BENGALURU : Sometimes, high strategy is not what you’re after. Sometimes, you just want a game that lets you mess with your friends a bit while you’re competing for the same goals. Sometimes, you just want a little chaos around the table. Today, we’re taking a look at Mission: Red Planet, a game that’s perfect for those times when you just want to watch the world burn.
Mission: Red Planet is a game about corporations competing to exploit the natural resources of Mars. Every round, you’ll fire your little astronauts off in steampunk rockets in order to lay claim to the various regions of Mars and the resources they contain. However, what you can do with your astronauts entirely depends on which role you select for the round.
Each player has the same hand of roles numbered from one to nine, and will select one of them to play (facedown) for the round. The start player then counts down from 10 to one, and whenever your role’s number is called, you reveal and take that action. Lower numbers tend to be more powerful, but higher numbers get to activate first; and that can really change the circumstances you’ll be faced with later on. It’s a really clever approach to action-selection, and it makes the simple process of choosing a card a much more involved decision than you think.
To make things even better, once a card is played, it stays down — meaning you don’t have access to it again until you play card #9 (the Recruiter) who lets you pick up all your previously-played cards.These cards are the heart of Mission: Red Planet, so let’s take a closer look at a few of them. The Pilot can change the destination of any rocketship, even if it’s already launched, while the Secret Agent can force a ship to launch even if it’s not full.
The Saboteur blows up a ship, killing all astronauts aboard it; but blowing up a ship is mandatory, which means that the Saboteur could wind up destroying a ship with your astronauts aboard if that’s the only choice you have left! Finally, the Scientist lets you place discovery cards on various regions of Mars that break the rules for that region (for example, the player with the second-most astronauts has majority, or double the production at the end of the game) — but nobody gets to see what those cards are unless they subsequently play a Scientist themselves.
This game is definitely one that shines at higher player counts, but each game can play out very differently. The one common element to every game of Mission: Red Planet is a healthy serving of chaos, and it’s absolutely delightful. If you only like games that allow you to do long-term strategy and planning, this isn’t a game for you; but, for everyone else, it’s a blast.