Surviving Mars....

I was into Cities Skylines in a big way and when that games developers brought out Surviving Mars it seemed that I'd be into it just as much as well. Surviving Mars is a game that should tick all the boxes for me. Especially on the micromanagement front.

How can the little cute drones not be enticing!

The drone ballet!

Yet for(over?) two years I've not played it on any serious level. Despite getting the dev's discount(if you played Cities Skylines) and the all singing dancing version of the game with all(the then) future content.

Over the last two years I've seen yet more updates and freebies but none have gotten me to start playing never mind keep me playing. It's a bit of a mystery.

Everything in the game is a positive for me. Paradox Interactive games in general have been a great gameplay experience. Cities Skylines was a game I got massive value for my time spent in it. Yet Surviving Mars hasn't drawn me in as it should have. No to harp on about it but I'm really puzzled as to why.

Each time I've gone back to it I faff about for a few minutes and then bail.

With the DLC content alone there's a lot to go through. Looking at howlongtobeat.com the game takes between 20 to 200 hours ranging across complete to completionist.
I don't find the timings daunting. There's many a game akin to Surviving Mars that I've sunk hundreds of hours into.

I don't seem to be accepting that a game that screams everything I like when played has no hook on me.

Paradox Interactive

So with a gap since the last time I played and such a long time since I've bought the game originally; Time for one more try before sweeping it away for a spring clean.

Over the last few day's I've dedicated some time to the game to 'get back into it'. Starting off with that video above. I went full noob and followed it step by step. To start fresh with a basic run of the game.

So I followed the tutorial and carried on from there, exploring, mining/gathering, researching and growing a colony.

It's further than I thought I'd get. It was interesting but in the end I was doing it more for a blog post than to 'play' it as a game. That's the realization of it. Not a waste of time but there is still no hook for me to play the game. I've still got no answer or reasoning to say why. No amazing revel or understanding to help, noting I can point a finger at and say 'that's' the problem. I'll happily play more Cities Skylines, endure the RNG of Darkest Dungeon and drive 2500 kilometers in Euro Truck Sim 2. Surviving Mars should be 'my jam'..... But it's not. Time to let it go.