Occupy Mars: The Game

Recommended (with caveats) Occupy Mars is one of those frustratingly good games. The core gameplay loop is excellent: power management, oxygen, water, logistics, base building, and problem-solving all feel grounded and rewarding. When your base finally stabilises and runs without constant babysitting, the sense of achievement is genuinely satisfying. If you enjoy competence-based gameplay and systems that expect you to think, this game absolutely delivers. However… it is very buggy. Physics issues, vehicle problems, and mission soft-locks are real and will happen. I personally had to abandon a main mission because it soft-locked, and continuing to build the base made it unrecoverable. Reloading often fixes things, but you will need patience and workarounds. That said, this is where the developers deserve credit — this isn’t a cynical AAA release. You can clearly feel that this game was built by a smaller team with ambition, not by committee. The bugs come from scope and complexity, not from monetisation, cut corners, or contempt for the player. Unlike many AAA titles: there’s no live-service nonsense no aggressive monetisation no padding to inflate playtime no blaming the audience when things go wrong The systems are here because the developers wanted to build them, not because a spreadsheet said so. Most importantly: the simulation systems still work even when missions break. If you enjoy the underlying loop — building, optimising, expanding, fixing failures — you can keep playing and have a great time regardless of quest issues. Think of the missions as guidance, not the game itself. Verdict: If you want a polished, bug-free experience, avoid this for now. If you enjoy engineering problems, realism-leaning survival, and can tolerate (or work around) bugs, Occupy Mars is genuinely rewarding. I recommend it because the game loop is strong and the intent is honest, not because it’s flawless.

Ich mache es ungern, die Idee ist toll, aber das Spiel ist sehr unzugänglich. Statt Quicktipps zu bekommen, muss man die Ingame Dokumentation mit spärlichen Infos lesen, oder Youtube Guides gucken. Beispiel: Man kann Solarpanele bauen, aber für die Werstatt reicht eins nicht, (Sachen haben nur einen Eingang) dafür braucht man einen "Converter" (nicht Verteiler?) mit 4 Eingängen, was aber auch nicht lange reicht. Total unlogisch ist, dass man von einem 2. Converter in den 1. reingehen kann, muss man aber rausfinden ("Converter" funktionieren mit bereits konvertierter Spannung nicht). Hard SF sollte, wenn schon schwer zumindest realistisch sein. Der Fortschritt ist auch ziemlich begrenzt, ständig braucht man Blueprints, die man finden muss. Wer keine Lust hat eine Wissenschaft aus einen Spiel zu machen, sollte es lassen.

Early Access review: MIXED review. I'm willing to re-review this game if the issues below are addressed and fixed. Is the game worth playing right now: Kinda... and be prepared to be frustrated. I found it was only playable for about 20 hours tops. Is the game worth buying? NO. One reason I say NO is because this game has been in Early access for what 4-5 years now? This game still suffers from basic game mechanic issues at this point, preventing players from progressing. would have expected, after 4 years of development to see those issues long gone. Which means, this game will most likely never reach it's full potential. Here's my advice, 1. The screen shots of all the advanced things, nice, but players will never progress that far because they will quit long before then. Mainly due to obtuse game mechanics. 2. This game has lists of input and outputs for everything and it's confusing. I get it's easy to program, but a scroll-able graphic, like a flow diagram would make things crystal clear. 3. Oxygen... I have all kinds of machines making oxygen and still can't fill one bottle per week, which means you slowly suffocate and eventually die. Something is broken here. 4. The map interface for managing pins, very clunky. Especially when trying to type the text for the pin. 5. Food plots, is it empty or just a small plant? Player should be able to walk up and see instantly if a plot is planted and if the plant is in distress (dying) or healthy (growing). Right now we have to hover over 50 different plots every time. 6. Salvage structures randomly disappear. Found a nice spot to salvage, away from home, so I set up a temp base, was breaking it down, slept for the night, and then the building disappeared, except for a few scattered crates. LOL. or maybe the aliens got it behind my back. ;) 7. CO2 scrubber... it's broken and no one knows how to make it work, not even the directions. All it does is suffocate you or blow up. Maybe a graphic like a flow diagram with input/outputs could help. not sure what you're trying to do with this thing. 8. Because of the inability to refill an oxygen bottle with any of the machines, mainly because the production volumes are too low or non existent. Caps the fun level of this game. 9. Oxygen inside structure isn't obvious and it broken. Is there breathable oxygen? How knows, the indicator isn't working properly. I can take the helmet off and work there forever, never suffocating. But take a nap, you wake up and instantly suffocate. Many issues like this, I'd say, the game mechanic is definitely broken. Really? after all these years of development and this particular mech isn't working? And thus the main reason for my review. If you want to make money on this game, I would fix these issues right away or you risk losing interest of the players. There are other games out there that don't have these issues.

Ich habe mir das Spiel gestern voller guter Erwartungen, nach dem ich diverse Tests angesehen habe, gekauft. Nach nur 30 min. Spielzeit habe ich es über Steam storniert. Die Gründe sind unter anderem eine schlechte Performance trotz sehr guter Hardware. Die Grafik lässt trotz ultra settings auch zu wünschen übrig. Nun ist Grafik nicht alles und ich dachte das wenigstens das Gameplay irgendwie erfrischen wäre, leider wurde ich hier auch sehr enttäuscht. Das Spiel fühlt sich komplett unfertig an, ist hakelig und hat für mich 0 Atmosphäre die mich an einem weiterspielen gehindert haben. Leider keine Kaufempfehlung.

