Tharsis | |
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Developer(s) | Choice Provisions |
Publisher(s) | Choice Provisions |
Designer(s) | Zach Gage |
Engine | Unity |
Platform(s) | |
Release |
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Genre(s) | Strategy |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Tharsis is a 2016 strategy video game developed and published by Choice Provisions. It was released worldwide in January 2016 for Windows and Mac OS X through the download service Steam, as well as for PlayStation 4, and later in April 2020 for the Nintendo Switch. The game follows a team of astronauts on the first manned mission to Mars, in order to track down a signal that is apparently extraterrestrial in origin. After being hit by a micrometeorite storm, they must resort to desperate measures to survive the trip.
All the stats, form and information about race horse - Tharsis available at RACING.COM – The first destination for Australian Horse Racing. Jan 12, 2016 This game will be leaving EA Play on October 23, 2020. A mysterious signal originating from the Tharsis region of Mars set us on a frantic mission.
A turn-based game played using simulated virtual dice, the player controls four characters, attempting to fix problems with the ship and keep the crew alive each turn by managing their dice cache, health, and stress level. Developed by designer Zach Gage and the indie development studio Choice Provisions, the game was created to mimic a board game experience.
Critics were polarized on whether the gameplay was deeply strategic or overly dependent on random chance, and the game was more poorly received by video game reviewers than streamers, board game players or other developers.
If 0, Tharsis automatically determines the number of threads to use. Default: 0 -headless If specified, tharsis-game will run without any graphics (without even opening a window). Photo of THARSIS (General cargo vessel, IMO: 9649196, MMSI: 246091000, Callsign: PBLC, Flag: Netherlands, Photo-ID: 2371661) taken by Noorderlicht. Taken on: 2019-04.
Gameplay[edit]
Tharsis allows players to control four astronauts with unique jobs and abilities inside a heavily damaged spacecraft, the Iktomi. The game lasts for 10 in-game weeks, during which time the player must attempt to reach Mars without any of the crew perishing.[1][2] At the start of each week, at least two parts of the ship will have a problem in need of repair, and which, if left alone, can damage the ship's hull integrity or crewmember health. The player can click each astronaut to deploy them to a certain module for that turn and repair them using the astronaut's dice. If a problem is not repaired after all crew members move, the negative effect will trigger.[1][2]
The player, using the Captain character, attempts to put out a fire by rolling dice.
Each astronaut has their own health points (HP), stress meter, and dice cache.[1] Every roll of the dice decreases the character's maximum dice by one unless replenished with food. Problems can only be repaired by adding enough dice to match the indicated number.[1] However, there are several types of hazards that can hinder dice rolls, which can only be avoided by gaining 'assists'. There are a maximum of three assists at a time, and one is consumed to prevent a hazard.[3] Besides using the dice to repair, each room has a bonus that can be activated by rolling a certain dice, or combination of them.[1] Extra dice can also be invested into research, allowing beneficial abilities to be used at a later time.[4]
At the end of each week, crew can work on side projects that the player can choose from.[1] Usually, these side projects have both a positive and negative effect. The higher the crew's stress, the worse the negative effects, and if crew are allowed to go insane, they will work on a solo side project with a more drastic effect than usual, and may harm the other crew. The crew can also eat food, if any, during this time.[1]Cannibalism can be used as a last resort if the crew runs out of food. The player can choose to feed the body of a crew member who died in the beginning of the game to various surviving crew. However, this has significant negative consequences to the characters' stress levels and maximum health, and affects the game's ending.[1]
Plot[edit]
The game is set in the near future, where Earth has received a mysterious signal from Tharsis on Mars. With scientists believing it to be a sign of extraterrestrial life, the Iktomi is built, and its six crewmembers are sent to Mars to investigate the anomaly. Depending on the characters used, the voice of the commander will be either male or female.[5] However, halfway through their mission, the ship is suddenly hit by a micrometeorite storm that kills two crew members, Mapiya Musgrave and J. Cross, and destroys the Pantry where the food is stored. With limited food supplies and crew, disasters start running rampant throughout the ship, and the astronauts are forced to constantly fight to survive. Despite still being able to contact Mission Control, they are unable to turn back home.
During the journey, the crew deciphers data sent from Tharsis and realizes that it shows what seems to be an exact copy of the crew of the Iktomi who are in dire straits. Unsure of what to make of this data, they manage to survive until they reach Mars and launch the capsule, while the Iktomi remains in orbit and is destroyed. The crew tracks down the signal and comes across an alien artifact. Suddenly, the artifact flashes with a bright light. If one or more of the Iktomi's crew is dead, the artifact's energy release seemingly kills everyone. One of the crew manages to survive long enough to send a distress call, which the artifact sends back in time, creating a causal loop. However, if all of the crew survive, then one of the crew members manages to pick up a rock and throw it at the artifact, destroying it in a massive explosion, with their ultimate fate unknown and Mars now covered in a layer of snow, implying the planet can now support human life.
