Terraria is simply one of the most catchy niche games ever made, yet I hadn’t ever played it until just recently. The gameplay is engaging and the pixel art graphic style is pretty satisfying. It has a simple premise that matches other survival craft games, like Minecraft, that being: build a fort, fight or hide, and survive–then just keep building and building and building. And though I only put effort into one aspect during my test run, that is building a room with doors, I can see the appeal of this flexible crafting game. I’ll go over a few impressions and facts you might want to know about Terraria, and you can make the call for yourself!
Original Release: 2011
Developers: Re-Logic
Platforms: Basically everything, but I played it on Steam
Genre: Indie, platform, survival craft, sandbox.
PC Controller Support: Is integrated, but a few times I had to use the keyboard and mouse.
How to Begin in Terraria
When you start in Terraria, you’ll have quite a few options begore you even begin; primarily character creation and level difficulty. Character creation is a cinch, and level difficulty is straight forward. Note: this game doesn’t really have an easy mode in the way Minecraft has a creative mode, but it does have difficulty levels. I futzed around during my early experience of Terraria and found the tools and harvesting to be straight forward and intuitive–aka fun. Whatever you see on your screen can basically be harvested. I hurried to finish a fort before night time during my first run and basically… failed. I soon had to deal with hordes of zombies outside my first fort that comb the forest in the afterhours of my little planet. These mobs were pretty pathetic really, but the constant groaning from these mobs was rather annoying to be honest. It’s a good combat trial though, and it does make the game challenging in the ways it needs to be.
That said, the gameplay is pretty fun. It helps if you have some experience in other farm sims and survival craft games, because some features translate across many games. For example, in your action bar you have a sword, a pick, and an axe. Use each tool/weapon respectfully to harvest or fight. I ended up building a small fort that basically was held together by some primitive doors that placed barriers within the two dimensional plane. After I had succeeded there, I felt I had enough safety from the mobs that I could really get to work. And… that was pretty much it. It’s a simple game actually: farm, build, fight. If this is what you’re looking for, it’s here.
Screenshots
What You Need to Know About Terraria
There is A LOT to do in Terraria. With an apparently exhaustive compendium of things you can craft, you can make things like the house above, or become a warrior of the underground caverns. Yep, you can dig down into the caverns of your generated world. You can also fly up (briefly) as well. It is also possible to play this game multiplayer, where the fun really seems to enter according to some accounts–but it’s not required. It would actually be pretty neat to host a little world with a giant castle aside some battle-ready friends over an internet connection.
Overall, Terraria seems pretty fun and compatible with creative players–you can build big or just explore, whether casually or frequently. Survival craft is a hugely popular genre, and this game really has left so many with rewarding memories. If you don’t care for zombies or extremely open ended gameplay, you might be better suited to a spin-off, but aside from Minecraft, the game Terraria is a highly influential game for its genre!
Final Thoughts
And that’s pretty much it. It was released in 2011, so obviously there have been a lot of developments in gameplay theory since then. These are my observations. It really doesn’t matter what I say about it, because this game hugely popular thanks to a dedicated fan base, and a pretty customizable gameplay experience. By the way, this review started as part of a new project I’m working on what I think are some of the top 50 indie games amongst indie gamers. I may follow up this game with a mod guide at some point, but for now that’s it–I do encourage you to check back on this series as it progresses! Thanks for reading MrDavePizza.com, be sure to have a look around and be sure to explore more of this website’s platforms like my YouTube channel. Enjoy your games!
