It’s hard to remember when I backed something on Kickstarter without logging in and checking.
But I think it was the later half of last year that I backed the Kickstarter for Terraforming Mars the Dice Game.
I’d been tempted by the lure of a lighter version of the game that used dice. Who doesn’t love a game with dice? The Rahdo thoughts on it sold the game to me. My previous experiences with dice versions of board games (such as Roll for the Galaxy, Biblios the Dice Game, and Nations the Dice Game to name a handful in my collection) had also been good. Even when I hadn’t played the original version.
But that’s not the case when it comes to Terraforming Mars the Dice Game. I had at least played the original once before when it first came out.
If my memory isn’t playing tricks on me Chris, Jonathan, and myself played Chris’s copy during the initial hype that surrounded the game. And boy was it one of the hot games when it was released along side Great Western Trails. Everyone was talking about it. Supply was not able to keep up with demand for sure.
I did enjoy it. But not enough to add it to my collection. It was a fun engine builder that rewarded multiple plays, and knowing what the cards were. A noob playing for the first time against a more experienced player would definitely be thrashed.
I definitely hadn’t played any of the numerous expansions for the game. And despite owning the iOS app version of the game I’ve never actually got round to playing that either.
So why did I back the dice version again?
I wanted that lighter more accessible Terraforming Mars experience. Something that I was more likely to get to the table.
I should be better at keeping my pulse on what each of the Kickstarter projects I’ve backed are doing. I knew that Terraforming Mars the Dice Game was shipping in certain areas. But hadn’t twigged that it had started being sent out in the UK and EU. I was a week late to the party on that fact.
So at the start of the week I was hoping there might be a chance the game might be in my grubby mitts by Friday. But as the days passed it was looking more and more unlikely. Until I got the notice DPD were picking up from the shipping company yesterday. Even with that news I wasn’t convinced it’d be with me in time. I was thinking more realistically I’d get the game Saturday.
However I was very pleasantly surprised to get the DPD message to say the game would be delivered this morning. Phew the game session plan had been saved.
As the comment on the Instagram post shows I was very pleasantly surprised when I opened the packaging. Inside was not only the Kickstarter edition of the game (it has the promo cards) but also card sleeves and the playmat.
I really don’t remember adding them in the pledge manager. But I must have.
Naturally before leaving home to play the game I did sleeve all the cards. I had them.
This evening Ben, Harrison, Dave, and myself travelled across space to transform the red planet.
Before the others arrived I did set things up ready to teach and play. So I shuffled the decks, drew the randomly chosen awards and milestones from a dice bag, drew eight bonus cards, and obviously chose a side of the playmat to use.
Despite none of us having played the game before we had the corporate era expansion added in plus the promo cards. Or all in as it’s known.
I had the Interplanetary Cinematics as my corporation.
Watch as I live blog this post as WordPress lost everything I wrote below this point, and I now get the joy of rewriting it.
The bgstat chose me as the first player which meant Dave got an extra resource at my expense.
Although my corporation gave me lots of wild resources to start with, and an on going cost reduction (helps if you remember that part). When it came to doing a production action it was a lot weaker than the other corporations.
My actual production engine to get me dice and the necessary resources to play cards was pretty weak compared to the others. It only ever got me three dice.
My main incentive for doing the production action was to reset my cards with actions on, and refilling my hand. Almost the opposite to the others who were getting many more dice than me when doing production.
I was kinda forced into exploring other ways of getting more dice such as action cards or even instants.
Over three fifths of my points came from having focused on end game scoring. I won two of the three awards, got two of the three milestones. Plus the majority of the instants I played also gave me points. I really did out perform the others in these areas.
One reason for this I think was because they were resource aka dice rich and focused less on these areas.
It might also have helped that one milestone fitted in with the way I was building an end game points engine! And the second milestone was one of opportunity that I could grab it before the others got close.
I loved the bonus cards. Like Scythe and it’s factory cards the choice which to go with is hard because they are all good and it’s hard to decide.
Being able to cycle cards quickly looking for ones you want is a great mechanic.
This is a very easy game to teach. Which is what you want for this weight of game. The iconography is also quick to pick up. Not overly overwhelming like say Guilds of London.
I think there is a fair bit of variety in set up, corporations, bonuses etc that replay ability will be pretty good.
For me the evening was a double win. A victory at the table and time with my friends.
Oh and really happy I backed this. This is TM for me.