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Pocket Mars box art
2017 Ranked #3,246

Pocket Mars

Fast card game where architects build Martian infrastructure for Earth's first colonists. A small hand drives a dynamic race to prepare the red planet, so every card must create the facilities needed before other planners finish their work.

Strategy Games Card Game Science Fiction Area Majority / Influence Solo / Solitaire Game

Players

1-4

Play time

15-30 min

Age

10+

Complexity

2.31/5

Rating

6.44

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.6/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.1/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.8/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

For a long time now, Earth hasn't been a perfect place to live. You are one of the architects sent to Mars.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

For a long time now, Earth hasn't been a perfect place to live. You are one of the architects sent to Mars. Your objective is to set up an infrastructure for the first colonists who would arrive on the red planet and start a new chapter for mankind. Pocket Mars is a fast paced and wildly dynamic card game but don't let the short playthrough time fool you. It's a heavy weight filler! A compressed and easy to understand set of rules, combined with cards that you can play in more than one way is what makes this game great! Fifteen minutes is all it takes for you and your friends to set out on an exciting adventure in space! In the world of big games about Mars everybody should have one that fits in their pocket. Your goal is to place as many colonists as you can in the buildings of your Mars settlement. To do so, you will need to choose carefully how and when to play your cards. The way you trigger actions on your cards is the heart of the game. Everything depends on where you play them from, which is the game's main strategic element. You could play a project card straight from your hand and trigger its effect instantly or turn it into a module and play it from your preparation zone. This will let you add it to one of the five buildings in your settlement, trigger an action sequence and transport your colonists to Mars – a sure way to put a spanner in the works of your competition. Each card's set of various actions combined with the buildings' unique properties leaves you with a number of small but substantial decisions: ? Where to put your card. ? Where to play your card from. ? What action sequence will give you the most possibilities within a given turn. What's more, anyone can activate an action from a module placed in one of the buildings by another player and share its effects. Pocket Mars may be a small game but Micha? Jagodzi?ski sure stuffed it with a lot of options that will have an impact on the survival of our civilization! :)

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
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Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

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Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
1–4
Best with
1–4
Play time
15–30 min
Age
10+
Complexity
2.3/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
Micha? Jagodzi?ski

Artists

1
Jaros?aw Wajs

Publishers

1
Board&Dice

Linked items

No published linked games yet.