Surviving Mars

It's a casual city builder for space nerds. IT'S THE ONLY FICTIONAL WORK THAT SHOWS PEOPLE BOUNCING IN LOW MARS GRAVITY! It's super cool to build up several outposts of domes and to build up a fleet of reusable rockets that go back and forth to Earth.
But for how harsh surviving Mars should be, Surviving Mars is pretty casual. If you know how to balance resource production and make distributed rainy day stockpiles, you'll weather every disaster effortlessly. That is the totally 100% intentional artistic message, right? "Robots make Mars easy." Resources are a little too abundant, except for maybe colonists. Their mental breakdown mechanic of "renegades" is trivial to deal with. The diplomacy isn't the deepest, and it was pretty easy to destroying all rival colonies, if I wanted. They shrank the solar system to fun-sized, so the rockets make the round trip quickly enough to bail you out, instead of arriving with vital supplies only when everybody's dead. The biggest challenge is making your playthrough challenging, and any challenge you do find only really lasts through the early game. You're not making decisions of real consequence. I've done a few runs with hardly any deaths and zero colony failures. And yet, I still recommend this game.
There are a lot of event chain campaigns. They're fun. Since most of us aren't doing a dozen playthroughs, I would look up which ones are coolest and do those.
The Terraforming DLC adds a satisfying endgame. Somehow, a bunch of machines in one tiny village is enough to green all of Mars -- do the devs know how huge a planet is? Don't think too hard about it! It takes long enough that it still feels like a grand project. You do more than make percentage numbers go up: you take a barren planet, build a zillion terraforming machines, add lakes, and sow seeds. You are rewarded by a lush landscape of grass and trees, and finally, opening up the domes to the now hospitable sky. The second time around, it feels kind of tedious, until you try to make it as fast as possible by massively scaling up your operation.
If you want a deep and brutal city builder, play Frostpunk, Rimworld, or They Are Billions. If you're set on space, Oxygen Not Included has depth and personality, and your decisions can kill everybody. If you want to live the specific fantasy of a thriving Mars colony? It's pretty fun. And, somehow, replayable.

I love this game. I think it's one of the best survival city builders ever made. It's challenging without feeling so hard it's demoralizing, especially if you prepare adequately. The different factions and game rules all alter the way you play in interesting ways. Every stage of the game is familiar but different. I'm slowly working my way through the achievements, which is pretty enjoyable since most are matters of persistence and not exceptional skill.
One game I have gone all the way out to 700+ years where I've hit the limit on resource production even mining all deposits of three meteors simultaneously. Most of Mars was terraformed green. It because a very different play experience but still enjoyable.
I really like the hex build grid with the triangular build areas in the domes. Placement feels very easy and because there are only three sizes of interior building I actually feel like I can get more variety in the setup rather than needing specific configurations for optimal placement. Just a lot of nice quality of life details like that.
Plus, I love the setting. Give me a world of idealistic space communism, please.

Its a nice game. Just avoid the Below and Beyond DLC; terraforming DLC is better.
I think the devs have abandoned this game though

I find this game super relaxing, even though its a survival game. I just sit there, cultivating my crop of colonists and drones until around sol 100 which is a good six-eight hours of game play, and then I start a new game with a different sponsor/mystery etc. The game is beautiful, has a lot of complexity to learn but isn't too crazy despite its initial appearances, and there is a lot of variety both in the techs available each game, disasters/map characteristics, and of course in its crazy amount of DLC. Do what I did and play a game, get some more DLC, play another game with the new DLC repeat, rather than getting it all at once.

Fun and occasionally very calming game. While a lot of experiences are locked behind a pay wall, it still remains a rewarding, challenging, and charming play. And perhaps the foremost reason for why I love this game so dearly and recommend it so highly; is Surviving Mar's ability to capture the enchantment of nature, and furthermore our interactions which are very much real and possible, which I believe is a much lacking sentiment among most. Happy to help out a game I have had so much satisfaction with; and to developers who have created something truly unique and pleasant. Kind regards to the reader and I hope this has informed you. Would recommend!

Not sure what I actually like about the game, I just start it up and before I know it an entire day has gone by. I guess I enjoy it always trying to get to the next research goal or next dome etc..

The OST for this is unusually good.