Forums - [bobbyhall2] Ares / Planet: New Frontiers

SOLVED:
It's called Ares / Planet: The New Frontiers by Kimbrosoft which seems to be defunct.

s

Hi,

I hope someone knows that name of this game I played on Windows 98 between 1998 and 2002.

It was a 2D isometric Mars colony simulation game/Simcity on Mars.

When the game starts, you are located on a colony ship above Mars and there is a menu prompting you to select landing site and launch/eject the escape/colony pods. If you launch too soon, the pods will fire retroburners too soon and crash, and if you launch too late, the pods fire retroburners too late and crash or the ship in space explodes/runs out of oxygen. You don't actually see a ship explode, but the game ends in loss. At most, you can have four colony pods/habitat modules land safely. However, if all colony pods/crashed, the game ends in defeat. You can start building after all surviving colony pods/habitat modules have landed.

The pods looked like this, but in top down isometric view: http://www.chthulhu.com/models/hab/100_0652a.jpg If you were launched the pods at the right moment, all 4 pods survive landing, otherwise 1 or more would crash and leave a tile of rubble.

I think the in-game GUI and terrain looked similar to Life on Mars?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vajYpGgv3qM However, the buildings were different.

To begin building, you would have to build a corridor from one of the pods. The corridors looked like this the + shaped buildings in Moonbase: http://www.emuparadise.me/GameBase%2...imulator_1.png or the x shaped buildings in Outpost: http://s.uvlist.net/l/y2011/11/89809.jpg The buildings must be constructed next to a corridor or another building similar to Moonbase and Outpost. The construction game play style is similar to WarCraft Orcs and Humans roads, where buildings must be built next to roads.

I think the greenhouse sprites looked similar to this: http://www.outofthecradle.net/WordPr...ole_colony.jpg or this: http://www.creativecrash.com/system/...jpg?1275254426

There were other buildings, but I can't remember what they looked like. All the buildings had the same sized footprint (occupied a tile) and all the tiles were the same size.

I think in the game, you could also build rovers that looked like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...s_PIA01122.jpg The rovers were built from the pods and you used them to explore the planet. I think there was a day/night cycle, so that the rovers could only move during the day.

The game might also have been single player turn-based.

I'm sorry I don't remember much more.

Another person is also looking for the same game: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?...-building-game

I have eliminated the following games:

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
SimCity4 (SimMars mod)
Innaky's Life on Mars? (http://www.aworldsoftware.com/mars.html)
Dark Colony
Sierra's Outpost
Moonbase (http://www.old-games.com/download/5426/moonbase)
Lunar Command (http://www.old-games.com/download/4328/lunar-command)
Open Source Mars Simulation Project (http://mars-sim.sourceforge.net/)
Marc Salotti's Marsbase game (http://salotti.pagesperso-orange.fr/marsbase.htm)
Millenium 2.2
Mars Colonizer by Notme (http://amarillion.bafsoft.net/tins/reviews.html)
SimMars by Toni (http://amarillion.bafsoft.net/tins/reviews.html)
Destination Mars (http://www.old-games.com/download/74...tination-mars-)
Build Mars (http://www.amazon.com/Build-Mars-dow...&keywords=mars)
M.U.L.E. (http://www.switched.com/2010/09/14/c...-based-econom/)
Hungry Red Mars (https://web.archive.org/web/20030706...os/index4.html)
Mars, Land of No Mercy (http://zenway.ru/page/marsnomercy)
Transport Tycoon on Mars (http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=11117)
Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds - Mars, Now! (http://www.jeuxvideopc.com/test/1236...image-1316.php)
X-COM Mars mods
Colonial Project (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehOZ3jCekGM)

Thank you for helping!