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Martian city-builder Surviving Mars [GOG, Steam] is the latest strategy game from Haemimont Games and it’s now available on Linux.

Disclosure: My copy was provided by TriplePoint PR. GOG also kindly provided a key for Samsai as well. Thanks to them both for supporting GamingOnLinux!

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The hook with Surviving Mars is that it's a city builder where you're given a little more direct control over certain parts of the game (like manually moving vehicles around) and you're building in a place with no oxygen, no food and not much in the way of anything really. It's how you get from nothing to a sprawling colony that makes it so very different to what I've played before. The way the planet starts off barren and ends up as a busy city full of people, industry and more as you struggle to have enough resources and deal with any disasters that appear.

Sadly, this is one time I haven’t been able to review the game fully before release. While they supplied me with a review build, it wasn’t ready due to a text rendering bug. I struggled on for a while nonetheless and I ended up really quite enjoying it. That truly says something about a game, that even with such a glaring bug I was able to enjoy it. I've had it confirmed to me that it is indeed a game bug and it will be patched, likely in the first patch but there's no ETA. While the game remains playable, it's hard not to be dissapointed in this.

To make up for the lack of a full day-1 review, I shall be livestreaming it tonight on our Twitch channel at approximately 18:15 UTC, it will be a longer than usual stream to celebrate, as long as the text issue doesn't cause too many problems.

By far, my favourite feature in the game is the Photo Mode. Not enough games give you a way to completely hide the entire UI to really take everything in and get some good snaps. It’s not just that fact that it hides stuff away you don’t want in your shots, you can also adjust: the time of day, filters, exposure, fog and more resulting in some great shots. Here’s a few of my favourites taken in the Linux version:

There are a few things I think they can improve on, like controlling drones. You can only select them one a time, dragging to select more than one would help a lot, something I’m surprised they haven’t put in the game. I've no doubt this will see some good post-release support and I imagine it's one small addition they will do. On top of that, there's no priority system for drones. You can set building construction to a higher priority, but you can't do a similar thing with drones. For example, having a few dedicated to repairs and a few dedicating to building work would help.

There’s lots of details that I do love about it, some of them are quite simple too like how the Power Accumulator rises from the ground depending on how much power is stored, also the Water Tower which has a float that rises to show how much is stored. Simple pleasures, but it’s all the small things that add up. Some games don't focus on the simple things, but Haemimont Games seems to have put real attention to details in Surviving Mars.

The developer and publisher actually did a reddit AMA (Ask me anything) yesterday as well, where they answered two of my questions. My questions were answered by Robin Cederholm, Lead Producer at Paradox Interactive (the publisher, not to be confused with Paradox Development Studio).

How hard was it for you to support Linux with Surviving Mars?

As a Publishing Producer I can say that it wasn't super hard :) I know that for Haemimont the difficulties between different Linux distributions are extremely difficult to navigate though. Luckily the Linux users are usually resourceful and help each other out, so that helps a lot.

Would you say supporting Linux is worth it, given you've previously put games on Linux?

I'd say it's worth it most of the time, otherwise we wouldn't do it. But it's not so much about monetary gain as it's about letting Linux players enjoy our games as well. We typically recoup the cost, but we're talking small numbers here.

It’s pleasing to see someone at Paradox Interactive say it’s worth it! That makes me happy. We know our numbers aren't huge, but the fact that they do usually recover costs is a good sign.

About the game:

Surviving Mars is a sci-fi city builder all about colonizing Mars and surviving the process. Choose a space agency for resources and financial support before determining a location for your colony. Build domes and infrastructure, research new possibilities and utilize drones to unlock more elaborate ways to shape and expand your settlement. Cultivate your own food, mine minerals or just relax by the bar after a hard day’s work. Most important of all, though, is keeping your colonists alive. Not an easy task on a strange new planet.