Development[edit]
The color scheme of Tharsis was based on that of a toy xylophone.
According to an interview with Mike Roush, co-founder of Choice Provisions, the original inspiration for Tharsis was the story of the whaling ship Essex, which was sunk by a whale, forcing the crew to resort to desperate attempts to stay alive, including cannibalism.[6] The game was also inspired by the Apollo 13 mission and the fact that they were forced to use unusual household items to maintain the air scrubber.[7]
The game was also created out of Choice Provisions's desire not to be 'typecast' as a studio that only developed the Bit.Trip series or worked in an 8-bitretro style.[6]Tharsis's art style was based on 70's sci-fi designs such as those used in Space: 1999 and UFO, but which was updated to be realistic in a modern-day context.[7] The pastel color scheme was derived from that of a children's xylophone.[7] The soundtrack consists of tracks from the album Half Age EP by Weval.[8]
The dice mechanic was used due to a perceived resurgence in the popularity of board games, as well as due to the uniqueness of the concept in video games.[6] A challenge that was noted was the high learning curve of the game, which caused people to abandon it instead of watching the tutorial or delving deeper into the strategic mechanics.[6] The game was balanced to provide a degree of challenge such that players could not beat the game on their first try, but required repeated attempts to be able to get further and further.[6] The game's development took approximately two years to complete.[6]
Reception[edit]
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Since its release on Steam, Tharsis has received mixed reception, according to review aggregatorMetacritic.[9] Amongst positive reviews, Matt Peckham of Time called the game 'ingenious' and 'brutally exacting'.[4] Reviewer Andrei Dumitrescu of Softpedia cited 'interesting mechanics' and 'a lot of replayability', despite the high difficulty, and that the game showed how humans persevere in the face of hopeless odds.[12] Brian Dumlao of Worthplaying scored the game moderately, praising the 'lovingly rendered' graphics of the ship despite the 'generic' characters, and saying the music was 'done very well', though mentioning that the game was 'not for everyone', and that people who weren't comfortable with losing far more often than they would win would be unhappy with the game.[1]
A common point of criticism was that success was perceived to be overly based on random chance. Patrick Hancock of Destructoid praised the game's graphics as 'wonderful', aside from the faces of the crew members, but criticized the game for relying 'too much on dice rolls', leading to the feeling that winning is too dependent on luck and 'destroy[ing] one's interest in trying again'.[5] Rob Zacny of IGN stated that he felt that he had gotten 'lucky' when things went well, instead of doing 'something clever'.[11] Tyler Wilde of PC Gamer called the game it highly 'dependent on chance', and suggested that the difficulty varies widely depending on how good your dice rolls are for that particular playthrough.[3]
According to designer Zach Gage, the game was one of the most critically divisive he ever worked on.[13] The game received an overall negative response from publications that were video game focused, while it received a more positive response from streamers, board game players, and developers.[13] He believes this is due to the fact that games of chance are usually used as a lazy shortcut to make things harder, or to take the player's money in mobile games, which caused the gameplay of Tharsis to be overlooked.[13]
References[edit]
- ^ abcdefghiDumlao, Brian (February 4, 2016). 'PC Review – 'Tharsis''. Worthplaying. Archived from the original on April 9, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2016.
- ^ abMachkovech, Sam (January 14, 2016). 'Tharsis review: The exploding, cannibalistic space station always wins'. Ars Technica. Archived from the original on April 12, 2019. Retrieved February 21, 2020.
- ^ abcWilde, Tyler (January 13, 2016). 'Tharsis review'. PC Gamer. Archived from the original on September 1, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2016.
- ^ abPeckham, Matt. 'Review: 'Tharsis' Is an Ingenious Game That Will Break You'. Time. Archived from the original on August 20, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2016.
- ^ abcHancock, Patrick (January 11, 2016). 'Review: Tharsis'. Destructoid. Archived from the original on October 6, 2019. Retrieved February 20, 2020.
- ^ abcdef'Tharsis PC Interview | GameWatcher'. www.gamewatcher.com. Archived from the original on July 8, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2016.
- ^ abcChoice Provisions (November 17, 2015), The Origins of Tharsis, retrieved August 25, 2016
- ^'ABOUT'. THARSIS. Archived from the original on October 18, 2018. Retrieved February 21, 2020.
- ^ ab'Tharsis'. Metacritic. Archived from the original on August 28, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2016.
- ^Tran, Edmond (January 28, 2016). 'Tharsis Review'. GameSpot. Archived from the original on October 6, 2019. Retrieved February 20, 2020.
- ^ abZacny, Rob (May 2, 2017). 'Tharsis Review'. IGN. Archived from the original on July 3, 2019.
- ^Dumitrescu, Andrei. 'Tharsis Review (PC)'. Archived from the original on September 9, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2016.
- ^ abcKuchera, Ben (January 27, 2016). 'Death is random, but so is survival: Learning to love random chance in Tharsis'. Polygon. Archived from the original on August 25, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2016.
