New Mars Forums

Found it. It's called Ares / Planet: The New Frontier by Kimbro Software (https://web.archive.org/web/20020202150 … planet.htm). The developer's website is gone, but a trial of the game can still be downloaded from https://web.archive.org/web/20020604032 … ksfdwn.htm.

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I've been searching fruitlessly for a 2D Mars colony/strategy game I played on Windows 98 around 1997-2001. It was a demo/shareware/freeware.

In beginning of game, player uses a (rectangular?) map of Mars to pick a location to land colony modules. The premise is there's an emergency on the colony ship and the player must launch the colony modules. There was a countdown timer showing how long the player has to pick a landing location before the colony ship is destroyed (with everyone onboard). I don't remember seeing any cinematics/animations. A maximum of four colony modules can land successfully. The player controls when the colony pods fire their retro boosters to land by pushing the space bar. Pushing the space bar too soon will cause the boosters to fire too early and extinguish too soon leading to the colony ships to crash. Pushing the space bar too late will also lead to colony ships to crash. If the player picked a bad landing location like in mountainous terrain, colony modules can also crash.

Most, if not all, the buildings must be connected by x-shaped tubes/corridors. They can only be placed next to existing buildings including the initial colony modules. Greenhouses and residence units could be built. There might also have been laboratories with a research tech-tree. The player could build and control Sojourner type rovers. I think all buildings and rovers each occupied one tile space.

There was a population counter and player must increase or maintain population at sustainable number. 0 population ends game with loss. I don't remember any victory conditions.

I think the map was staggered isometric (like Civilization 2/3), not diamond (like Age of Empires or Outpost).

It was basically a 1990's 2D version of Sol 0 without resupply or option to pick what to bring to Mars.

Gimp reconstruction of colony modules landing: http://i.imgur.com/O5KPO6O.png
Gimp reconstruction of some basic colony buildings: http://i.imgur.com/FyYvvaM.png

Eliminated Games
Ascendancy
Alpha Centauri by Sid Meier
Build Mars by NonVi (https://www.amazon.com/Build-Mars-downl … build+mars)
Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds - Mars, Now! (http://www.jeuxvideopc.com/test/1236...image-1316.php)
Colonial Project (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehOZ3jCekGM)
Dark Colony
Destination Mars (http://www.old-games.com/download/74...tination-mars-)
Hungry Red Mars (https://web.archive.org/web/20030706...os/index4.html)
Imperium Galactica
Life on Mars? by Innaky(http://www.aworldsoftware.com/mars.html)
Lunar Command (http://www.old-games.com/download/4328/lunar-command)
Mars Colonizer by Notme (http://tins.amarillion.org/2003/reviews/entry/115/)
Mars, Land of No Mercy (http://zenway.ru/page/marsnomercy)
Mars Simulation Project (http://mars-sim.sourceforge.net/)
Marsbase by Marc Salotti(http://salotti.pagesperso-orange.fr/marsbase.htm)
Millenium 2.2
Moonbase (http://www.old-games.com/download/5426/moonbase)
M.U.L.E. (http://www.switched.com/2010/09/14/c...-based-econom/)
Next Step Mars (https://www.amazon.com/Next-Step-Mars-J … build+mars) (http://learningdesign.com/Portfolio/NextStep/index.html)
Outpost
SimCity4 (SimMars mod)
SimMars by Toni (http://tins.amarillion.org/2003/reviews/entry/115/)
Space Colony
Star Command
Star Control 3
Transport Tycoon on Mars (http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=11117)
Utopia
X-COM Mars mods