Per Aspera (2020)

While building a Mars colony is a neat theme for a city builder, how that was executed in Per Aspera is underwhelming. Lots of time is wasted on simply waiting, and when you get to issue some orders there's not much in the way of thinking very hard about them. It's… okay, but that won't suffice.

Per Aspera has a bunch of good ideas in it. Adding a narrative element is a slam dunk, but the pacing of it hurts it in the long run, even as interesting as it is. Per Aspera also has a lot of solid gameplay elements, and evolves into a pretty complex package in the end. But a lack of explanation as to what you're doing impairs the experience, and may cause newer players to give up before the enjoyable gameplay loop kicks in.

Overall, I really love Per Aspera. It is a fantastic game that keeps players on their toes. Unlike other colony builders, players feel a connection to the colonists and to the mission. It is a spectacular game like no other and I absolutely adore it. Per Aspera has amazing audio and voice acting that are well suited to the title and I can't get enough of it! For me, there are some minor UI issues, but I give Per Aspera a 9 out of 10. Do yourselves a favor and buy it now. Take out the weird aliens. The mission depends on it!

Per Aspera is a solid and concise experience in the real-time strategy genre. Its diversity of mechanics makes it so complex that the range of possibilities seems endless for each new adventure. This immense complexity, however, was where the developer sinned by not explaining all the mechanics clearly and sometimes trapping players in deadlocks without them understanding what they are doing wrong. I hope that the intense community support given so far will also correct these problems.

I never expected a simulation like this to be so relaxing - especially because I didn't really get the resource management. I liked the mission to make Mars a planet we could live on.