Comrades! Our Turrets Will Take Over Mars!!!

On Jun 04, 2018 12:44 pm, by reactor303

Mix roguelite with tower defense while listening to a pretentious militaristic speech, then takeoff towards the stars! Mars or Die is a strategic combo of tactical planning, execution and reflexes unique to the genre, designed to afford exploration and multiple-base building, while resisting hordes of increasingly big red Martians.

Building, Scouting, Fighting and Upgrading are the four pillars of the game core loop. Explorers roam the Red Planet on foot: their respirators have limited capabilities so they will need to build O2 Tanks. In order to do so, they must find and mine Crystals, to accumulate resources. Players can perform multiple tasks by switching control between Explorers at any time: Scout Bean, fast and nimble, equipped with a bullet-deflecting shield, or Major Bob, slower but armed with a deadly 9-rounds pistol. While the player controls one character, the other will automatically assist by mining nearby Crystals or repairing damaged structures, besides defending himself. Support structures such as Solar Panels, Auto Miners and Glorious Flags expand the base, while defensive structures such as Armories, Turrets and Heavy Turrets keep enemy waves at bay.

The Campaign is divided in 9 Missions with variegated objectives (seek and recover, build, defend, escape), unfolding the story of our two Intrepid Explorers and their regime.
Once the Campaign is completed players will unlock Endless Mode, in which hordes of aliens will progressively make life harder and the goal is simply to survive for as long as possible. A global leaderboard will show those players who survive the longest.

History

Mars, or Die! wraps a challenging core loop within a silly/inefficient package: from character design, to the cartoony animations, to the absurd dialogues at the beginning of each mission. The game premise is inspired by Italian fascism and the African campaign, although no link is ever made explicit. The game intent is to mock the fake, empty grandeur of the imaginary dictator and the futile effort of sending ill-prepared troops to fulfill his imperialistic fantasies. There is no way to “conquer” Mars: communications with the Leader become more and more fragmented, and the last campaign mission simply leaves Explorers alone with nothing left but to fulfill their motto.