Terraforming Mars is the poster child for a bad box: a huge project-card deck, flimsy player boards that shed cubes, and hundreds of resource cubes, all shipped with nothing but zip-lock bags. Setup means dumping baggies; teardown means re-bagging.
There is no factory insert
The retail box ships with baggies only and no molded tray at all — routinely cited as one of the worst-organized big-box games. An aftermarket solution is close to mandatory for regular play.
Your options
Foamcore kit with pull-out resource trays; holds the base game plus Hellas & Elysium, Venus Next, Prelude, and Colonies, with the boards acting as a lid. Caveat: with sleeved cards you must repurpose the colony-tile slot for cards and move colony tiles to a Turmoil box.
Laser-cut wood organizers exist for the base game; note Laserox's 'Ares Organizer' is for the separate card game Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, not this box, so buy the correct SKU.
Large ecosystem of printable resource trays and card boxes; many designs specifically address the cube-shedding player boards and sleeved decks.
A very common project given how little the box offers; lets you build pull-out cube trays and a card bay sized to your sleeves.
Sleeved cards & the insert
Sleeving is popular (the cards handle a lot), but it eats space. In the Folded Space kit, sleeved cards force you to give up the colony-tile slot and relocate those tiles, so plan for it. DIY and 3D-printed card bays can be sized generously for sleeves.
Sleeving Terraforming Mars? See the Terraforming Mars sleeve guide for card sizes and how many packs to buy.
The verdict
The box is genuinely awful, so essentially every regular player should add an organizer. Folded Space FS-TERv2 is the popular off-the-shelf fix and is loved for its resource trays, but sleevers should know the card space gets tight; 3D-printed or DIY foamcore trays give the most room if you want to sleeve everything.
Other games that ship with no insert at all
- Viticulture Essential Edition — Stonemaier Games
- Gloomhaven — Cephalofair Games
Frequently asked questions
No — Terraforming Mars does not come with a real insert; the box is a bare well or a vacuum tray. The retail box ships with baggies only and no molded tray at all — routinely cited as one of the worst-organized big-box games. An aftermarket solution is close to mandatory for regular play.
The box is genuinely awful, so essentially every regular player should add an organizer. Folded Space FS-TERv2 is the popular off-the-shelf fix and is loved for its resource trays, but sleevers should know the card space gets tight; 3D-printed or DIY foamcore trays give the most room if you want to sleeve everything. Common routes are a laser-cut kit, a 3D-printed tray or a DIY foamcore insert.
Sleeving is popular (the cards handle a lot), but it eats space. In the Folded Space kit, sleeved cards force you to give up the colony-tile slot and relocate those tiles, so plan for it. DIY and 3D-printed card bays can be sized generously for sleeves.
Terraforming Mars is a trademark of its publisher. The Cardboard Shelf is not affiliated with or endorsed by the game's publisher; we cover accessories only.