39 days To Mars: To infini-tea and beyond

If the Mars One mission involved a ship called the HMS Fearful, we’re guessing there would be fewer people signing up to spend the rest of their lives on the red planet. However that’s exactly what a pair of 19th century Victorian explorers are doing in this Kickstarted project from one-man development team Philip Buchanan.

In a charmingly hand-drawn style full of pistons and cogs, you must aid the hapless Sir Albert Wickes and The Right Honourable Clarence Baxter in their quest through space.

“The core gameplay in 39 Days To Mars is exploring the ship and fixing things that go wrong,” explains Buchanan. “Exploring will be familiar to anyone who has played a point-and-click adventure, with the options to inspect or use objects. Because the ship is made primarily from old bed-springs and the dubious ingenuity of the protagonists, things start to go wrong quickly. The gravity generator can break down, the engine can blow up, or the kettle can spring a leak. The challenge, and the fun, comes from deciding which are the most pressing problems to fix and coping with the consequences of the problems you ignore.”

Launch Controls
Each expedition can be completed in one sitting, with the game ending when you reach the planet, but there are multiple stories to be discovered upon restarting. Buchanan wants a game you can play while you have a coffee or, surely more fitting to its  Victorian steampunk style, a nice cup of English Breakfast.

“The ship layout and puzzles are different every time you play the game, although this will fit into one of several pre-determined story arcs that give the game more structure,” he says. “This means that the first few voyages will be full of surprises, while later voyages will be more familiar, but hopefully still challenging!” Consider us intrigued, old chap.