It’s aspace colonycity builderwith apuzzle gamementality - and set on Mars to make things even more enticing.
A graph charting my enjoyment over time would look like a childs drawing of a mountain.
Lets start with the good stuff.
The story and the telling of it are easily the two best aspects of Farlanders.
In between the storytelling, of course, is the actual developing a colony on Mars bit.
Its not often you see this in city builders and its great.
It makes proceedings feel like youre playing Martian space chess.
The first thing you do on any map is plop a base down somewhere.
Each map is fairly small, but works on a grid system, and is procedurally generated.
Everything needs to be connected to your base in one way or another.
Again, pretty standard city-building stuff.
Some of the internal logic is bizarre, though.
Build a park, and it closes every time you run out of spices.
I could moan about the landing platforms attached to the base, too.
Hell, Iwill, briefly.
Bigger deliveries of resources you buy and larger batches of colonists that you attract require more platforms.
Sure, I get that.
What are they taking in their luggage, spare space shuttles?
The real problem, in a few ways, is how colony happiness works.
As more people move in, the general happiness level slowly rises.
Were on Mars here though, remember?
The good news is, tools are available to change the status of terrain.
Oh - and its not guaranteed that youre given a new one on every turn, either.
Theres a time limit on the standard campaign difficulty, too.
Crucially, things simply arent explained very well.
