Show HN: I created a Mars colony RPG based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars books

Gameplay & UX Clarity

• Several players struggled to understand how to play at first:
  • Not obvious that dialog advances with E/Enter rather than clicks/taps.
  • Confusion about what to build and in what order; blinking resource bars not self-explanatory.
  • On mobile, bug where opening dialog/instructions sometimes don’t load, making early steps unclear.
  • Talking to colonists requires standing on a precise tile, which feels finicky.
• Building and interaction issues:
  • Easy to accidentally destroy buildings by repeatedly pressing E; users request “Cancel” as default.
  • Building footprints (e.g., greenhouse >1 tile) are not visually obvious; people ask for a placement outline.
  • Some popups (e.g., “terraforming complete”) can’t be dismissed.
  • HP drains leading to collapse despite eating/resting is reported but unexplained.

Platform, Controls & Performance

• Reports of severe slowness and low FPS on desktop (Firefox/Brave) and Android Firefox; some black screens and “does nothing” states.
• Mobile-specific issues:
  • Build lists not scrolling because taps select instead of scroll.
  • Long-press “act” to build feels awkward; users expect tap-to-place then confirm.
  • Some players can’t interact with people at all; engineer dialog delayed.
• Cmd+D on macOS Chrome triggers an “autowalk right” bug.
• Game is built with vanilla JS + canvas; commenters note full-canvas redraw is GPU-heavy and suggest WebGL-based libraries (pixi.js, raylib) for smoother performance.
• Others report that after fixes, the mobile experience is “great.”

Audio & Presentation

• Music starts extremely loud and repeatedly startles players; many rush to mute.
• Requests for a clear volume slider and much lower default volume; developer later lowers it and addresses menu music restarting behavior.

Game Systems & Balance

• Multiple players get stuck with few or zero colonists despite ample resources, housing, and landing pads; colonist-arrival bug acknowledged.
• Perception that spamming buildings has no downside; suggestions for ongoing maintenance costs or tradeoffs.
• Quality-of-life ideas: shorter building lists or grouping, key repeat and wraparound for scrolling, reselecting last building type, clearer building placement visualization.

Legal & Attribution Concerns

• Question raised about needing publisher permission to base a game on the Mars trilogy.
• Disagreement over whether this falls under fair use; some believe it’s risky if it’s an adaptation, others argue “based on” is safer. No firm resolution in the thread.

Reception, Inspirations & Political Tangent

• Many commenters love the Mars trilogy and appreciate seeing it adapted; specific scenes (e.g., space elevator destruction) are fondly recalled.
• Others felt the books’ political content (anarchism/anti-capitalism) became overbearing on reread.
• Long subthread debates:
  • Whether the trilogy depicts anarchism well or is more broadly “hard-left.”
  • Viability of anarchist or post-capitalist societies, with references to game theory, energy/entropy, post-scarcity settings, and historical examples.
  • Climate change cooperation as a real-world coordination problem.
• Related works mentioned: Terraforming Mars (board game), Surviving Mars (city builder), older Mars-themed games and a Mars story-mapping site.

AI & Tooling Note

• One commenter demonstrates that a similar-looking game prototype can be generated quickly via Claude, and hopes the author did leverage AI; the original author mentions using Claude for technical help, but details are sparse.