Mars Attracts

I went into Mars Attracts expecting a gimmick stapled onto a mediocre park builder, and I spent the next several hours ignoring my actual to-do list. The premise flips the usual tycoon power dynamic: you are the Martian CEO, your paying customers want to watch humans suffer, and the humans are abducted from across history - Ancient Rome, the Wild West, and more - and installed into themed enclosures like exhibits in a very bad zoo. It is dark, it is funny, and the mechanical loop underneath that premise is surprisingly solid. The systems read like a checklist from the Bullfrog school of management sims. You lay power and water utilities, hire porters and janitors, manage supply chains to keep stalls stocked, and balance a financial model that opens with a mandatory loan from your Martian board - a neat pressure valve that forces you to prioritise revenue from the first minute. The research tree is where the game earns its depth. Biology, physics, and chemistry research tracks all require you to experiment on your human specimens, and those experiments unlock new rides, decorations, and amenities. Dissecting excess humans produces materials that feed the workshop, and the workshop builds attractions. The loop is capture, display, experiment, and profit - and it is genuinely addictive once the early economy clicks into place. Individual humans also carry unique personality traits, so one captive might be a loner who tanks enclosure happiness by crowding, while another is a kleptomaniac stealing your decor. Managing those quirks adds a per-unit puzzle layer on top of the macro economy that keeps mid-game from going on autopilot. For newcomers to the genre, the pacing is friendlier than it looks. The tutorial campaign - titled "First Frontiers" - walks through construction, staff assignment, and the expedition system at a sensible pace. Controls are straightforward: WASD camera, Q and E to rotate, scroll to zoom, left-click for almost everything. The main accessibility concern is a UI that currently has some redundant menu steps and a staff behaviour system where workers can silently de-prioritise tasks without obvious feedback. One reviewer spent 30 minutes stuck in the tutorial because a scientist was quietly blocking knowledge generation - not a crisis, but an onboarding friction point the developers should address before full release. The Early Access state is honest. Decoration and ride variety is thin in spots, certain sound effects are missing, pathing placement can be fiddly, and the vending machine queue AI has a bug that causes guest pile-ups. None of it is catastrophic - the core simulation runs stably, the save system works, and the developers have stated publicly that new maps, enclosure types, and an upgraded experiments system are already in the pipeline, with a full release targeted for 2026. Steam user sentiment sits at 92% positive across 200-plus reviews, which is a decent signal for an Early Access title still in its first few months. The team also has a track record: their previous title, This Means Warp, was well-regarded, so there is reasonable confidence in follow-through. Who should buy this now versus wait? If you have any tolerance for Early Access and a soft spot for the Rollercoaster Tycoon or Theme Hospital lineage, the current build already delivers meaningful playtime and a genuinely original twist on familiar systems. If you need a complete, polished product with full content variety, the 2026 full release is the smarter entry point. The IP is officially licensed, the humour commits fully to the source material's absurdity, and the management depth is already above average for the genre at this stage of development.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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