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Terraria is an action-adventure/RPG indie game released by independent game studio Re-Logic. The game features exploration, crafting, building structures and combat with a variety of creatures. The game's slogan is "Shut Up and Dig Gaiden", a reference to another indie game, Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden.

Released on May 16, 2011, the game is estimated to have sold about 50,000 copies during its first day of release, with over 17,000 players online at the same time during the first day's peak. Over the course of a week, 200,000 copies of the game were sold, making it the top selling game on Steam for the week, "ahead of games like The Witcher 2 and Portal 2." It remained number one on Steam for the first six days of its release before it eventually dropped to the number two slot.

Gameplay

Terraria is noted for its similarity to Minecraft and classic exploration/adventure titles such as Metroid. Basic gameplay features day/night cycles, aggressive nocturnal attackers such as zombies and floating eyeballs, world-building elements and character advancement based on increases to health/mana and equipment found while exploring. The game has a tile-based graphical style reminiscent of the 16-bit sprites found in video games released for the SNES.

At the start of the game, players have a copper axe, a copper shortsword and a copper pickaxe. They start out with 5 hearts, which is equal to 100 health. When the player first spawns in the world, an NPC called the Guide will appear nearby and can explain the basics of gameplay. Once the player's first house has been built, the Guide will move in to the first available NPC room, provided that one is available.

The first day in-game is usually spent by gathering materials around the randomly generated world to build shelter for the first night, while fending off slime creatures. At night, different creatures may spawn, such as Zombies and Demon Eyes, who will constantly attack the player until morning. At dawn, they all run away, even if they are still attacking the player.

Beyond basic gameplay features, Terraria has several elements not present in the games it takes its inspiration from. By completing specific goals (such as defeating a boss, or gaining an extra heart), players can attract NPCs to occupy structures or rooms they have built, including the Merchant, Dryad, Demolitionist, Arms Dealer, Clothier and Nurse. Players may then buy equipment with coins gained from defeating monsters, breaking pots, or finding treasure chests hidden within the world. Each map also contains generated biomes with unique monsters and surroundings, such as the Underworld (a lava-filled chthonic area filled with demons and skeletal serpents), the Corruption (a dangerous, diseased wasteland full of deadly creatures and chasms full of rare items), deserts (which contain little but sand and cacti), and jungles above and below ground (which contain large flying bugs and huge Venus Flytrap-like creatures).

Random events may occur in the course of play, such as the Blood Moon, which increases the number of monsters out at night and allows them to enter the player's structures, and the goblin invasion, which sends a goblin army to march from one/both ends of the map, and lay siege to the players' home. Meteorites can fall randomly during gameplay, allowing the player to mine meteorite ore and create armor and weapons. Events can also be caused by destroying shadow orbs in corrupted map areas and creating certain items near demon altars.

Players may also summon powerful boss monsters, such as the Eye of Cthulhu and the Eater of Worlds. Independently of summoned bosses, each map contains one dungeon that contains rare items and unusual enemies, and can only be safely entered after first defeating the Skeletron boss on that map. If one attempts to enter before defeating Skeletron, he/she will be quickly killed by a skeletal head that deals around 9999 damage to the player on contact.

The developers plan to offer free content updates in the future.

Reception

Terraria has received very favorable reviews with an 84/100 metascore on Metacritic. In a review for Destructoid, Jordan Devore stated that, "You need to give Terraria a chance. It's affordable, unpredictable, full of depth, and most promising of all, the game is still growing through free updates." Gameblog.fr reviewer Fumble gave the game four out of five stars, with the one major criticism being that the 800x600 max window size makes playing the game difficult(however, this maximum window resolution has been changed as of the 1.04 update). For Videogame.it, reviewer Stefano Castelli said, "This is a game that takes over the whole concept and mechanics of Minecraft, but manages to successfully integrate it into a fully two-dimensional sphere." GameZone gave the game a 9 out of 10, stating "Re-Logic has given gamers the opportunity to either enjoy Terraria as a side-scrolling action-adventure title or like a toy that they can play with for hours on end. Either way you look at it, Terraria is a sandbox that you won’t be able to get away from regardless of whether or not you’ve already invested entire days."

Tim Colwill for Games On Net gave it two and a half out of five stars, while criticizing the sandbox world-building elements of the game and praising the more action-based parts. In his review, he said, "Despite being labelled as a 2D Minecraft clone, Terraria actually has an astonishing array of gameplay elements that make it much more of an action-adventure than a world-building sandbox...If I were to make one suggestion to the Terraria developers it would be to change the marketing strategy for this game to focus on what it does best, rather than talking up the frankly sub-par mining and exploring aspects of the title."

See also

• Minecraft
• Spelunky

References

1. http://www.gameshampoo.com/17699/terraria-what-does-terraria-shut-up-and-dig-gaiden-mean
2. Senior, Tom (2011-05-17). "Terraria launch a huge success". PC Gamer. Future plc. Retrieved 2011-05-18.
3. Plunkett, Luke (May 26, 2011). "Minecraft Links Help Indie Game Sell 200,000 Copies In Nine Days". Kotaku. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
4. Cifaldi, Frank (May 25, 2011). "2D Word-Of-Mouth Hit Terraria Sells 200K In Nine Days". Gamasutra. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
5. Devore, Jordan (2011-04-25). "Minecraft in 2D, you say? Terraria looks legit". Destructoid. Retrieved 2011-05-22.
6. Geere, Duncan (2011-05-18). "Terraria offers two-dimensional mining, exploring and giant eyeballs". Wired. Condé Nast Publications. Retrieved 2001-05-22.
7. McWhertor, Michael (2011-05-13). "Somewhere Between Super Metroid and Minecraft Lies the Intriguing Terraria". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Retrieved 2011-05-18.
8. http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/terraria
9. Devore, Jordan (May 25, 2011). "Impressions: Terraria". Destructoid. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
10. Fumble (May 27, 2011). "Terraria, le test sur PC". Gameblog.fr. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
11. Castelli, Stefano (May 23, 2011). "Un tris di mini-recensioni". Videogame.it. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
12. http://pc.gamezone.com/reviews/item/terraria/
13. Colwill, Tim (May 25, 2011). . Games On Net. Retrieved May 28, 2011. {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help)

External links

• Official website
• Official wiki

• 2011 video games
• Indie video games
• Open world video games
• Survival video games
• Side-scrolling video games
• Windows games