Game: Mars Base
Genre: Simulation, RPG
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam (Windows), Mobile (Android, iOS) and PS4 & PS5)
Developer | Publisher: Khuong Le (KZ Games) | indie.io (previously known as Freedom Games)
Age Rating: US 10+ | EU 7+
Price: US $19.99 | UK £16.75 | EU € 19,99
Release Date: January 26th, 2023
No review code was used, I purchased the game myself.
Mars Base is a pixelated simulation game where you are tasked with building a colony on Mars.
Will the red planet bring me luck? Or will it be a barren, dusty experience?
Starting on Mars Base
Mars Base launches straight into the gameplay. Solana meets you on the landing pad, and you are tasked with creating some equipment to provide the essentials: water, energy and oxygen. There is a logic to the equipment requirements; the water tank and oxygen machine both need power, and the water tank needs oxygen. So once you’ve crafted the solar panel (using the given materials), you can then craft the oxygen machine and then the water tank. On talking to Solana again, she gives you a blueprint for a home base and bed and suggests you get some rest.
On waking the next day, there is another person at the landing pad. Mystaria gives you an extractor tool so you can get materials from the Martian soil and asks for a research lab to be built. Then, every few days, someone new arrives on Mars – a farmer wanting a greenhouse, and then a merchant wanting a market hall, and so on. Some colonists arrived in groups, but in the end, there were about 18 colonists. Several of the colonists will give you some sort of quest to break the monotony of extracting Martian soil, so it’s worth talking to the new arrivals.
As well as meeting and greeting and crafting various buildings, you can also farm in Mars Base. Crops are available once the greenhouse and market hall are built, and eventually, you will be able to build a coop and barn to house animals. The animals can be sent to the ranch, which is like a petting zoo and a great way to earn money. The ranch is populated with trees, and although you can cut down the trees, you can’t remove the stump. This can make it awkward to move around the area.
There are also mines to explore, which contain monsters to battle, and you are rewarded with materials and seeds. Alternatively, take off in your rocket for a bit of space mining and collect even more materials.
Creating a Life on Mars Base
There are some really good mini-games in Mars Base. To account for no natural lakes or rivers, fishing is done via a tank. Simply time the dropping of the net with when a fish is swimming by.
Eventually, you can build a food shop and play a cooking mini-game. Colonists come into your shop and order food; you have a set time to prepare and serve as many as possible. When the time is up, you are awarded some money minus the costs of any ingredients you didn’t have in your pockets.
With the arrival of Janet, you get the chance to use a rover to travel around the surface in, and The Mars Rover Racetrack hosts a mini racing game.
After building the carpenter pod, you can buy items to decorate your home. There are also decorations which can be crafted to enhance the outside space.
Before long, you will have a fully functioning Mars Base.
Who Are You on Mars Base?
Once you’ve built the research lab, Mystaria will give you the chance to customise your appearance and give your character a name. There is a selection of different hairstyles and bio-suit designs, with a full range of colours to choose from. This is one of the areas where Mars Base shows its origins as a PC game. The controls are very awkward, for a start you can only move up or down – so once you’ve selected your head, you have move down lots of times to get to the skin colour. If you accidentally move left or right, thinking you’ll move columns, you’ll alter some other attribute!
Gameplay
The controls and menus take a little time to get use to but Mars Base works well in both docked and handheld modes (though no touchscreen functionality). The only options available are linked with sound/music and the visibility of the on-screen controls. Mars Base autosaves when you go to sleep, with an option of ‘save and quit’ from the menu. There are 3 save slot instances of the game per user.
It’s possible to have a local helper on your Mars Base. The second player takes control of the little robot which follows your character around. They can help with watering and harvesting (but not planting), fighting, soil extraction and cooking. Great for a once-in-a-while second player, but this is not a two-player game.
The length of the day is dependent on your stamina, and as you enter the last quarter of the stamina bar, the screen goes darker, with a small circle of light around your character. If you pass out, it will cost you 50 gold. Overall, I spent around 10 hours building my base.
Conclusion
There is a lot of breadth to Mars Base, from crafting to fighting, fishing to farming, and with it, some fantastic mini-games. Unfortunately, there isn’t the same amount of depth to the game – conversations soon get repetitive, and there are limited quests. That said, I had a really enjoyable time building my Mars Base.
Final Verdict: I Like it 
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