the reserved spot and was instead placed anywhere. It also appeared that research outpost could be placed anywhere rather than next to no other tiles. Protected valley did not put the greenery on an ocean reserved tile but instead went next to other tiles the AI controlled.
3) The tutorial AI continued to use heat conversion after the temperature was maxed. Minor issue but it did allow me to win thermalist without really earning it.
4) The game was setup for a standard game with all production values starting at 1 but there were corporate era tagged cards appearing in the buy options. Those should be removed when playing the standard simple game mode. One of these cards (tardigrades) was even a forced buy/use by the tutorial in an understandable attempt to show off active action cards.
5) The game allows you to click to spend titanium after explaining how it can be used to reduce the cost of space cards. The problem is when you click to confirm spending 0 credits and 4 titanium to buy solar wind power, it takes away 11 money and leaves the titanium intact+ adds the bonus from buying the card. The point of that step was so new players could learn how that process works and it doesn’t function.
6) After learning how to use cost reduction resources in the tutorial the player is forced to buy space mirrors but the button to use titanium towards the cost doesn’t function at all. This is a good opportunity for reinforcing the point to a new player and should even have a “are you sure you don’t want to use titanium instead of MC” prompt if the player attempts to spend their megacredit budget on this card.
7) There seems to be some interesting changes in the player’s credit supply during the tutorial. If the tutorial wants to arbitrarily increase or decrease the credit pool, add a message explaining to the player that this is by design to allow teaching and wouldn’t happen in a normal game. In generation 3, the credit pool jumps from 39 to 66. This comes right before buying a city, an aquifer, and a greenery so is likely an intentionally convenient addition error. Later in the tutorial the player is forced to pass several turns buying minimal projects or nothing at all. My player had 96 credits during generation 8. In the middle of that generation, the credit count suddenly and inexplicably drops to 13! This is likely to confuse a new player who is wondering where all this money disappeared to.
Rules clarity:
City placement rules say “Cities can be placed anywhere on Mars” but this is not true. They cannot be placed on tiles reserved for oceans or the noctis city reserved space (unless using the noctis city card).
Change the city victory point conditions statement to say “At the end of the game, each city tile you own will gain you one victory point per adjacent greenery tile.” This is an attempt to avoid confusion about how a greenery next to multiple cities will be scored. It will be counted when scoring each city allowing it to be counted more than once.
Oceans placement rules in the tutorial say “oceans can be placed on any designated spot on mars.” But this does not explain to a new player that these are ocean reserved spots designated with the blue coloration and does not clarify that the mons specially named tiles
(used with Lava Flows) and the noctis city designated spot are not included in this rule.
The description of how awards give victory points suggests that in the 2 player tutorial funding an award will give 2 points to the other player if you win the 5. A note should be made there is only 5 points for the winner when playing a 2-player game. It should also be noted that ties for an award are friendly and both players get the full 5 point bonus. The game scored them correctly but didn't describe them quite clearly enough.
Rules OMITed:
While awards were discussed and the menu was shown, no where did it warn a player that their cost increases from 8 to 14 to 20 each time one is purchased. This is only a little bit of information but a new player will be blindsided that they need to fund an award first if they want to save money.
Bonus steps on the parameter progress tracks were completely ignored in the tutorial text despite functioning during the game itself. These are an important thing for new players to be aware of and attempt to achieve.
Special tiles that can be placed because of card text were not mentioned. Most cards explain where they can go but some explanation to a new player that these tiles can go anywhere not reserved for ocean/noctis unless the card text restricts the placement would be helpful to a new player.
I might be mistaken, but I don't recall the player order phase being discussed other than a player figuring it out that the top and bottom player in the bar keep switching each generation. This might be more critical for someone who is planning to play more than 2 player games so they can see how and when the first player order shifts.
Nothing was mentioned about the different starting setups for a game such as the corporate era, draft enabled options, and solo mode. These might not be needed for the first tutorial game runthrough but would be nice add-ons at the end of the match so players can know what those features are before they move onto the full game.