Proof That 1 Equals 0
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tharsis_(video_game)&oldid=969123487'
Dad: OK kids, hop in the spacestationwagon. We’re going to Mars!
Jr: I call tailgunner seat!
Mom: Just make sure you have your seat belt buckled and your spacesuit helmet is on tight.
Jr: I call tailgunner seat!
Mom: Just make sure you have your seat belt buckled and your spacesuit helmet is on tight.
OK, so Tharsis isn’t exactly a family road trip; there are no roads and it isn’t family friendly, so what is it? Let’s have a nice family meeting to discuss it.
Before we get into the details, I’ll throw this out for you—this game is very hard to read if you play it handheld mode. There is enough tiny text and detail that using your TV is highly recommended.
Tharsis is a mission-to-Mars game. You need to direct the actions of four crew members aboard your spacecraft so you can land at least one person alive on Mars. I would say “safely” on Mars, but this voyage isn’t exactly OSHA approved. In the opening scene, you get hit with the wonderful news that your crew of six (you read that right…) has encountered a disaster and your food pantry has basically blown up. You have lost two of your crewmates; one’s lost to the void of space, the other is in a body bag still aboard the ship. This scenario is not so unusual for a survival themed game, so onward we go.
Next, we encounter more problems. These come in the form of everything from electrical glitches, micrometeorite strikes, hull damage, radio failure, and TPS report problems (if this is the nod it seems to be, nice touch!). To fix these myriad issues, you need to deploy a member of your crew to the location indicated and start rolling the virtual dice.
The damage is assigned a number value, and the dice you roll need to total up to at least that number to complete the repair. You can deploy more than one crew member to a problem, so don’t panic just yet, there will be plenty of time for that later. Once you roll your dice, you can assign them to repair damage, do “research,” repair hull damage, or buff stats. So, research got the quotes thing because you are not really doing research (no surprise), but the points you add to the research tray can earn a variety of special actions including repairs. This is good to keep your eyes on it because it can save your bacon.
Tharsis 1 0 2
Let’s talk about the bacon, or, more precisely, food. Yes, you need to try to maintain the module which is growing your food supply and allocate dice to harvesting your crops. If that source of nutrition is too slow to produce, there is the option of cannibalism. You do have one dead crewman already at the start of the game so…
If you decide to engage in cannibalism in the game your crew will experience an increased stress level. Higher stress means more reckless suggestions. This can lead to more crew members dying, but then that’s more food, right? The game even offers this as a suggestion to increase your food supply—intentionally killing off one crewman to feed the remaining crew. Here’s a note to the game developers: unless we’re playing a zombie apocalypse game, and we all like destroying zombies, leave cannibalism out! This is just a cheap shock tactic to cover up poorly constructed storylines, plots, or gameplay. If you can’t come up with a better way to get around feeding your crew, go back and do another brainstorming session (take the zombie pun there if you like…braaaaaaaiiins).
Another fun feature is the between rounds special project. This is another randomly generated condition which requires a decision. It may be deciding to balance rest (which reduces crew stress) with getting work done (which keeps the ship intact). There are lots of trade-offs in the game, and you need to balance crew health, stress levels, repairs priority, dice allocation points, and so on.
In theory, this should be a good resource management and planning/execution game. The downside is that too much of the game is based on a random number generator. There is some strategy involved, but good planning only goes so far when you have an unreliable and randomly shifting set of resources. The game will even randomly assign how many dice each crew member starts with so you could be handicapped right from the start—or not. Who knows? It’s just random.
The dice rolls are random, of course, so you may not like what you get. However, you do get two rolls per deployment, so you may not be completely stuck unless the game throws more of its little nuggets of joy your way. Simon 4 3 1. Conditions such as stasis (this locks the value, no re-roll for that die), void (this die disappears), and damage will affect your roll. What is damage, you ask? More random conditions are generated with each deployment, so if the game decides that a roll of 4 means damage then your crewman will take one point of damage for every die which has a 4 when you roll. As with too many elements of this game, this is random.
If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m not exactly thrilled with how many things in this game are based on randomness. The random selections include how many damage points the ship takes in a turn, what type of damage is dealt, how many points of damage are assigned to each location, how many dice each crewman starts with, and so on. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-random or dice phobic; I have been both player and DM in a fair few campaigns of D&D, and we all know that means lots of dice. The big problem is how randomness is used in this game.
Tharsis 1 0 1
Tharsis 1 0 M
The basic premise of Tharsis is interesting, the visuals are good, and the mechanics sounded promising. What I encountered while playing is a short, 10-round roulette wheel of no fun. There are some suggestions on the game site and I have tried them—delaying nonessential repairs, stacking crew in modules to take advantage of buffs, etc.—but the too-random nature of the game sucks the fun out of it. This game becomes less of how you do things and more of just what the dice do. There are three difficulty levels so it will test your skill, if not your patience, for a while.