Big Terraforming Mars Kickstarter Opens Tomorrow, September 5

(Edit: 9/5/23) – The campaign is now live!

I thought this warranted its own post rather than editing the previous post, because this is so much bigger than it seemed before.

No new images yet, so I’ll post the graphic that’s currently on the Kickstarter page (which you can subscribe to now so you get notified, but this will also be the actual campaign page when it goes live).

This Kickstarter is going to be huge for fans of the game, as detailed in Enoch Fryxelius’ Facebook post (I’ll post the list here for those who don’t do the evil corporation).

There is, of course, the previously-announced Prelude 2, with new Prelude cards that cross the various expansions and also have new effects and everything.

There’s also the previously-announced new Automata, which unlike the base game solo mode where you basically racing to terraform Mars in a certain time frame, has you playing an actual game of Terraforming Mars against a bot (or two).

Here’s where the cool stuff really comes out (though I thought the Prelude 2 stuff was cool to begin with).

Neoprene maps. Seven of them!

There are the original and expansion maps (Tharsis, Hellas, and Elysium), but there are also 4 expansion maps. To quote Fryxelius:

“(Cimmeria, Utopia, Borealis, and Amazonis). Amazonis Planitia has a bigger map with more areas and longer global parameters to make 4-5 player games more interesting. This map comes with extra punchboard tiles: 14 cities/greeneries + 2 extra ocean tiles. There is also a set of 3d-tiles available as add-ons.”

These maps will have space for everything with all expansions: no need for extra side boards (I’m assuming that means there are spaces for colonies? It’s hard to tell from the image above, but I’ll check the images on the campaign page tomorrow and perhaps update this post).

Getting bored with the same old milestones and awards, depending on the map?

There will be 70 punchboard tiles with new milestones and awards that you can mix and match, no matter what map you are on.

“For this product we have re-balanced published as well as fan-made goals, as well as added a few new ones.”

The seasonal promo cards that are currently available on the Fryx Games web site will also be made available.

Plus “Other add-ons.”

What? There’s more?

Holy crap, that’s a lot of stuff.

Other than the maps (since there’s no way that will be possible), will all this stuff fit in the Big Box?

Time will tell (I assume the campaign will address this).

What do you think of this?

I’ll update the post tomorrow with some stuff from the campaign once it goes live.