I took screenshots of all the descriptions that could use an update in wording or grammar. I don't see a good way to include those while making sure I don't violate terms of use for the beta by uploading them to 3rd party sources. These are in the order they came up in the tutorial messages.
Game ends description: I propose this message changes to “The game ends after all players have passed their turn in a generation if all three global parameters (temperature, oxygen, and ocean) are maxed.” It is important for new players to know that the game does not grind to a halt the moment the final parameter reaches max. They can continue that generation to its natural conclusion.
Period inconsistency: Add or remove a period to make formatting universal. Many messages and instructions to perform an action have period or no period seemingly at random but this is particularly important when in the same windowed message and one bullet point has a period and the other doesn't.
Unnecessary comma: there is no need for a comma before the word or in the final sentence about terraform rating.
Unnecessary comma 2: Some change needs made here to clarify the part about standard projects always being available. I think removing the first comma would be the best bet overall. Alternatively inserting the word they between but and can should also work. "using cards, but they can be used at any time, without limit"
Extra period: remove the extra period between production and by in the part about selecting a city project and what effect placing a city has.
Problems with the city placement rules: Delete the word one so that the back half of the sentence now reads “no two cities can be placed next to each other.”
Oceans: remove the s from oceans in the second sentence so it reads “Ocean tiles are not owned by a player once placed.”
Be it yourself: “This is mandatory: you must reduce someone’s production, even if it is your own.” I think this wording works a bit better than the original.
Milestones: Remove the s on milestones and avoid a gender pronoun in the final sentence. Instead of “each milestones he claimed” it should read “for each milestone that player claimed”.
In the end I finished with 88 to 71 beating the tutorial AI despite being at a huge deficit in the final 2 rounds of the game when I was finally allowed to play with most of the terraforming already done. It was a bit strange to finally give control when playing project cards matters very little. I snuck in some of the bonus steps on the terraforming track by using 2 actions in a row to boost the same track. I only purchased cards that could be bought entirely with steel and titanium reserves and put the rest of the money into cities, milestones, and awards. I scored a full 30 just in milestones/awards with 6/11 from greenery/city and 5 VP on cards.
For the UI, I agree about wanting a notice for outstanding blue actions. Also, I think there should be a place to more easily compare players' tags and production for milestones and awards. It was alright here in two player, but I'm sure a full set of 5 would make it cumbersome to navigate, plus it seemed you had to always close out of the awards to switch and look at the other player. Finally, at least in games against the AI, there should be an undo button for the current turn, especially after having my finger slip placing a city, perhaps a confirmation box for some actions too?
First and foremost I have to say I own a physical copy and love this game. I play this game atleast 1-2 times a week. I own a pimped out copy with trays and all expansions.
here are my pros and cons
Lets start with cons
-Art style needs work examples on how to improve
- on bottom right where there is an oxygen icon make it red and match art in game.
- on player turn you should increase the size of the active player icon so it is easier to see
- Change the graphic of the ocean please it needs work.
- Make tile ownership easier to see.
- increase the icon size on the map
- Add the terraforming track so people can see it throughtout the game.
- The icon for tempeture and greenery about your cube inventory could be a bit bigger
-The overal Ui need work
- standard projects are hidden and new players might not use them.
-cards that have actions on them are not easy to remember.
- How am I suppost to remember if it is out of sight
-the tutorial is awful and sucks.
-not fun
-no freedom to learn and explore options
- consider making an audio healper or video tutorials
- maybe a more interactive tutorial would work.
- after completing initial tutorial create an advance tutorial with more freedom of choices including corporation.
- game pacing feels off.
-please make this game able to use fan made addons.
- I would love to try other peoples created cor♥♥♥♥♥tions,maps,cards
- Increases replayibility and overall enjoyement of the game
- added bonus creates a steam comunitydedicated to this like civilization.
- Consider adding house rules as optional selections. there are lots but some could be nice.
