Terraforming Mars 1.1368
there are certainly aspects of terraforming mars that feel like they could be streamlined. in particular, the way a players progress is pretty simple. your resources are put into a production line, and theres no real reason to think about how theres a better, more efficient way to buy and use them. theres a system for trading resources, but it just feels like a duplication of the existing trackers. theres a mechanism for moving planets around, but its only for trading with the other players, which feels like a waste. all of this adds up to a game that feels like it could be streamlined in several ways, making it a bit more accessible for new players.
Terraforming Mars 1.1368
but despite the fiddliness, i still feel like terraforming mars is a game with a lot of ideas in it. terraforming mars has the right idea with its mechanics, but it just didnt translate to an efficient design. i think that if you bring out the extra chrome, you can make a game that is more accessible to new players, and still keeps some of the ideas that make terraforming mars such a great game in the first place.
design philosophy is not binary. if you asked me to sum up my design philosophy for the last year, you would have gotten a very different answer than you might have gotten three months ago. the way that i think about design is always changing. so what i am trying to say here is that theres lots of room for improvement in how terraforming mars turned out. and even if you dont like the way it turned out, that doesnt mean theres no good ideas in it.
the game comes with a lot of neat little features, like the ability to try to terraform a new planet in your start zone. its nice to be able to work through the game with the same group of people every time, and i really like the idea of one player getting to go first. but terraforming mars also has a lot of mechanics that i think are too complicated for the novelty they provide, and some which are too simple. terraforming mars does a great job of communicating the mechanics of the game, but its a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to translating the game itself.