NonVi Games

Build Mars for Palm OS® handhelds

Buy Build Mars

New Version 1.1

The new version provides several new features:

Download Build Mars for Palm OS® handhelds demo (156K installed)

[ Build Mars Screenshot ]

Background

The year is 2147. Earth is in crisis. The population is 500 billion and growing. Earth's resources are running out. The population has lost hope.

You have been chosen to save Earth. Your mission is to terraform Mars so that people can live there freely without needing domes or pressure suits.

You have one generation (1000 weeks) to terraform Mars. After that, it will be too late to save Earth.

Gameplay

The purpose of the game is to terraform Mars. This involves getting the temperature, atmospheric pressure, and atmospheric composition within acceptable limits for humans to survive.

To do this, you need to collect resources. When a factory has enough resources, you can build units. Units do various things such as increasing the temperature, researching upgraded units, and increasing the amount of resources collected.

Build Mars is a turn-based strategy game. You tell your units what to do (move, mine, upgrade, or produce a new unit) and then hit the "End Turn" button so that the units will do their work. Each turn they will move one square (if they are moving).

You need to use your drones to collect resources. The drones will take the resources back to their factory, which stores them. You can select which unit you want the factory to build by tapping on it to bring up a "select unit" form. This form tells you how many of each resource you need to build the selected unit. You can also see how many of each resource the factory currently has.

If you are playing one of the missions, then all of the resources you need are present and are visible--there aren't any resources hiding in the fog.

If you are playing one of the maps, then you may need to explore the fogged areas to find resources.

The missions typically provide enough resources to construct two more drones. You first need to collect enough iron, quartz, and silicon to build a drone. You can tell the factory to start building the drone at any time, but it won't actually start until it has sufficient resources.

Beyond that, each mission tells you what other units you need to build. The units are typically built with some other goal in mind, such as building reactors to raise the temperature.

In the maps, the overall goal is to raise the temperature, pressure, and oxygen percent such that humans can live freely on the surface. This is where strategy comes into play--which units should you start building first? Where should you place additional factories? How do you position the built units so that they don't block access to resources?

There are several good units to start with in the maps:

Over time, the three basic units (reactor, hydrocarbon plant, and biofactory) will become less effective. You will need to build upgraded units (which come from research labs) to continue to be effective. The monitor panel has an indication of which unit is currently effective in each category. There are "+" signs below each factor. The number of "+" signs indicates the level (1, 2, or 3) of unit that is currently effective for each factor.

Demo version

The demo version gives you 5 missions and no maps. You must purchase the live version to get all 20 missions and 6 maps.

System Requirements

Buy

When you buy Build Mars, not only do you get 20 missions and 6 maps (instead of the 5 missions and no maps in the demo), but you also get the complete source code for the game! As well, we offer a 30 day money-back guarantee on all of our games.

Buy Build Mars

Designed and programmed by Scott MacHaffie

Last updated: November 5, 2003

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