Description from the publisher: In the late 21st century, a coalition of wealthy governments, troubled by the continued destruction of earth's natural habitats, put together a team of elite astronauts to begin the first human settlement on Mars. The mission was postponed by the onset of World War IV, and as the war waged, much of what made the earth livable was decimated. Civilization neared the brink of collapse, peace and stability became distant memory, and what resources did remain were quickly becoming unsuitable for sustaining life on earth. The mission to build a settlement Mars was our last promising hope. The Astronauts were recommissioned, this time covertly, and given only 10 weeks to prepare for the mission. Rusty from their lapse in training and limited by the global scarcity of resources, this group of elite astronauts remained the last hope for civilized life. Surviving Mars: The First Mission, is a game about those first few astronauts and how they managed to create the first settlement on Mars almost a century ago. In this game, players must work together to construct a predesigned and prefabricated habitat consisting of a biosphere, a sustainable crop system and a number research laboratories. Additionally, players must complete a number of critical life supporting research tasks in order to ready the habitation system and the Martian terrain for the first wave of humans. The game can be played as a single experience, or series of episodes where player continue further the mission, and pick up where the last game left off. This game is a cooperative (or solo) worker placement, dice rolling and deck building experience, that complement the push-your-luck feel of dice with the ever growing stability of deck building. Player cooperative choose teams of two astronauts (each with their won specialty) to complete missions over a series of episodes. Players take on the role of one of four characters; Biologist, Engineer, Researcher, or Commander. (An expansion is still in development that will allow a 5th character, the Medic.) Each round players must cooperatively make both tactical and strategic decision with an overwhelming amount of unknowns. Should we build our agricultural economy by constructing another Biosphere, planting crops, and/or harvest crops? Should we perform maintenance on the HAD and life support system, or? Should we perform research that may be give us key insights and could be critical to allowing us to complete all our other ongoing missions much more efficiently? Should we a rest, heal up, focus on the team morale and make sure our team is not on the brink of Psychosis. And many more. This is a game that is meant to immerse the players into what it would feel like to be on a mission to settle Mars. The game is based upon the science and articles published by NASA, Space-X, Mars One, The Martian (the Novel by Andy Weir) and many years of personal interests and research into the topic of what it would take to settle and colonize Mars! A successful Martian settlement means, players must strategically balance a number of risks: the natural risks of the Martian terrain and extreme Martian temperatures; solar radiation and sandstorms; the immediately fatal risks of damage to their life support systems or habitat; and, or course, starvation. All this while still maintaining the state of mental and physical health necessary to construct the full habitat before the next wave of humans arrives! Can you survive the first mission to Mars?