Million on Mars: Space to Venture

Right away this game strikes me with vibes from several of my favorite games of all time, like Factorio, Kerbal Space Program, and Satisfactory. Currently it's in an aerial view management phase, where you set up drones to automate resource collection and build factories to process resources and manufacture components. The development road map includes reaching a phase where after your colony is ready to support life, yourself and NPCs can arrive -- which makes me think to Satisfactory. Already loving the game in it's buggy alpha phase, and I'm very excited to see where it goes as development progresses!

UPDATE: Original review below. Starting was very frustrating but I stuck with it, provided feedback and the devs responded quickly and reasonably. Also, the fact that they responded in a timely manner made me doubt some of my original thoughts about the company. The broken links seem to be cleared up, a lot of the social media icons weren't working last night but seem to be fine now. The game really does have a good start, but can still be somewhat frustrating. There are some bugs to be sure from it being EA that I hope to see fixed soon (graphic bug introduced after last patch). Once some of the basic info is understood (moving items from rovers/miners to storage, explaining the purpose of Resupply Rockets, etc) it's actually a decent game. There is some time gating, which is to be expected in a real-time, multiplayer game. I will check back in and update again, as my frustration let to a harsher review of the game than it deserved. ORIGINAL REVIEW: Don't buy yet. This interface is very non-intuitive, and with no tutorials to explain how the game is played. I'm already debating a refund. Nice overall idea, but honestly needs a lot of help. None of the colors are explained, left and right click does unexpected things...I have to transfer all materials manually?! Many of the rover and machine controls have a power button but it doesn't do anything. Power management is key at the beginning and you don't have a lot of control as you can't "put up" the consumers. [strike]Can't recommend. Needs about 6-12 months to cook first. Starting to look like a money grab - company website is shady and most links don't work. Steam might want to investigate these guys.[/strike]

This game is very much "pre-alpha". It should not have been released without a *lot* more development. Pros: - Martian landscape is very nice - It's a Mars game Cons: - Everything else. The user interface. The base game graphics. The glitches and bugs on almost everything. The tutorials (or complete lack of tutorials). Heck, just put (insert anything) here and add it to the queue of needed further game development. This game is just not ready for the general public. It's just not. Maybe in several months... *maybe* then I'll revisit this game.

The game is extremely buggy. Even the menu on the start screen took me a few client restart to get it working. But then the controls were bugged. The UI felt way too wonky. Tbh the game doesn't really look like a early access but a pre-alpha game.

great concept...have no idea what my goals are at the moment but it seems like i have none.

Million on Mars feels great with its crafting and how hardcore it is. The linking of the factories has to be my favorite part, it really lets you build complex structures and planning really has to go a long way. The sound track is absolutely beautiful. The terrain feels like I'm actually on mars Obviously this game is in early access and a lot of work still needs to go into it. Would love to see more progression systems but as early access goes I think it's worth it!

I want to like this game. Overall game essence is 8/10. Effective game play is 6/10. With UI fixes and refinements I could see this being the game a whole generation of kids play that actually go there. There are some significant UI behavior glitches that really need to get addressed. The in game feedback mechanism is one of them. Fails to pop up again after I use it once. Also possible due to other UI interaction but haven't tested this. I can't tell if the feedback was really sent anywhere (a ticket number would be nice). Need a bug forum with some list of issues being worked on. When trading with the station, the UI clears your inputs when you navigate thru the items. Very annoying. You can glitch it to keep subtracting money from your budget when you re-enter the number of the same item. Once you place your initial hab, progression becomes uncertain. New tasks should continue to be provided. Various clicking / clicking thru issues in UI. The way different units are linked for crafting is straightforward but I think needs refining. Maybe more advanced logistics & logistics UI will be introduced once the player builds up their tech? When moving around with WASD keys the chat window will activate out of the blue. It seems to happen more when I move over a property boundary but can't tell for sure. This forces me to have to hit the RETURN key to get rid of it (spamming my nearby neighbors with garbage tells unless I go thru the bother of clearing out the string of WASD presses it accumulated) which really interrupts game flow. At times to an aggravating degree. Really hope you have developer and project resources to make this the A+ title it can be.

Major Game Breaking Bugs After several attempts I can't get this game to do anything. I managed to hit the escape button to get past the first freeze up and get to the actual game. The game however is frozen. I can hear buttons being pushed, but the screen is frozen. I really think this game is not ready for public testing yet. It still needs major bugs fixed. They really should not be asking for money for a game in this state.

This is still clearly early alpha, but the resources/recipe system definitely shows promise for being a physically accurate model for really building a human civilization on Mars!

3 hour review - absolutely no guidance what to do. Had no idea there was a shop to buy stuff. The UI is so wonky, its too big by default and cuts off important info. I had to explicitly choose a smaller screen size. I have to *thumbs down* this for now. It is a pre-Alpha. Really should not be pay to play right now. They are at least a couple months away from something being playable and maybe a few months more to get it fun. Right now, you really don't do anything. Send a bunch of miners to mine stuff. Build a couple buildings to refine that stuff. It sounded interesting, but NOT $15 right now.