Last week, I purchased and installed an RTX 4090 in my PC because it’s almost tax time and since my job revolves around games, I can deduct it as a business expense. I broke this phenomenally powerful card in by blowing most of my weekend on Mars First Logistics, a job sim by Melbourne-based studio Shape Shop, in which you play a little Mars rover made out of Lego. This is probably not the game most people would choose to throw at a 4090 right off the bat, but it was mine, and I don’t regret it for a moment.
In Mars First Logistics, your job is to take your little rover and use it to ferry objects across the red planet, modifying your build to tackle the varied chores you’re given as you go.
A simple goal, but the execution is often where the game’s true complexity lies. Your rover is effectively made out of Lego. As you can take on more delivery quests, the game gives you blueprints that open up new rover builds. You can alter these blueprints as you like, constructing the Martian logistics equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife, or you can use the builds the game provides and make them work for you. Your builds can be as simple or as detailed as you like, provided you have the parts on hand to construct them.
As with real-world logistics, it helps to be a natural problem solver. There’s quite a bit of lateral thinking involved, and for those that struggle with this kind of mental exercise, I expect Mars First Logistics could be a frustrating play. For those that are into this particular brand of problem-solving, it scratches the bran real good. In the early part of the game, you won’t always have the tools you need. I spent a frustrating hour trying to figure out how to get a blue girder to stand upright for delivery before realising, “There’s probably a build for this I don’t have yet.” But as the number of tools on your belt grows, along with the parts at your disposal for further rover augmentations and upgrades, Mars First Logistics unfurls into something special and unique. Your rover begins to change shape, becoming a speedy lunar buggy or a Caterpillar earth mover, wildly altering its utility and widening your options for grappling with any given problem.
I spent the weekend running hither and yon, slowly turning my little rover into a machine that could do it all. All the while, a low-fi retrowave soundtrack by Dan Golding hums in the background, firing the reciprocating engine of productivity in the mind.
It says a lot about the quality of Mars First Logistics that, even now, on a Monday morning when I have a million things to do, I keep thinking about it. Like the Lego parts it uses to construct its rover, the game’s brilliance lies in its fundamental simplicity. From that simplicity, complexity grows organically.
This is a great little Aussie game with some big ideas, a unique vibe, and a fun hook that lodges firmly in your brain. You can find it on Steam here.
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