Po jaką cholerę zmieniacie standardy sterowania przyjęte na całym świecie we wszystkich grach? Mam w ręce szlifierkę, podchodzę do szafki, żeby sobie otworzyć ją i zabrać jedzenie, ale za pomocą klawisza E zamiast otworzyć szafkę demontuję ją, bo jakiś arcygeniusz wpadł na pomysł, żeby klawisz otwierania/interakcji był w ustawieniach sterowania tym samym co klawisz korzystania z narzędzia. To tylko 1 przykład męczącego sterowania w tej grze. I nie ma co się zasłaniać wczesnym dostępem, tu nie trzeba było nic wymyślać na nowo, wystarczyło trzymać się ogólnie przyjętych schematów na całym świecie. Równie dobrze możecie wprowadzić poruszanie się na ESDF zamiast WASD bez możliwości zmiany tych ustawień i napisać, że sorry, to dopiero wczesny dostęp. Zmienię opinię na pozytywną dopiero wtedy, jak przystosujecie sterowanie do 21 wieku. EDIT po komentarzu producenta: Gdyby te ustawienie dało się dostosować, to nie pisałbym tej recenzji. Użyj i Interakcja jest w ustawieniach sterowania połączone ze sobą i nie da się tego rozdzielić, wydaje mi się, że opisałem to dość jasno w mojej recenzji. Dopóki te rzeczy są pod jednym ustawieniem, nie da się rozdzielić korzystania z narzędzi od interakcji i niestety musi być to pod tym samym klawiszem, co jest mega irytujące. Waszym zadaniem nie jest wybór takiego schematu sterowania, który waszym zdaniem najlepiej pasuje do narzędzi i interakcji w grze, ale zdaniem przede wszystkim graczy, którzy są przyzwyczajeni do czegoś zupełnie innego. Napiszę to w najprostszy sposób: E do interakcji, LPM do korzystania z narzędzi. Tego oczekuje normalny gracz. Gra jest zajebista i z pewnością będę w nią grać dalej, ponadto nie mogę się doczekać COOPu, ale dopóki nie naprawicie tak oczywistych rzeczy w sterowaniu, to nie mogę polecić tej gry, nie narażę innych użytkowników na nerwy z tym związane. Pozdrawiam.

I can't recommend this game. I played slightly over 20 hours and I'm stuck in the campaign (progress isn't unlocking). The devs released a patch in June that was supposed to fix the campaign issues. I had put the game down in May to wait for the patch. I just restarted my game and their fix doesn't appear to work for me. Progress is still stuck and won't unlock. I've tried all recommendations found on the Internet but no luck. I don't really feel like starting over, especially since it might just get stuck again after 20 hours. So I'm putting the game down and likely won't be picking it back up. Game is a bit janky, movement is sluggish, building is OK but feels slightly too complicated. Vehicules feel terrible on the marsian surface, bounce around all over the place. Nothing impossible to work with but the feel isn't great. Performance is OK but even on my great rig, there would be noticeable slowdowns and hiccups. Overall, I can't recommend this game. There are much better options out there.

Have no idea what is behind decision for focusing on co-op, but that basically ruined this project (feeling i got from recent play/co-op). Solo part is not even half ready - bugs, junky UI, unbalanced. And in co-op we can use half of solo game "technology" --- That about current state, i hope it will progress better if near future ...

I have tried to like this game, but as of release it is janky, buggy, and has some real design flaws that go beyond the unity engine. The Good: Graphics are mostly good, though most of the models feel like they are from a few generations ago. The Character models don't look good but you rarely see them in solo. Performance-wise the game tends to be pretty good even at highest settings. The Bad: The "campaign" doesn't really exist. It's not a story, Progression is slow, not just on a tech progression level but even getting life support going in a building takes forever. Various vital tech is locked behind findable abandoned tablets where when you use them you chose ONE thing to unlock. Hope you picked the right thing cause there's no way to check while you make the choice! And these aren't close together, they are km apart in structures you have to drive to. Then when you have stuff (finally) unlocked you have to build so much up to get a functional structure, only to find out it's just a shack. Then you build a CO2 scrubber and fiddle with it to get it producing anything, trying not to blow yourself up, wait days and days for it to get to a usable state. Did I mention waiting? Yeah, be prepared to do a lot of that. Night time is too cold to be outside, so you are standing around in your pod. You aren't allowed to sleep to skip it, and you cannot speed up the clock. The game pauses while you are in your personal tablet so you can't even read game documentation or anything to pass the time, Despite being OK performance-wise, the game is buggy and janky. Used a cable someplace and want to take it back into your inventory? NOPE. It't out on the ground forever, sometimes hanging in mid air so your ATV can catch on it and rubberband. And how much of it do you have in your inventory? 100. 100 what? cm? inches? feet? cubits? no idea. Controls feel mushy and disconnected, driving feels ragdolly, tools have limited durability (always a bad design choice), and your limited inventory space gets so bloated with garbage and no place to put it except a single box in your pod. Tech is so gatelocked behind findables you have to travel really far for that it takes you forever to get any progress, and it doesn't feel satisfying. This game doesn't feel like something hitting a 1.0 release after so long in Early Access. It feels like a mid-state Beta that doesn't have much more than it did a year ago. My recommendation: Buy The Planet Crafters instead.