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.