Last updated on November 26th, 2025 at 12:45 pm
Mars Tycoon – Puzzle Game Review
Mars Tycoon is a Puzzle/Entertainment/Simulation game from Tim Webster, first launched in 1st July 2016.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 157+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Mars Tycoon Stand Out
Welcome To Mars!
At -65C below freezing, no oxygen and zero atmosphere, the conditions are hostile for Life…
Despite this, Mars remains our best hope for becoming a multi-planetary species…
In 2025, 6 brave Astronauts will set foot here for the first time – another giant leap for mankind…
Their mission is to prepare for a Human colony on Mars…
Your mission is to ensure their survival…
First find Water and a Power source to synthesize breathable air…
◈ Build the first human colony on Mars!
◈ Find and synthesize the necessary elements to stay alive!
◈ Grow your colony with new visitors from Earth.
◈ Expand and set up Industry to exploit Mars' natural resources.
Notify me of any suggestions and/or bugs @timtupman.
This Puzzle game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Mars Tycoon is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 1st July 2016
Recent improvements include:
This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon.
Download & Availability
Mars Tycoon is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
This game is amazing.At the beginning we didnt know it stuff works and kept on getting a game over but we kept trying and we managed to get good at the game in the end its really fun but we wish there is more to it like maybe natural disasters or maybe you can go to different planets or maybe things that come from the mau by sneaking in and possibly drink or eat all your astronauts idk. Overall this game it amazing.
Ok….we love the game but you NEED to make new stuff we play it soo much. But when we master and have everything, it gets boring, so we wish you could make rockets that can go to other planets with lightning storms or volcanoes with higher difficulty, and more buildings and make it more complicated and hard because we just looooooovvvvvve dis game. Nice job game creator, other people just dont understand how to play the game, oh and have you ever thought of updating ur awesome game.
Was fantastic until we filled up about half the map our structures and now it lags so much we cant even play it. Please fix this issue because this game is actually really great and very addicting.
This is a great game but it took us a couple times to make substainable colony.(=. <(,,=.
This game seems very undeveloped and does not have many items but this game is fun and complex with its many challenges. We highly recommend this game.
The only problem in this game is that when you upgrade your MAV to it needing oxygen and water and everything the game breaks. When you connect a second pipe from the lab, you still only get oxygen to the MAV, but no methane. Otherwise it's great, but fix that. Then our review will be 5 stars! It's fixed. 5 stars.
When we played this game we could not Get pass anything till we learned how to play by teaching ourselves also for the people that need help with their MAV or MAU It has to be lvl 2 then connect it it will have a timer then it lifts off and brings back 2500 Supplies WARNING if your making another MAV IT WILL COST 2600 REALLY IF YOU DO YOU WILL BE AT 0 But before that there will be a solar flare -Food For everyone but when you run out you won't get a GAME OVER it waits till you get your MAV back then You get your stuff.
We were frustrated when we started because we just couldn't figure out what we had to do. We were ready to delete the game after our 3rd or 4th attempt and failure, but we decided to try one more time and we figured it out. If you don't want to take the time to figure out how this game works, then you won't like it. Like we said, we were not enjoying at first, and now we're compelled to give this 5 stars. It's worth it if you just figure it out.
Have fun with game. People get stuck in buildings, but we just restart game. We have OCD so this has been fun and we still havent exactly cracked the placement of buildings yet, which we have for all other games. Once you have factory and MAV level 2 the game is basically done. Ive started killing off people by removing power or other buildings just to make it interesting before starting a new game.
This game really makes our brain think. Its big brain time bois. You spawn with a limited amount of materials, and you have to strategically place each building. However, once you have gotten the mav to work and bring you materials, its isnt as difficult as it is. Although with a few minor bugs, this game is overall good.
Pretty good game and really enjoyable but our astronauts keep getting stuck on each other and cant get anything done. Still really awesome concept and nicely executed.
Great concept, great pixelated art style, and somewhat good performance. We wish there was maybe a title screen as there is none. Maybe a help screen would be good too. But if u are lookin to play: YOU MAKE METHANE BY CONNECTING A LVL2 LAB TO A LVL2 MAV… Also our dude keep dying bc the refuse to get sleep in one of our 3 habs…maybe a bug fix.
Its hard because you only start with 2500 supplies and 2nd its hard because you lose supplies fast is,fun because when you get it correct it gives u a good feeling.
