More and less like minecraft?

While digging myself up from the pile of dying blogs, I wondered which game should I talk about this time? Scrolling down my achive of posts I read my post about sandbox games again and then looked at my pc's desktop... Terraria... perfect ground digging goodness for this blogs revival.

On release terraria was critisized by the huge amount of Minecraft fans as "just a 2D Minecraft". Is it true? In a way, yes and in a way, no. How come?

As I first started the game, all alone in the wilderness, I started exploring the retro-looking surrounding my little Gnyrll character had been thrown into. Ok... there's trees... and dirt... and stone... let me just-- wait wrong controls... Ok now I got my wooden box palace of comfort and safeness surrounding me. Oh what survival skills minecraft has taught me I thought. Well, then came night and the zombies came. Sounds familiar? Yep, it sure is minecrafty alright.

But oh it was dark... And where could I find torches? Coal! "Nope." Said my terraria playing friend on skype, of course it had to be the slimes that appear on daylight and in deep dungeons. Apparently the gel they drop is both tasty (potions) and flammable. I wonder why slimes won't explode when I shoot my flaming arrows at them. Hmm... Maybe that would cause some creeper-like problems to your creations. SSSSSSSHHHH

Eye see you

And talking about creations, the purpose of buildings you build with wood/stone/anything but dirt is making them a home. This requires it to be atleast  certain size, have background walls and furtiture. This was hard for me to do at first because if you don't look it up on the internet it can be quite annoying to find out the right measurements on a home. And no, the home isn't for you. Different shopkeepers move in when you achieve certain things like getting more max health or getting more money. You can then buy stuff you can or cannot craft yourself for money dropping from monsters, jars, chests or bosses spread around the map. This is a nice addition to the game because you have a certain purpose or goal and you have more to do than to just mine more and more blocks. And farming gold to purchase bombs etc is not necessary, as you can just go exploring to find them in chests or kill bosses.

Om Nom Nom

Bosses too are a nice thing to see in a minecrafty game like Terraria. Killing them alone is sometimes boring, but when you get friends to play with you it's fun as hell to prepare to fight against them by building a tower to shoot from or by creating sand traps. Bosses drop great loot and have different "phases" when fighting against them. For example the first boss, The Eye Of Cthulu (featured above), turns into a chomping mouth that charges at you rather than shoots little eye minions at you when you drop his health down a certain percentage. Its not just a sword you'll be hitting these bosses with by the way, you have a LOT of weapons to craft and find and different items use mana also! *Pew pew starfall*

Popping some defence in your "town" is useful also against certain events that sometimes happen either when night falls (blood moon) or the sun rises (goblin invasion). These events make enemies more stronger and grant them the magical ability to - oh shit - open doors! This would certainly be welcome in minecraft too... Atleast the creepers would enjoy it.

I won't cover up all the things to do in Terraria, cause this text would be even longer than it is right now. Theres so much to do from exploring underground jungles, crafting epic gear or climbing up to floating islands and so much more. I hope you have seen how this game is a lot different than Minecraft though the basics are the same. I'd say that if you like a more monster slaughtering or a rpg - like experience than minecraft, Terraria is for you to explore.

So Invite your friends and take the time to spend that 10$ on something more than beer! :)