-please ad solo mode(s), challenge mode, anbd different types of solo play
- The bonus for the oxygen tile(to increase temp) did not work
Pros
-it is terraforming mars!!
-great game with alot of potential despite its many digital flaws
-Mars Is pretty and i love that grafic
-same with greenery tiles
-consider adding slight variations in similar tiles.
-gameplay seems good.
-nice music
-add more music
-maybe more sounds
I can think of more pros and cons but it is late and i might make a part 2
(if this helps the devs make terraforimg mars better then I am happy!!)
(feel free to give me a copy /wink)
Overall impression: Very nice. Pretty good interface, nice graphics.
Encountered the following issues and wishlist items:
Please add more highlight (and maybe an animation) to the arrow used to indicate where the tutorial user should look and/or click.
Would be very nice if clicking on a Project Card in the Game Log would bring up the Project Card view with all details on the right side of the display.
Would be nice to show the current number of resources on a card when viewing Action details. For example, when looking at the Action to add a Microbe to the Tardigrades card, the Tardigrades card is shown to the right of the Actions panel. It would be helpful if that card showed the current number of microbes on it (not really so much in the specific case of Tardigrades, as you always want to add to it each generation, but on other cards where multiple action options are available.)
The Actions tab at the bottom of the screen shows a number indicating the maximum number of actions available to the player during a turn. It would be helpful to also indicate how many of those actions are still available. For example, I have Space Mirrors (ACTION: Spend 7 MC to increase Energy production by 1) and Tardigrades (ACTION: Add 1 microbe to this card). My Actions tab shows "2", but I have already used Tardigrades this generation. It would be helpful if the tab showed something like "1/2". It would be a reminder that you still have actions you can perform this generation.
Disabled actions should have different indicators depending on whether they are disabled due to having been used already this turn or disabled due to lack of necessary resources. For example, my Actions panel
Purple player played Noctis City card but did not place a city on the designated space.
Tutorial uses Corporate Era cards (red triangle) but uses no-corp start: Start with 1 production of each resource.
Perhaps point out the Game Log early so new users can look back at what just happened, which may aid in understanding, especially for the Purple player's actions.
"At the beginning of each generation, you gain your total Terraforming Rating plus your MC production in MC resource."
Would be clearer written as:
"At the beginning of each generation, you gain MC resources equal to your total Terraforming Rating plus your MC production."
"In the middle is the immediate gain from playing the card" Add ", shown as symbols"
Add
"At the bottom is the card effect clarified as text"
Confirmation dialog for purchasing cards could show total cost of cards being purchased. Also, either don't completely obscure the player current MC value, or show that value on the dialog, such as "Spending 9 MC of your 30 MC reserve"
If no cards are selected for purchase, the dialog should say something like "Are you sure you do not want to purchase any project cards?"
It seems odd to see the MC Adjustment indicator showing zero (0) drop onto the MC resource indicator. Maybe skip that graphic when the value is zero?
Add ability to pause AI opponents turn so that project cards can be read.
"Cities can be placed anywhere on Mars" should be amended to exclude designated ocean spaces and named cities spaces.
The following text is not quite accurate (and includes a typo: "of a cards"):
"Tags separate the cards in different categories. They can affect or be affected by other cards, such as gaining resources based on the amount of a cards with a certain tag"
Considering the existence of cards with more than 1 of a specific tag, such as "Research" with 2 science tags, better would be something like:
"Tags are special of attributes of some cards. They can affect or be affected by other cards, such as gaining resources based on the number of a certain tag in play."
When describing tags, either include the tag symbol in the dialog text or highlight the tag on the card. When describing the Space tag and Ttitanium, the example card ("Solar Wind Power") also has a Science tag and an Energy tag, leaving which is the Space tag unclear to a new player.
When directing the player to use Solar Wind Power, teach them how to use the Decrease Cost control.
When showing the Selected view of the card Space Mirrors, the card text cuts off and only shows "ACTION: Spend 7 MC to increase your en…". Maybe there should be a tutorial dialog pointing out the "more info" button on the card.
