So..Terraria! What makes this game so ultimately addicting? It’s a lot like Minecraft! Think of it as a 2D version of Minecraft that’s stuck in Survival, with more flying creatures than just the Enderdragon and the Ghast.
To me, what makes it addicting, is “hmm… digging this hole– OOOOH IRON!! Yay! Going through these caves– WOOT GOLD!!!” The more you play, the more it draws you in. There’s just… so much to do in this game! It isn’t 1 or 2 goals. It’s, do anything that doesn’t get you killed!
Terraria has pretty much set the bar of the “graphics make the game” wars. There isn’t much Story either. Everything revolves around what you do. It goes at your pace and just adds a challenge or two here and there, depending on where you are and what time it is.
There is no eating needed to stay alive. This is like Minecraft’s early days before that feature was introduced. Just without the Creepers.
You play as a guy, or girl, depending on who you choose. There’s two game modes of starting. For newbies like myself, you use Softcore. For people that have been playing Terraria for awhile and know what to look for, there’s Mediumcore.
You can permanently (as in can’t go back with that world) unlock Hardcore by killing the Wall of Flesh in the Underworld (aka the Nether in Minecraft), just come well geared and well prepared. As when you do, enemies are 10x harder. And when you die, it’s literally game over for you. This also causes the Corruption to slowly spread through your entire world.
The best way to play (from what I’ve seen), is to get geared before you get into mid-tier stuff which makes sense. What I mean by ‘mid-tier’ when it comes to this, is to have 140 Life or greater (the wiki says more than 120 life but I haven’t seen it yet, and I have 120). Having that in the evening, may cause a Blood Moon event to occour. This is when all hell breaks lose. Hence, why it’s called a “Blood Moon”. As in, monsters hunger for yours.
Monster spawn rates double, even getting monsters you’ve never seen before. It’s suicide to be outside unless you have the gear to protect you.
You see, these NPCs you can get (all except the Guide can buy/sell), they have a chance to die in a blood moon event, nomatter how fortified your base us.
What is the biggest concern, isn’t the endless zombies. It isn’t the hundreds of demon eyes. It’s this annoying guy. “During a Blood Moon, it can also burrow through your house”, which leaves your defenses obsolete and me crapping my pants. This is why gearing up is oh so important. 🙂 This way, you can deal with these threats before they can threaten your NPCs.
Why does this concern me so much? I have my NPCs living down below my house, with my actual house above it. Those Giant Worms are going to burrow through it and kill them. 😛
Another bad thing about a blood moon, you have a chance to possibly have one event every night for a week. So just keep your health at 120 or below, and you’re good.
To get your health up, you need to find Life Crystals. These are found underground, scattered. Activating one increases your Life 20 points, which puts another heart on your Life bar. You can get up to 15 hearts for a total of 400 Life.
Oh and by the way? Gold is completely the opposite in Minecraft. It’s stronger than Iron! But in Minecraft, Gold is as strong as waving a piece of paper at the enemy. So, Gold actually has a use in Terraria. And wearing a full set of Gold gear is better than a full set of Iron.
I still don’t believe it…
And unlike Minecraft, you have more bow types. You can have a Gold Bow.
How do you gear up? Well if you’re just starting, your first task isn’t to do that, but survive your first night. Talk to the Guide and he’ll hook you up on basic tools. You then chop down trees for wood, and build a house.
Now building a house in a 2D World is tedious and unlike Minecraft. You got to place your first wall, then build off of that your floor. Then the other wall, and finally the ceiling.
It doesn’t stop there, though. To keep enemies from spawning in your house (except during a blood moon encounter), you put Wood Walls to fill in the background. But before you even do that, you need to craft one of the many crafting stations in the game; the Work Bench (aka the Crafting Table in Minecraft). Once you do that and then seal the background, the room needs to be lighted. So you use torches, which are made from Gel of killing slimes (the green slimes that hop around, kill them as you’re building) and wood.
Wood is used in a lot of recipes early on, so get a shitload of wood.
Then, you’re done. Just ignore the Demon Eyes and Zombies. Or you can try for them with your crap sword. I managed to get a Zombie Arm that does 12 damage per hit. I use it as my primary melee weapon.
I mentioned you can have NPCs live with you or their own separate town? You can. When you start, you get the Guide. You can get other NPCs by fulfilling their requests which are stated on the wiki.
For example, to get the Merchant, you must acquire 50 silver coins.
To get an NPC to live in a specific room, you must have the room a specific size. From what I’ve seen, a 7 wide 9 long room is the bare minimum allowed size. Also, the room must be lighted and have a table/chair before it is listed as suitable for NPC housing.
How you set up homes for NPCs is entirely up to you. You can make a Stone Tower which every NPC has a floor. You can make an actual town. Or you can do like me and have a split tower with two rooms on each side, separated with Wood Platforms.
What’s the point of having NPCs live with or near you? The more you have, the monster spawn rate drops significantly while around this area. Only way monsters spawn near, is during a Blood Moon. Then all bets are off.
So, you got your house and some NPCs. What next? You have two options. Explore and Mine, which both can also work underground. Explore caverns, Mine ore. It’s recommended to make a ‘Hellevator’, which is a mineshaft under your house. This is a big no-no in Minecraft (one of the official “rules” of it, to never dig straight down). But in Terraria it’s OK to do so, as you can see tunnels and caverns below you before you actually do dig.
You can turn it into an elevator by having Rope, then adding “floors” with Wood Platforms. Your player character gets a device that can go up and down ropes just like an elevator.
But when digging, be careful not to go too far down. Some enemies deep underground can own you in 5 hits or less, even with full Copper gear.
And that about sums up Terraria. If you haven’t bought it yet, do so now! You won’t regret it.