Here on Earth, we are told that there is too much carbon in the atmosphere. So, as I am working on terraforming Mars in "Per Aspera," I don't see maintaining CO2 levels as a big problem. We need oxygen, so we have started spreading genetically engineered lichens on the surface. If the lichens turn CO2 into oxygen, everyone will be saved. If lichens convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, everyone benefits.

When the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere reached 50 percent, surpassing the 20 percent on Earth, I realized I was very, very wrong. Spontaneous combustion began in every factory and mine on earth because even the slightest spark would ignite the air.

Perhaps the science of terraforming Mars is more complex than I thought.

This is the premise of Per Aspera, a novel combination of planetary science simulator, hardcore management game, and dynamic narrative experience. You play as the newly awakened artificial consciousness AMI, whose job is to establish an autonomous colony on Mars, prepare it for permanent human settlement, and ultimately terraform Mars into a planet suitable for "Earthling" life The AMI story is told by a stellar cast (Troy Baker, Phil Lamar, Lila Berzins, Yon-Ya, Lindsay Murrell, and Nneka Okoye), all voiced by voice communications. It is a series of divergent moral choices, some simple, some complex, all filled with uncertainty. These choices lead to various smaller stories, a larger central mystery, and several different game endings.

Most of Per Aspera is about panning around a beautifully rendered Martian topographical globe while listening to a rather nice chill ambient and upbeat techno soundtrack. Your perspective is that of AMI, a stylized vector interface with lots of soft edges and sans serif fonts. It works great for me, but those with low vision may need to disable the depth-of-field effects and shadows.

You survey minerals and establish mines to recover resources like aluminum, carbon, silicon, or buried water. You also build factories to convert these resources into finished products like electronic and mechanical parts, as well as buildings and equipment like workers and repair drones. Sometimes they zoom out significantly and allocate resources to larger projects in space, such as reflective mirrors or the capture of asteroids. However, resources are limited, so the Martian surface must be constantly expanded and explored in order to update the supply. Get the construction order wrong and it could be game over. It could be game over. Scarcity is Per Aspera's number one concern.

You may find that there are only a few dozen tons of aluminum and only 700 tons still in the ground. To get more aluminum, the base needs to be expanded. That means adding new electrical grid elements, new maintenance hubs, and worker control stations that reach toward and encompass the deposit. That is sometimes a tedious process. The terrain may get in the way, but AMI automatically maps the best road routes with smooth animations.

This game is one of the most demanding strategy management games I have played in a long time, not only for its complexity, but also for its moment-to-moment action. While playing, my fingers constantly slid between panning the camera with WASD, adjusting game speed with numbers, and using the function keys to activate overlays for power, maintenance, drone traffic, findings, etc. Per Aspera is a "blink and it's 3:00 a.m." game. (Worth noting: key remapping is not available at launch. The developers promise that in an update.)

You are constantly planning what's next, managing your stockpile, examining your reserved resources, setting up expansions, and trying to secure future options. You are also dealing with fickle, selective, and frustratingly unpredictable settlers. Just one day without supplies, and thousands of people will be packing up and heading back to Earth, probably waving at the replacements on their way through the spaceport.

Did I mention there will be fighting as well? It's a bit of light real-time strategy combat, where you build and use swarms of drones as the enemy attacks your defense towers in the same way. It's okay, but not very challenging or complex, and not at all challenging on normal difficulty. As a story element, of course, it's just one more layer to manage.

Careful pruning of unneeded buildings is a constant task, as is planning new endeavors. It may be difficult at first, as it can lead to a death spiral of resource scarcity. For example, I abandoned the game due to lack of electronics production: not enough electronics to quickly manufacture repair drones, no repair drones to keep the electronics factory running, and no electronics factory to fuel the expansion. The early stages of the game are a little more tense, but once the vast network of multiple bases is created, these supply bottlenecks will only slow down the endgame, which is already quite slow.

All city construction takes place on a terraforming layer that balances elements in the Martian atmosphere and terrain to specific effect. If oxygen is increased too much, fires will occur more frequently. Raise temperatures too rapidly and you flood valuable resources and bases under new oceans. I underestimated how far sea level would rise after a pure ice asteroid impacted the surface, drowning the base.

Terraforming is fun, but just as dangerous as resource management, with all kinds of bizarre suggestions from science fiction and real world scientists, and plenty of ways to do it. Even though I've already finished the campaign and the endgame is dragging on a bit, I'm actually eager to try more ways in the non-combat, non-narrative sandbox mode. And that's after 30 hours of play already.

Between the automatic resource management pathfinding and the simulation of the planet's changing atmosphere, there is a lot going on under the hood, technically speaking. There are definitely some weird bugs in pathfinding, settler movement, and order prioritization; Per Aspera never taxed my hardware, but when you build a thousand buildings on Mars, switching game speeds, panning quickly, and zooming out into orbit The performance really slows down, though it's noticeable when you do. This is a staple of the genre, but expect frames to drop and things to run a little sluggishly as you push the limits of what a single PC can simulate.

Per Aspera is not only a detailed strategy simulation, but also an epic science fiction story. While not entirely successful as a narrative, the best parts of the story elevate the underlying management game. I won't spoil the story, so suffice it to say that while there is some techno-thriller intrigue, it also tackles concepts such as the nature of artificial consciousness and the ethics of terraforming new worlds, and takes big idea science fiction seriously.

The story is crafted by voice actors and draws a lot of pathos from a fairly simple script. Lila Berzins does an excellent job of portraying AMI's transition from infantile, newborn confusion to complex brilliance. Troy Baker, as AMI's creator, Dr. Foster, displays an emotional range rarely seen outside of the best audio dramas. I could go on: Phil LaMarr as the focused soldier, Yong Yar as the cunning businessman, and Lindsay Murrell as the Martian colony leader (if you know what this performance is about, you'll be hearing more names).

The shock and joy of seeing a dynamic story in a strategy game cannot be over-emphasized. It is an incomplete narrative, and the writing is sometimes wild or confusing, but it is a genuine attempt. Some of the scenarios are also nonlinear, occurring in a different order in each player's game or not at all, but at the cost of feeling disorienting or disjointed. I had two events happen in rapid succession, the second of which definitely should have happened before the first. Still, the base of what is here is good enough that even if the bugs I saw were not fixed, I would still recommend this game.

Between bite-sized stories and moral decisions, you're back to city building. Back to the intensity of choices and strategic action until someone bothers to call the consciousness of the super-intelligent AI in orbit to consult again. It's similar to the pace that made "Yomigaeri" so popular this year, but with a twist of its own and not for much longer.

Per Aspera's application of a novel nonlinear scenario to a strategy game worked surprisingly well. The novel terraforming mechanics, sophisticated aesthetics, and hard science, coupled with classic genre gameplay, make this one definitely worth your time.