When describing an effect with "An Effect activates automatically every time the conditions are met until the end of the game." it would be helpful to show a card with an Effect.
When playing Space Mirrors during the tutorial, the Decrease Cost control is locked out, as opposed to the earlier tutorial step, play Solar Wind Power, where the control worked.
Perhaps the tutorial text "Select your action tab" should have "Action" capitalized or use ALL CAPS like the actual tab label. Also, the tab is labeled "ACTIONS" - plural.
"You can select to play an Action from here." is slightly awkward phrasing. Better would be "You can select an Action to play from here." or even just "You can play an Action from here."
Explain Parameter Track milestones, such as when purple player his the 1st temperature milestone.
The Convert Plants to Greenery activator does not highlight in any way during mouseover, leaving it unclear where the user should click.
After clicking the Convert Plants to Greenery activator, there's really no indicator that the user needs to select a location for the Greenery. Might be helpful to make that clear to new players.
Awkward phrasing in the text "Resource production with a red border can be reduced from any player. This is mandatory: you have to reduce someone's production, be it yourself." The phrase "be it yourself" needs to be paired with something like "or another player" (for "be it yourself or another player") or replaced with something like "even if it is your own."
During the screen with the text "Some cards have requirements to fulfill before you can use them. Requirements can be global parameters, tags or tiles on Mars." the indicator arrow is too low, pointing at the card effect text ("Decrease any plant production 1 step and increase your energy production 2 steps.") instead of the card requirement ("Min 6% oxygen or more.").
The text "Resource with a red border can be reduced from any player" should start with "A": "A Resource with a red border…"
Also, maybe add the arrow indicator to point to the Plant resource reduction on the Asteroid card.
During the Research phase, the text "Buy the selected cards." should be singular "card" when only 1 is selected.
The confirmation dialog should also be singular: "buy this project card?"
Tutorial text says "You can see the resources you accumulate and which card they are on here." with an arrow pointing at Card Resources, but you can't actually click there to see them at this point.
Tutorial text says "Use this action to add one resource to this card, giving you a Victory Point at the end of the game." but that is not accurate: you need 4 resources to gain 1 VP with Tardigrades.
Also might be clearer to so say "add one Microbe resource to this card"
Indicate that the cost of funding awards increases as each award is purchased.
Maybe have a tutorial dialog explaining that the 1st-player position swaps every generation.
Would be nice to be able to switch to a view of the map while buying cards. For example, if you had the opportunity to purchase the Noctis City card, it would be useful to see how the area around that space has been built up.
Would be nice to be able to switch to a view of the player's current hand while buying cards. For example, I had the opportunity to buy Ice Cap Melting (place an Ocean). There was only 1 Ocean left to play and I already had a place-Ocean card in my hand, but I thought it might be cheaper to buy and play Ice Cap Melting and at would be to just play the other card, but I wasn't sure.
When I increased the Temperature to 0 degrees, I didn't have the opportunity to place the bonus Ocean tile.
Ocean placements are only shown in the Game Log when using the Standard Project. Game Log should show all effects from an action. For example, when I played Underground City, it would helpful to show that I gained a card for the tile placement. When Purple played Black Polar Dust, it would be helpful to see that they also played an Ocean tile.
Tutorial screens should pop up during the rest of the tutorial game when a condition is fulfilled for the first time, such as placing a bonus Ocean due to a Temperature increase.
Would be nice if the Milestones panel showed how close you were to fulfilling each one. For example, when examining the Builder Milestone, would be helpful to see how many Building tags you have.
When gaining a card via tile placement, there is no indication of which card was gained. Maybe put the card name in the Game Log, visible only to that player?
Awards panel should not show 2 VP for 2nd place when playing a 2-player game.
A "zero heat change" indicator pops up when I purchase Milestones or Awards.
Should warn you when you are considering looking at card where some of the effects are cancelled, such as Subterranean Reservoir (place an Ocean) when all Oceans have already been placed.
Should be an indicator when all 3 parameters have been maxed and the last round is being played.