It's a very slow-paced, but satisfying game from what I've been able to play so far. I've put quite a few hours into it already and I think it's certainly worth looking at. My concern right now, is how it will feel to play it again from the start considering the slow pacing. A lot of my time has been spent in the faster speed because of how slow it can be. However, once you start getting colonists it really does become a lot more interesting and more difficult. 

You can find it now on GOG and Steam. Just keep in mind the text rendering bug I noted earlier.

GOG links are affiliate links.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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24 comments
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14 Mar 16, 2018
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I'm really sucked into Stellaris right now, so there is no reason for me to pick this up until later. It sounds great, though. I'm going to look at the video from today's Twitch stream to see what this text bug looks like.

EDIT: Alright, it's not as bad as I was imagining. It's in your face all the time and you'll never forget it's there, but it doesn't make the game unplayable. If I had a huge itch to buy a single-player game right now, I'd still get it. Sounds like the problem will be fixed by the time I buy it.


Last edited by 14 on 16 March 2018 at 12:47 am UTC
Scoopta Mar 16, 2018
So far this game is great. There's still some issues with text rendering but for the most part it's fine. It's also not unity which made me warm and fuzzy inside.


Last edited by Scoopta on 16 March 2018 at 2:10 am UTC
SuperTux Mar 16, 2018
Like the game a lot so far. My issue only is with Paradox games so far, they tend to be time sinks :). I spent over 8 hrs last Sunday on Hearts of Iron IV in that "just a few minutes trap".
Kohrias Mar 16, 2018
Gonna grab it on gog right away. I am confident they are going to fix the text bug soon.
Eike Mar 16, 2018
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Quoting: Avehicle7887Finally one pre-order I don't regret :-)

I could tell you the secret trick how to never ever regret a pre-order again... ;-)
slaapliedje Mar 16, 2018
I just played for a few hours, but had to stop not because of the text bug (thought it was annoying, it does kind of break some of the play-ability when it says your power assimilators say they need at least '200' to be able to supply to the power grid, but then you look at the funky font and it's basically 20 with an echo of another 0, so it means 20.... or when you can't see how much your transport is carrying of a certain thing because it says you have 200 metal, when you only have a capacity for 20.

BUT, the most annoying thing for me is the interface. It was already mentioned you can only select one drone at a time, but the thing that bugged me the most, that I hope they fix is the zoom level...You can zoom WAY WAY in.. like you can kiss the drone practically. But you can't zoom out far enough, and it hits a sort of... wall I guess you could say when you use the mouse wheel to zoom out, you keep trying to go further out... then it eventually just goes to the whole map overview. It's annoying when you're trying to send your exploration rover to a spot to analyze it.

Otherwise if you like a really slow build up game, then this is a good one. I agree with Liam's comment about not sure about a second play through, since it does start SO slow.

I guess once you know how to lay things out better (yes, wind turbines are pretty much required everywhere), you could potentially just lay 'em all down and then speed it up 5x and watch things grow, only to occasionally go back to normal time and make sure everything is repaired (things deteriorate at a decent pace).

Overall, I think it is capable of having great potential, but the UI needs some serious work, and the text / number bug is rather annoying. Ha, the 'on' usually is missing part of the n, so I keep reading it as 'or', which is funky, then it looks like it just scrambles or shrinks random words like 'resources' everywhere.
STiAT Mar 16, 2018
Will pick it up once I go into my weekend :-).
Eike Mar 16, 2018
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Could someone please link a video where this text bug can be seen?
WorMzy Mar 16, 2018
Quoting: EikeCould someone please link a video where this text bug can be seen?

Liam streamed the game yesterday: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/239074343
Liam Dawe Mar 16, 2018
I do have to say, since the livestream, my concern about playing it through a second time is basically null. I had absolutely tons of fun last night. Playing with a different sponsor and so on really does change up how you play it, quite nice.

Certainly agree the zoom-out needs to let you zoom out a little further.

The drone selecting issue also isn't as big an issue as I first thought either, especially when I started to make use of the drone RC car better and understand it a little more.
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