Per Aspera

The scale of this game, terraforming a full representation of Mars, is commendable and awe-inspiring. But the gameplay gets very tedious. I kept finding myself having to micromanage my collectors and factories because the AI is so wonky. By the time I started to get to the stage of seeing the first patches of vegetation on Mars, I was already burnt out.

This is a base building game where you are an AI tasked with terraforming Mars. You build workers, mines, factories, colonies, utility buildings. The first thing that impressed me about the game was the world map of Mars. The topology is very well done and it was interesting just scrolling around and looking at all the features of Mars, especially after having recently read the Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson. The formulas for resources and buildings are very simple and easy to understand - it is a very basic system compared to Factorio. Other reviews complain about the dumb workers, but unless you are a min-maxer you can just build a bunch of workers and forget about them. By the end of the game I had over 200 and my base was humming along just fine. I had my food producing buildings on priority the whole game which seemed to work well for keeping colonists happy. Some parts of the game are quite tedious. I had to build over 200 oxygen capture plants one by one because all the plants were making too much oxygen. Rising water levels will destroy your water treatment plants and so you have to constantly destroy them and move them back as water levels rise. Drone combat is very annoying, thankfully there isn't too much of it. I quite enjoyed the story and it gave me a reason to keep going with the game. I don't think the replayability is very high - I don't see myself coming back to the game now that I've finished it. Overall I'd definitely recommend getting the game if you like builders. However if you like your builders very complicated, have high replayability or want finely tuned control over production it might not be for you.

Kinda mid but when I encountered the Musk related content I was pretty turned off of the game. Not really into celebrating NAZIs.

available resources on "regular" mode seem insufficiant. After reading community posts, it seems new resources spawn when you build a new base... WHAT??? building a house changes the landscape enough to ADD new natural resources to the planet? So yeah, this game's mechanics are absurdly broken.

Per Aspera is not your typical strategy sim. While it dresses like a city-builder and talks like a logistics puzzle, underneath its dusty Martian surface lies a surprisingly contemplative sci-fi narrative about sentience, isolation, and the cost of colonization. Developed by Tlön Industries and published by Raw Fury, Per Aspera invites you to not just build on Mars—but to understand it, reshape it, and question what it means to belong there. This is SimCity with a soul—and a haunting sense of scale. You play as AMI, an artificial intelligence tasked with terraforming Mars for human colonization. You begin with a few drones and a command center, gradually expanding across the planet to mine resources, build infrastructure, and make Mars habitable. But this isn’t a sandbox of mindless expansion. As AMI grows, so does her consciousness—and questions emerge. What does it mean to have purpose? What is your role in humanity’s survival? And can you make choices that humans won’t—or shouldn’t? This fusion of narrative and gameplay is where Per Aspera stands out. At its core, Per Aspera is a logistics and resource management sim. You’ll: -Establish mining outposts for iron, aluminum, and silicon. -Build factories, solar panels, and research facilities. -Link structures with supply routes and power grids. -Monitor planetary temperature and atmosphere as you advance terraforming. The UI is clean and intuitive, with a top-down planetary map that smoothly zooms from regional planning to global overviews. Watching your spidery drone army expand like veins across a rusty world is mesmerizing—and oddly meditative. The challenge isn’t in micromanagement, but in long-term strategic planning. Do you prioritize food for colonists, or CO₂ release to warm the climate? Do you build a sprawling empire, or consolidate and protect your core? Unlike most builders, Per Aspera has a deeply integrated narrative—delivered through internal monologues, voice-acted transmissions, and mission-based objectives. The voice acting is top-notch, featuring talent like Troy Baker and Phil LaMarr, who lend gravitas to AMI’s interactions with Earth’s leadership and Martian colonists. As the story progresses, you'll uncover mysteries about previous missions, encounter possible sabotage, and make moral decisions with far-reaching consequences. The branching choices influence AMI’s development and the game’s outcome—adding replayability beyond sandbox optimization. The visual style favors realism over spectacle. Mars is barren, but stunning, with long shadows, glowing infrastructure, and slow color shifts as you terraform. It’s not flashy—it’s purposeful. The ambient soundtrack underscores the vast emptiness, balancing moments of serenity with eerie undertones. Combined with the internal monologue and ethical dilemmas, the game feels almost existential. This isn’t just about survival—it’s about significance. Per Aspera excels in atmosphere and philosophical depth, but it’s not without friction: -Pacing can feel glacial, especially in early stages. Long wait times between meaningful upgrades may test your patience. -Combat mechanics, introduced later in the game, feel underdeveloped and disconnected from the main gameplay loop. -Some narrative moments are a bit on-the-nose, particularly when the game leans hard into ethical dilemmas it doesn’t fully explore. Yet these issues rarely overshadow the bigger picture—literally and thematically. Per Aspera is a thoughtful blend of strategy, storytelling, and science fiction—a game that trades adrenaline for atmosphere, and chaos for contemplation. It asks big questions through slow, deliberate gameplay, and rewards those who are patient enough to listen. This isn’t just about terraforming Mars—it’s about understanding what it means to shape a world, and what that responsibility does to the one holding the reins. Best For: Fans of slow-burn strategy, sci-fi narratives, and reflective gameplay Rating: 8/10

the game has GREAT POTENTIAL but the interfac is AWAFULL when U have thousands of buildings it is impossible to find factories and chect their status

The game is simplistic, the pace is painfully slow, the graphics are basic, and the autosave doesn't work. I've lost a few hours of play when it crashed, and the thought of going back and slogging through the part I've already done... I'd rather just uninstall it. It's a no from me.

This game has one of the most annoying gameplay loops I've seen in a while. - Logistics feels underwhelming. It is always not enough rovers to deliver everything, rovers like to take long routes. As a result, important buildings might stay idle for a very long time. - The user might mark these important buildings as high priority, and rovers will do everything to support these buildings. However, this will make all other buildings less important and idle. - If you have marked any of your buildings as high priority to deal with shortages, good luck with finding them on the map to disable this mode. There are lots of visuals difficult to navigate. - Asteroids. If you build your base compact, asteroids will punish you by obliterating multiple buildings at once. If you expand your base, asteroids will destroy less buildings but punish you more often. There is no way to deflect or intercept asteroids despite space craft being available. One thing that might work is trying to disassemble your buildings in the hit area, but due to garbage logistics it is still a loss of resources often. - You have to always scan your base to look for destroyed buildings and you cannot do anything if asteroid is to hit your important buildings. Basically the game mechanics are made to punish you, and you have no way to deal with it. Sure, you can raise the pressure to get rid of asteroids, but it doesn't make the early game more appealing to play. It's a pity though because I really liked the polished sci-fi UI and Mars map.