Might be helpful if the Milestones and Awards tabs had numbers next to them indicating how many were still available for purchase.
AI did a Heat Conversion in the final round, even though Temperature was maxed. What it should have done was fund the Thermalist Award, because it had it certainly won. Also was locked for the win on Banker, but did not fund that, either. Also never purchased Terraformer Milestone, even though it was eligible many generations ago and had MC to spare.
Own Terraforming Mars phyical boardgame and both expansions. Played a dozen or so games. Big Fan of the game, one of my favorites.
Game is gorgeous. Stephen needs to remake the physical game to match this design and card art used here. I and many other fans of the game wouldn't hesitate to repurchase this as a deluxe version, etc. Looks amazing.
User interface I thought worked well for the most part, some small gripes below (see bugs/issues). Animations were quick and snappy on my PC, no slowdown that I noticed. Liked the end game scoring summary, but maybe a bit more detail to show how points from the cities was calculated for the players.
Very strong start as far as things working as they should and the game feeling akin to the physical game, just some small but not game breaking bugs to work out. Very excited for an update to the beta to allow for player vs player, especially with friend invites.
- When I placed a Greenery tile next to 3 Ocean tiles, it correctly gave me 6 MC, HOWEVER, it popped up that it was giving me 6 MC 3 times, rather than giving me 6 MC once or 2 MC 3 times.
- It wasn't clear to me at first (an it looks like to others as well) that to minimize your view of the cards in your hand that you click on the same triangle area in the bottom center screen as you did to bring them up. One I found this out it worked fine but perhaps this triangle area should have an animated arrow(s) pointing down on an (X) in that spot where the cards normally would be would make this more obvious.
- When the computer played a card, is dissapeared often before I could even ready it fully. It should be left up on screen until the player hits a button to note they understand what as been played. In a multi-player game this should also be the case where each players actions come up and must be closed manually, or at least offer a setting to increase/decrease the amount of time it's left on screen before it disappears on it's own.
- Card text should all be viewable on each card, not by hitting an information button. If they can fit all the info on a stardard phyical card in real life there's no reason why the information can't all fit onto a tablet screen or computer monitor that is many times the size of a playing card. HATE having to click multiple times when there is clearly space to include it on the first screen vs a secondary screen.
Another player noted this and I had the same issue - After playing Ganymede Colony, I spent some time confused why the game seemed frozen before realizing that it wanted me to click on a little hexagon on the edge of the screen. My first suggestion would be that you shouldn't need to click on the location for this card (and others like it), since there are no options in terms of placement. If not doing that, I would make it much more prominent and/or have a prominent text box that tells you need to place the city.
Another player noted this and I had the same issue - I thought the way the Temperature and Oxygen level scales were filled was not intuitive. As is, the current number is slightly bolded, and there is a filled bar below the current number. I would find it more intuitive to have the top of the bar at the top of the current number, which would likely necessitate making at least a bit of that bar semi-transparent so that you can see the current number. There are other ways you could do it, but it's confusing for the line/bar to be below the number for me.
- make it more obvious that a player controls a tile (thicken outline around the tile?)
- computer kept cashing in heat resources even though the parameter was full.
- AI never purchased milestones or awards even when it far surpassed the level for the Terraformer Award. MANYl turns later I hit 35 for my TR rating and bought it, computer should have stopped this.
- AI seemed dumb overall. When the tutorial was over and I took over full control of the game it had a huge 10+ point TR advantage and I still won by over 20 points.
- Poor tutorial overall. I kept thinking to myself if I didn't already know how to play this game I'd be lost, frustrated, bored, not having FUN in other words.
- The player kept deciding to pass his turn, kept passing on buying cards, and stored up MegaCredits when a human player would have spent them or bought cards. This gives the wrong impression of how the game should be played for those that haven't played the phyical game and it also stretched out the length of the tutorial.