When we first played the game we failed and kinda expected that however we decided to spend a dollar on supplys and we made it later on so to make it easyer to finish the area that lets u live add at least 1000 more building materials for when u start also the astronauts go into the buildings and we can be fine with them being slow it because you have to veiw the map as being huge but the astronauts run into each other alot They go into the habitat and start running into each other unable to move also they get caught in the pipes some how so it would be a good idea to make it so the astronauts go thro each other and check for a bug with the pipes also great job with the buildings we noticed there are places you cant build because you upgrade the other buildings in the future so good job.
This game has a good design that challenges players especially towards the start of each colony. However a better system for piping would be great, as 60% of our colony at the moment is piping and more possibilities can be made of this system was improved.
A little difficulty with the ai, characters get stuck for a short period of time sometimes. Otherwise it is a fun game. You can get to a stable colony without emergency supplies. It is difficult to figure out the right layout and you will probably have to restart several times. But once you figure it out expansion can continue.
The astronauts are dumb and greedy. They stay there when they have everything they need even when other astronauts are dying out side. The amount of astronauts that come in are dead by the time the next Bach comes in.
Feels like the first level of something that could be. Wish there was more content. A bigger area. Multi level pipes (or some way not to make it so hectic). Maxed out our map with over 250k. Was an addicting play for a day tbh. Working out your first MAV setup can be difficult, but then its all time and strategy from there. Dont be afraid to reset a few times to get it right. -DK.
It is very fun but EXTREMELY hard to learn a good way to start.
It has a great concept and has a lot of potential… Except it is extremely hard to start out at the beginning. We have a feeling if we can get the Mau off the ground we would do better but we cant get there without running out. We have been counting, we are off to try for the twenty seventh try. Tell us if we are being an idiot.
For early game it is really hard and would be the reason why many would quit, we spent close to an hour trying to figure it out For main game (the game time between early and late game) its pretty good but its really frustrating when things dont get built and the colonists get stuck For late game there isnt enough space for infinite gameplay but there isnt a satisfying end either What we would love is more gameplay to play.
This game is great it has a good concept but the execution is poor. The app has the mechanic of waiting inside the app instead of being able to exit and have it run. The game also takes forever to send the MAV. Also why do the astonauts stay in one space. We have people swing of exhaustion because some greedy bois wont get out of the jab unit. Every thing in the game is good idea just needs a better execution.
When we first started this game we tried to do everything compact and neat but the wires would not connect. The way power works is a big stupid. You should be able to connect multiple solar panels to one cable so you van have more power. Unless one is enough and it all works and we are an idiot. You should change how the cables look when they are not being used because they go red and flash which makes it look like they are invalid or something. Our astronauts keep suffocating even when we have a powered lab which we dont understand. We have it connected to the hab and they go and walk into the lab instead. We do like this game and we will keep trying to get it to last more than 5 minutes. But its really really hard. The astronauts walk ridiculously slow which also does not help them suffocating. The way the pipes work is very clunky and sometimes the game decides it wont work for no reason. Change the walk speed of the astronauts, rework the way pipes work, make multiple power cables able to connect into one, and add some new stuff.
The game is interesting and we are looking for some sorta build your own colony thats not overly challenging with fun filled colors. But we will say the hole pipeline portion gots us baffled and not sure how to get our mav to launch for more resources. If you can fix this maybe Id be more into it.
Good game but needs some improvement like more buildings and our ppl get stuck in buildings are in the field and die ..plz fix.
It could be a good game but the beginning is difficult. You have a very limited supply of materials and you can fail easily at the start. In the case you can get past the start you can end up unhooking your ships and losing your incoming materials hence loosing the game. And finally the lab keeps putting oxygen in our ship instead of methane. We have oxygen already hooked up and it keeps doing oxygen.
