Terraria

I guess I will review another indie game!

A week or two ago a friend of mine gifted my Steam account Terraria, a 2d sandbox game  based on adventure and crafting. This is not a game I would have bought for myself, but nevertheless I have given it an honest try (approx 20hrs), and have enjoyed most of what it has to offer.

To start you design a character. You can skip this and use the default sprite if you prefer. I could care less about how my character looks, because I know he will be covered in bad ass armor. So I named him "Gilly" and started out on my adventure, where I was promptly flogged like a red-headed step child by none other than a pack of roving slime. "Well fuck," I thought "this never stopped Martin Luther King Jr. from achieving his goals, and it certainly won't impede me." In fact, I don't know how MLK would have reacted to being attacked by slime. I probably handled it better.

So I set out into my new world with a small copper sword, a pick, an ax, and some other odds and ends. I had no idea what to do. I kept exploring, ignoring the guide that serves very little purpose, until night fall  Where I was beaten to a pulp by zombies and flying eyeballs. "Damn it, what would Martin Luther King do?" I decided he would probably Google how to play this game...or not play as he was busy fixing the world and being black Moses.

Since I am not MLK, I Googled the game, and came upon the Terraria wiki. Let me get this straight, if your game requires a wiki to make it through the first thirty minutes, screw you. But I quickly learned what I needed to make in order to make housing to keep zombies and eyeballs away. It also told me to mine. Basically that's all you do.

With that in mind, I figured I wouldn't make it past 10 hours of play time. Why on earth would I want to dig for hours? Well it turned out to be strangely addicting. As i kept digging down, I was finding better minerals to make better tools so I could dig further and faster. As I was making tools, I could make weapons and armor to protect me from those monsters.

The farther you dig, the more caverns and dungeons become available. There are also worlds underground, such as Jungles, the underworld, and other places of interest. You can find weapons, and materials to craft different things, and make your character look even cooler (some people are Link from LoZ...I'm a ninja.)

But the game itself isn't what is so interesting. After you have developed your avatar to be somewhat powerful, and you've rid your world of the bosses, you can set about creating unique landscapes. This is where the game becomes fun. There are very little limits with what you can
do (it has to be 2d though). There are tons of examples of what people have done. Check out this Christmas tree!

This was made by "the_satch"

Also, you can run pre-made adventure maps, as well as do multiplayer with friends. My roommate saw me playing and decided to buy it. I set up a server (which was a pain!) and we got to playing. I crafted him some stuff and showed him how to play. Adventures will be more fun if you have more players.

I like this game, but it could use some work. Luckily, it is being actively updated and the programming team seems pretty hell bent on making it better as they go along. I wish they would make it easier to run servers. Also, they should consider a "how to" campaign map for you to play through, so I wouldn't have to  google instructions or talk to the guide. It was very overwhelming in the beginning. I had no sense of purpose, and if someone said "use your imagination," that would have helped a ton. I'm so used to playing games where the object is to reach a point, find an object, kill a bad guy, or protect something that I had very little idea as to what I felt I should do. After a few hours, it starts to flow from you but in the begining you may as well be Tom Hanks in Castaway.

Braid: A review

Have you ever made a mistake, and wished you could take it back? Have you ever stayed up all night musing about time? Have you ever seen trees and clouds morph before your eyes in dimensions you can't explain? If you answered yes to any of these you might be a hippy. Okay, Foxworthyisms aside, this game is a beautiful work of art that only takes a few hours to play through. There is a lot of depth in this game and once you get past the cliche of saving a princess who is in a castle (that is never the castle you go to), there is quite a bit to appreciate.

Fuck you Toad.

The game is a puzzle game that spans six worlds. Each world has unique visuals that compliment the mood of the game, and the story that is unfolding as you solve each puzzle, hoping to get closer to the person you love.

The main game mechanic involves the manipulation of time. Anyone who has played Prince of Persia is fairly familiar with this concept. A long with the manipulation of time each world has a different mechanic such as a ring that slows down time, an alternate reality, or a world where the direction you move effects the flow of time, and how each mob traverses the world.

The game sets a striking atmosphere. The visuals are the most pleasing of any game I've ever played through. My joke about being a hippy is kind of accurate, as the colors sort morph and give the backgrounds a strange dimension. Despite the game being a 2D side-scroller the backgrounds shift through colors to offer a unique experience I have not seen in any other game.

The music is very pleasing, and actually assuages a lot of the frustration you might feel while playing this brain-buster. Many times I've caught myself whistling the main theme, or playing the tune in my head. As you progress through the levels the soothing music makes it so much easier to stay calm, and not through the controller through your monitor.

I've played a lot of video games throughout my life, and many of them have been mediocre at best, but every now and then a game like Braid comes a long that is truly wonderful. I've never been more frustrated, yet so motivated to finish a game before. The level designs require you to look at all the ingredients to come up with an effective solution to progress. There are so many "AHA!" moments that you just can't quit.

Another aspect that makes this game special is that it was designed by an independent developer. It has no corporate funding, and from what I can gather by the website it was self published. The game sells for Twenty dollars, and it is well worth it... but its part of the "humble-indie-bundle" which is a "pay what you want" package of some seriously impressive independent titles. I purchased it last winter during the steam holiday sales for five dollars I believe.

The game while highly worthy of praise is not without faults. I found it was far too short. I would have liked to play longer, through worlds with even crazier mechanics. I think a world where gravity and time could both be manipulated at the same time would have been cool. Also they could have adjusted the difficultly curve a little bit. This game gets labeled as "casual" but it picks up in difficulty so fast that it may turn the not-so-hardcore gamers away from it. The difficulty jump from world three to world four is so immense that I found myself getting annoyed feeling stupid that a game was beating me.

Despite the slight flaws I recommend this game to the fullest extent. It's up there with games that I will never forget such as Warcraft Two, Half-Life and The Legend of Zelda. Even if you aren't a gamer, and have no interest in gaming it is worth sitting down and figuring it out --especially if you like puzzles and logic games.