- Awards and Milestones were glossed over too quickly. No clear explanation of VPs gained from them. Many rules were totally neglected, perhaps you guys are figuring that most purchasing this will have past experience with the game but for those that dont' it will be a mess for them to learn. ALL RULES should be explained in the tutorial clearly and in my opinion some before you even start taking turns in the game.
- A full rulebook should be included to read at the players convenience.
- Personally I think the tutorial should be completely redone, it's that bad of any experience. You will not get new players to play this game with a tutorial like this. I love TM and this tutorial was torture to get through. I was actually happy you skipped a proper rule explanation just so it would end and I could play my game my way.
Over 50+ Sessions and very familiar with the rules.
This Tutorial seems to have been designed by someone who actually has never played the game before. Giving example to teach a functionality of the game is fine but it doesn't actually teach anything. For a complete new player the choices the AI makes you do is absolutely terrible. There needs to be a more elegant solution if the goal of the tutorial was to be in a hole by gen 10 to make it challenging to beat the NPC instead of playing like a complete noob then telling the newbie to take over. The tutorial basically just taught the player to play horribly.
Greater emphasis should be taken in order to explain the importance of Milestone and Awards and how that 5VP swing is actually pretty big. As well as explaining the importance of the single and double action use. The game actually teaches you to race for Gardener which is nice but it doesn't explain how important it was to race for it. What it should have done is do an "undo" scenario the way the Through the Ages tutorial goes and show the consequences of each action.
Scenario :Greenery and pass (having built 3rd greenery), then have CPU mimick your action but actually using their second action to steal Gardener from you. Rewind. Tell the player to Greenery + buying Gardener as second action to prevent the steal.
Another thing that's completely overlooked in the tutorial is the importance of seeing what your opponent has. Builder requires 8 tag, Science award requires most Science tags etc.. giving a concrete example by showing how many tags opponent has would be helpful, even give a scenario where you race for the milestone like gardener.
Finally a simply breakdown of how cards are focused on early game/mid/late game would be nice. Teaching new players not to keep cards they cannot play 4+gen from now would be a good start.
One last thing I forgot, when you finish your double action, it should automatically load to the next player. There is no reason to "confirm" passing when you cannot perform any action anymore.
The graphics are pleasant, the music is ok. I know the various bugs will be sorted out quickly enough, I just wish the tutorial focused more on teaching the importance of being efficient rather than "click here, do this, do that, ok now you try to play" which is an extremely lazy way of doing a tutorial.
I am a very experienced Terraforming Mars player and have been eagerly awaiting release of the digital game. The beta is a great opening effort. A few initial thoughts:
1. I HIGHLY recommend replacing the "Milestones," "Standard Projects", and "Awards" tabs with actual visual representations as seen on the physical game board. This would not take up much space on the screen - the drop down menus are just unnecessary. It would be much better for the flow of the game to be able to select standard projects without a dropdown menu.
2. A small icon of played cards should go onto the board when played. This is a cardgame at heart and the cards are nowhere to be found. At the very least, cards with repeatable actions should be displayed on the screen and activatable from the main screen.
3. Cards in hand should be able to be displayed on the screen if desired. There is plenty of room on the bottom of the screen to display these cards as thumbnails.
Overall, the visuals looks great. This game needs work on the GUI to present more information to players on the main screen. As it stands, this game's learning curve is very high - it will be crushingly difficult to learn this game from the digital version if all the critical game information is buried in menus.
Nate
I have thought at first that there is a bug with temperature based free ocean only to realize that there are already 9 of them
But anyway the game is beautiful. Much better beta test than Scythe
In the physical game I love looking at my cards area. Would be great that you would be able to move the camera down and see all the cards played, not only as a popup
I enjoyed the art, especially the main screen with the planet, but the cards seems less attractive than the board game.
Although I think that the tutorial are right and enough to start the first game, maybe I missed some explanation about how to get the awards.
I played the game in the spanish version and I saw the one defect in the graphic interface: The "Santuario espacial Phobos" and "Colonia Ganímedes" has each one a letter separated in another line
Congratulations: I have good feelings playing the game. Just improve a little more the look of the cards.