$14.99Tharsis Ten Weeks to Mars, One Broken Ship
Roll dice, patch a dying ship and keep four astronauts alive on the long haul to Mars.
Is Tharsis worth it?
Tharsis is worth it if…
- you like tense games where every decision costs something
- you enjoy board games and want one you can play solo in short sessions
- you accept that dice decide a lot, and find losing runs worth another try
- you prefer careful planning and crisis management over fast action
- you like space stories with a grim, claustrophobic edge
Screenshots
Dice as survival tools
Every turn, something on the ship breaks. You send crew members to the failing module and roll their dice to deal with it: the numbers you roll become repair points, and you spend them to bring the damage down to zero. A medical bay heals someone if you land a five or six. A bad roll can leave a room burning while you watch.
The cruel twist is hunger. Every week, each crew member loses a die, so your pools shrink as the trip goes on. What felt generous in week two is desperate by week seven. You can reroll, spend dice on bonuses, and lean on each character's special abilities, but the dice never fully obey. That is the point: the game is about doing the best you can with what turns up, even a pair of snake eyes.
Hard choices, dark choices
The mission is ten weeks long, and the ship was never built to survive ten weeks. Each turn you decide who goes where, who eats, who takes the risk, and who gets left to handle a module alone. Health, sanity, food and the hull all compete for the same handful of dice, and fixing one thing often means ignoring another.
When the food runs out and the options narrow, the game asks what you are willing to trade for one more week of flight. Between turns, comic-style cutscenes carry the story forward: the strange signal from Mars, the warnings, the growing sense that this trip was doomed from the start. Some players find the story sets a mood more than it pays off, but the atmosphere of a small, failing ship in the dark is real.
What should you know before playing?
How long is a run, and how does it end?
A run is ten turns, one per week of the flight to Mars. You win by keeping at least one crew member and the ship intact until arrival. Lose everyone or the hull, and the run ends, with permanent death meaning that crew is gone for good. A full run is short enough for an evening, which is part of why failed runs pull you straight into another attempt.
Is it too random to plan around?
Luck is a big factor, and some players bounce off that. But the planning is real: which crew member goes where, when to reroll, when to spend dice on bonuses, and which module you can afford to neglect this week all change your odds. Skilled players win most runs on normal difficulty. On the hardest settings, the dice can deal you an unwinnable hand, and you accept that going in.
Is there anything beyond the main mission?
Yes. There are ten extra scenarios that are harder than the base mission, along with research that unlocks bonuses and other rewards to work toward. Different crew specialities also change how a run plays out, so a second attempt with a new setup feels genuinely different from the first.
Can you play it with just a touchscreen or a controller?
The game was designed with touch in mind, and the interface is simple enough to learn quickly on a tablet or touchscreen. On a desktop the same clean interface works with a mouse, and the whole game plays fine in short bursts wherever you are.
