Of all the possible movies to adapt into a game, I never would have expected 1996's retro B-movie cheesefest Mars Attacks! to see returning thirty years later. And I certainly wouldn't expect it to be a theme park management sim where you play as the evil Martians. But that's where we are, and today, Mars Attracts leaves early access after a year in early access, along with an updated demo. Ack!

Developed by small indie outfit Outlier (fittingly named), previously of the co-op FTL-esque This Means Warp, Mars Attracts puts you in command of a theme park on Mars. Your goal is to keep the locals happy, and nothing makes a big-brained Martian happier than seeing horrible things happen to humans.

So, on top of designing the theme park for maximum profit, you're abducting humans from across time and space and putting them in era-specific zoo enclosures. There, you're free to experiment on them to your audience's glee. Just don't torture them too much, or they might escape and start roughing up your guests, until the security team arrive with their disintegrators to skeletonize the escapees. You might just be the bad guys here.

You've also got to curry favor with a panel of six Martian government officials. One wants to see your food industry make as much product as possible. Another wants to see huge profits in general. One wants you to use your park as an avenue for amoral scientific research, and the final two want to see human rights observed and maximum human suffering inflicted, respectively. Clearly you're not going to be making all of them happy, so there are a few different ways to victory here.

The launch version also includes a full sandbox mode where you can build to your heart's content without material restriction, and adds one more kind of human enclosure type, letting you snag prohibition-era humans to speak a little bit less easily. You can see the full patch notes here. While it hasn't sold especially well (a pity, I love to see screwball success stories), the critical response to the game has been largely positive. It's a good little old-school park management game with a dark, gory twist.

And let's be real, half the reason people play Rollercoaster Tycoon is to make Mr Bones' Wild Ride.

Mars Attracts is out now for £21/$25, with a 25% launch discount running until October 1st. There's also a Supporters Edition which includes the soundtrack, artbook, and a head start pack of items that you can otherwise unlock through normal play.