Reply: Terraforming Mars:: Reviews:: Re: Fuzzy Llama Reviews Terraforming Mars

by amachno

Wickdawg01 wrote:

Components/Game Board

So these are some bottom tier components here. To name a few of the quality issues that I’ve seen: The cards are very thin/slick and you may want to sleeve them to keep them in pristine condition. The resource cubes are pretty and glossy but the paint already started to chip away on some of them after just 4 plays. And the worst contender of all…..the player mats. Oh my, the player mats need an upgrade something fierce. Honestly truth be told I would be totally fine with all the other issues but these player mats are a travesty. To give you an idea of how these work, you are expected to place your tiny little colored tokens on your player mat to keep track of each of your 6 different productions in the game. These range from 0 up to 10 or more. Now these player mats are the most flimsy paper mats I have ever laid eyes on. You could be in the middle of a game 2 hours in and someone gets up to get a drink and bumps the table……all your tokens shift. You look down with bewildered eyes having no idea where they all were. OR, (and this has actually happened to me during one of my plays) When you are picking up more resource tokens to add to your supply, you accidentally drop one of the heavier 10 valued ones on your player mat. These mats are so light and flimsy that even a drop of a resource token will cause your markers to shift. The game board itself isn’t too terrible. Although I am starting to see some wear along the edges where it folds which leads me to believe they cheaped out on board quality as well.

I am after 40 plays and my non-sleeved cards are in a good shape. If your cards have not been used yet, why would you say that they will? Player mats are indeed thin, but I don't see how making them thick would help with the cube displacement issue.