In Ruins of Mars, players play as explorers who seek to decipher the languages ​​of Mars, learn and replicate their technologies, acquire hourglasses needed to perform certain skills, and ultimately gain prestige to win the game. Ruins of Mars uses a unique action selection mechanism where the benefits of the action are derived from the action tiles placed under that site's action. The action tiles will shift around the board's actions each turn in the same manner as mancala.