Tharsis you control a four-person astronaut crew aboard Iktomi, the world’s first manned spacecraft, following a mysterious celestial signal that originated in the Tharsis region of Mars. Along the way, disaster struck: a sudden explosion severely damaged the ship, completely flooding the harbour, and killing two crew members. Your goal is simple but incredibly challenging: lead the four remaining crew members through a grueling 10-week countdown to reach Mars safely.

The structure of the game is similar to that of a digital game. Iktomi is divided into actionable sections (such as the Green House, the Infirmary, Life Support Stations, and the Warehouse), and at the start of each turn, damage occurs throughout these rooms. If left unchecked, these will lower your crew’s health, significantly increase their stress levels, or outright jeopardize the ship’s integrity. You must physically move your characters between modules and roll virtual dice to make the repair points necessary to fix the damage before the end of your turn.

Key Features:

Turn Based Design & Tabletop Game Mechanics:

The game works as a board game with large workspaces. Your primary resource is your dice bank, which represents your characters’ strengths and skills. Every action, from repairing a damaged hull to exploiting a room’s special advantages, relies entirely on risk management and dice allocation.

Special Character Class System:

You control a diverse roster of specialists—including Mechanics, Doctors, Scientists, and Captains—each with a unique skill set. Figuring out where to use their skills while keeping them alive makes a huge difference.

Cannibal Behavior:

When food runs out and famine strikes, your dice pool shrinks, making it nearly impossible to rebuild. The game features a psychologically evil machine: dividing and feeding dead crew members to the living. Doing so will power up your dice but completely drain your energy and destroy their sanity.

Chronic Stress Management and Sanity:

Chronic stress leads to cognitive impairment. In between rounds, highly stressed crew members will trigger explosions that can destroy your ship, harm others, or force you to make bad decisions.

Bad Development:

True to the rogue genre, Tharsis features an extremely difficult game where failure is part of the learning curve. Completing certain challenges in the game unlocks new characters, providing new options for subsequent challenges to break the ominous difficulty barrier.

Conclusion:

Tharsis is a collaborative effort, taking the familiar concept of going out of the depths and stripping away the unnecessary to reveal a raw, mechanical puzzle of talent and sacrifice. The 1970s-inspired gameplay, incredible cinematography, and intricate gameplay ensure that no two games feel completely alike.