This is a game we want to like. Unfortunately some of the bugs are just too much to truly allow us to enjoy the game. First, pipes. This game loves pipes. Pipes for power, water, O2, etc. And all the pipes must come from the source. No branching, no pass through. Second, utility building upgrades. They take forever. And they only chug away at it if the game is open. Close the game, progress stops. When you upgrade the buildings grow. Too bad you can't determine what direction they expand in. The randomness of building growth has ruined a few carefully thought out pipe lines, resulting in you having to destroy all the pipes you build and redo them all. More time, more building materials, no fun. Third, the MAV. The ship your little 8-bit explorers arrive on also gets upgraded and sent back to earth for more supplies. But, just as with the buildings, it only progresses if the game is open. When you start it takes 4 mins total to send the ship(which happens automatically) but as you slowly progress it takes longer. Much longer. The furthest along we reached was 16 mins round trip. A long time to keep a game open while doing nothing. And you better hope if you wait halfway through and then exit the app that the ships progress doest just reset completely[bug]. Along with the time it take to go get mor supplies, as you upgrade the MAV it also starts to require more utilities. Quite unexpected. Fourth, the astronauts. The slowest, laziest, most inefficient creatures you could possibly choose to send on a mission to Mars. Sometimes the get stuck[bug] permanently until the app is closed out completely and restarted. Fifth, no purpose. The game has no end goal. Yes yes, it says the goal is to 'prepare for a colony on Mars' but let's be honest, there's nothing of the sort going on. It's just build utilities, get supplies, build utilities, etc., etc. Forever. No building of infrastructure, no bio domes, no livestock. There is no real progression of things to do, build, maintain, etc. In conclusion, the game is like a stripped down version of any old tycoon game, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But it could be so much more. We would say give it a try, if for no other reason than to work around all the bugs and crappy game mechanics. We hope the dev can come back and put a little more work into this game. Chao.
We felt this game was very difficult, we have a high tolerance for games and this one was still a bit tricky (which we like) but given the title, it doesn't seem to go along those lines. The game seems to be a puzzle at first but then becomes too easy, the only penalty is losing all your building blocks but it's easy to avoid. Overall we would not recommend getting the game, but at the time of writing this, he said he was going to work on this game so who knows, maybe we will see a bit more.
This game is very cool but can be very frustrating to getting your ship back to earth before you run out of building materials. It feel like you're almost forced to buy them.
We think it would have enough puzzle component without the supply lines being so confusing. Hope it gets changed so they can overlap.
We are outraged at the fact that pipes cant be made lots useful! We are struggling with the fact that the placement means 1 habitat might disappear because of this!!!! It seems like a good strategy for placing….. People would not like it though.
The problem is it is impossible to get your pipes run before everyone dies. The game is so finicky about pipe placement that your crew dies while you repeatedly drag the pipes.
This game is a crappy Sim City rip off on Mars. Very poorly designed. Piping and other supply lines cannot run side by side. You have a limited amount of building points before you launch the MAV back to earth for more. Buildings have to placed very strategically to make sure everything can be hooked up and you have enough building points to send the MAV back. Supplies cannot be transferred from building to building requiring separate lines from the source. Also just because your solar panel is connected to the battery pack doesn't mean that electricity will transfer from battery via solar panel to another building. Again you are required to make a separate connection directly from the battery. Very frustrating game. We gave up after about four attempts to get everything placed correctly so that everything is connected and we have enough building points to send MAV back. Never was able to do it and the game play wasn't good enough to warrant further attempts. Oh and also the supply lines tend to disconnect randomly. If all of this can be fixed maybe it would ok but probably better off playing Sim City.
Its not possible to post this if its bugged because HOW do we make oxygen.
We cant play the game without resources and we cant doing anything but pay for resources after we use them up then after we use ALL our resources we literally die so you need to add more resources so we can actually play the game.
No matter how we plan out the layout we always run out of materials and loose. It says we can build a factory and what not but we have to have 60 people. In order to get 60 people we got to build more housing. But the scam is there isnt enough material for all that so looks like they just want you to spend your hard earned money on this.
Terrible graphic just a pipe connection game with building.
Ive noticed that your colonists in the game seem to die for no reason. Today we figured out that was because they couldnt get to the habitat buildings fast enough to get more oxygen or to sleep. That being because they cant walk through each other and sometimes even get clustered up inside of building and cant leave. Sometimes when this happens theyre already in the habitat and they just die anyway because they cant get to the center.
The game could be so amazingly great, but when it comes to functionality it sort of stagnates. While playing the game in the beginning we can't figure out how to actually build up our base( can't get past the methane fuel part) due to how once a pipe is connected to one place you can't make a pipe going out of that spot which is the greatest downfall of this game in our opinion. Please fix this in the next version, thank you.
This game is pretty bad. It lacks any proper tutorial (it has a tutorial but it's very bad). It makes it far to complicated to build as well. It uses pipes to connect buildings with each other which we like but these pipes clutter and it's difficult to build over pipes.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.0
- Size: 23.24 MB
- iOS: 8.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: [Tim Webster]()
Last updated: 1st July 2016 | Genre: Puzzle, Entertainment | Developer: Tim Webster