[Review] - Terraria

[Title]

Developed by: ReLogic

Published by: Jeremy Guerrete

Platforms: PC

Players: 1/up to 8

Terraria is an 2D open ended world builder game, where players are free to create what they like. The game supports both single and multiplayer modes. Players enter the world with naught but the clothes on their back and some copper equipment, and are left alone to make a world for themselves.

Players first create a character and are able to modify the colour of each of the basic components of their character. This character and its inventory stay persistent across all worlds, both single and multiplayer. The playing area, a “world”, can than be generated completely at random. Up to five worlds can currently be created, and any world can be used in both single and multiplayer.

Also present is a full day/night cycle. During the day various slimes roam about on and under the surface, ready and willing to annoy the player. At night, things get interesting, with zombies, flying eyeballs and other creatures stalking around. This makes it essential to quickly build some some of shelter for the night time.

The surface can be a dangerous place at night.

Building is done via small blocks of various materials. These can be mined, cut from trees or simply dug out of the ground. With these materials it is relatively easy to create vast castles and living areas to live in. In the game exists a complex crafting system to create virtually anything the player needs or wants. Doors, tables, swords, armor, candles and countless other items, not counting the basic and complex building materials.

The Underworld, deep down underground, is rich with minerals.

As the player creates rooms in their abode, NPC characters will move in, offering various services and purposes. This really makes the world seem alive, that what the player is doing really matters. It is necessary to protect these NPCs from monsters through thoughtful building of defenses such as sand traps which, when triggered, release sand to bock pathways and entrances.

As well as the smaller, “regular” monsters, it is possible to summon large boss monsters to fight, that drop rare and special materials. The playing experience is driven by an addictive need to craft something better, build something cooler, and be as grand as possible.

However, there are small issues that can take away from this great game. Starting a multiplayer game may be a tad overcomplicated for some, with it being necessary to have two instances of Terraria open, one to run a server and the other to play, as well as some less-than easy port forwarding, unless using a third party hosting tool, such as Hamachi.

Once one figures out how to get multiplayer working, it opens a great deal of fun. A multiplayer game can be played on any world, including those created in single player. Changes to the world cross over into single player, so friends can drop in and help out with fighting a particular boss, or cooperate to create something great. Players can trade items between one another, useful for helping out a new guy. With the scope of the game, possibilities for fun in multiplayer are vast.

A sunny day in Terraria

The lack of a pause feature can also be annoying, though the game does pause if another window is selected, such as alt-tabbing to Steam. This is easy enough, as the game has to run in a small window to keep a good resolution. While this could be a big issue, one gets used to the window, and it comes with the graphical style. For the game to have other resolutions, the sprites - basically the games graphics - would have to be individually sized for each resolution. Keep in mind this is a indie game, and this would take a lot of time for such a small developer to do.

Overall, Terraria is a great game, one that you could loose countless hours to easily. It is very well made, aside from some small issues mentioned above. For the price this game is well worth it to anyone interested in world builder games and creating their own kingdoms from scratch.

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