Mini Mars
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
INSTRUCTIONS
In Mini Mars, you manage a colony of abandoned astronauts. Your goal is to help the astronauts build a rocket to leave the planet.
The tools and resources you will need to build the rocket aren’t obvious. Use your creativity to make a series of "scientific" discoveries to help you towards your goal.
Tip: The astronauts can be very cooperative if you “nudge” them in the right direction.
If you need additional hints, click the "lightbulb" on the bottom of the screen.
CONTROLS
Camera Movement
- W - Move camera forward
- S - Move camera backward
- A - Move camera left
- D - Move camera right
- Right Mouse Button - Rotate camera
- Scroll Wheel - Zoom camera in/out
Building
- Left Mouse Button - Confirm building placement
- Escape - Cancel building placement
- Q - Rotate building preview counter-clockwise
- E - Rotate building preview clockwise
FEEDBACK
If you played the game and have time to leave a comment, I'd love to hear your answers to these questions:
- Did you manage to build the rocket?
- What parts did you get stuck on?
- Did you have fun?
- How long did you play for?
CREDITS
The 3D models and animations used were created by Kay Lousberg. Some icons used were created by the community at Lucide.
I'd also like to give a special thanks to my playtesters Charlotte, Felix, Isaac, James and Ryan. I love you all despite the bugs you made me fix.
Running on Mac
* You must use a mouse if you are playing on a Mac. Trackpads are not supported for zooming the camera in/out.
If you download the Mac build, your system will flag it when you try to run the game. To override this, enable this setting in your System Preferences.
I didn't pay the $100 fee to Apple to license this as safe software. You'll just have to take my word for it. Thanks Apple...
Download
Comments
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Hey! This was really fun, worked great on Linux.
1. Did you manage to build the rocket?
Yes, but someone stuck in a building was left behind after I panicked trying to get all the astronauts into the ship before it left.
2. What parts did you get stuck on?
Had to start over instantly after curiosity got me to throw all two of my astronauts into the dead zone.
I never figured out how to stack the characters as suggested in the silhouette hint. Kept trying to drop them on top of each other.
--> Just read your blog post on how to stack them. I did notice the astronaut confused animation, but I think I would've never noticed the extra dot hint behind him. Instead, I built the spawn building and dropped the astronaut on top of that to get them to reach the second level.
3. Did you have fun?
Yes!
- The astronauts were so slow and getting stuck on/in everything, but I enjoyed this as it encouraged a more player-driven gameplay. I liked picking up the astronauts and dropping them closer to the crates to guess which one they were going for, or watching them walk off the map. Also fun watching them throw the crates and sometimes throwing them off the map.
- Really enjoyed figuring out the stacking aspect to create other buildings, a puzzle concept I don't see that often.
- Loved the grave tree, I thought it was really sweet. And then realizing I have to mine the resources off the grave to create the spaceship. Very poetic in a way.
4. How long did you play for?
1 hour.
Other Little Notes/Suggestions:
- A cursor change or highlight when mousing over interact-ables, especially as a hint to beginner players.
- Isometric/orthographic camera or a high focal length could improve warping/distortion on the edges of the screen. But I assume you want the player to be able to see as much of the map as possible, so this is just a thought.
- Kind of wished you could grab the crates as well to play around with the physics (because this was one of the first things I tried), but this would change the gameplay concept too much since you only allow the astronauts to obtain the resources. I enjoyed "baby-sitting" the little guys! It would be even crazier if they each had their own stats/personalities, but that's a whole other thing.
Thanks for letting me play! :)
1. I did it!
2. I eventually realized that when the resources are all gathered for a building, the building would spawn AND the associated astronauts' build action would stop. Before this, I thought I was losing astronauts when gathering the resources, because some astronauts happened to be inside a building's spawn zone as the building spawned. I lost two astronauts this way at the same time when making my second building 😅 I was worried I would lose all my astronauts. Only after deleting buildings later did I realize what had happened. (Also you can delete lower levels and make floating islands mwahaha)
3. I had fun! Though I had a difficult time understanding the breadcrumbs to the goal intuitively, so I kind of spammed a lot of stuff that felt along the lines of what appears in the hint dialogue instead of trying to reason through what I could intuit from the gameplay. I think this undercuts what otherwise would be "aha!" moments. Maybe more in-game feedback, hints of cause and effect for what might build a drill, what might kill an astronaut, etc would help create more a feeling of discovery? I'm spitballing here.
4. I think it took just shy of an hour to make the ship!
Awesome stuff all around! I like the theme, the simplicity of the mechanics and the red herrings.
I just read your blog post— I had no idea you could stack astronauts 😆 I massively missed out
Extra credit - I enjoyed restarting the spaceship departure sequence by boarding more astronauts