2013

To Hell and Back #Terraria

stargrace November 10, 2013 1Comment

I’ve attempted to explain what is just so utterly appealing to me about this game – but I have yet to succeed. What was supposed to be a quick hour in-game to qualify for a Raptr reward (it’s their AMD promotion) ended up being most of my Saturday afternoon (and evening).

Warning: SPOILER alert – if you’re looking to progress in Terraria without knowing the ‘how to’ you may want to skip this part.

I started my play session by complaining that I had no idea what I was supposed to do, or how to progress my character. I was wearing meteorite armor and a ranged gun that allowed me to shoot without consuming mana (set bonus). Sure, I could set up my house all neat but what was the point. What I didn’t know is just how involved the world of Terraria is, and how much there is to do.

After collecting some more health we decided it was time to go to hell. Exactly where you would expect it to be too, straight down. Ogur bombed a tunnel all the way down while Xartan and I hung back and provided defense and jumped out of the way of wayward bombs. Eventually we came to lava.

Hell is mean. Rougher than the dungeon we explored, and meaner than the jungle we waded through. Creatures constantly respawn, and they’re not nice. After a few hours of exploring, we decided to prepare to defeat the boss of Hell, which would put our server into hardmode. Hardmode? Weren’t things already difficult?

Nope.

The boss of hell is the Wall of Flesh, and in order to defeat this boss we had to prepare an arena. The Wall of Flesh moves from East to West across the screen, constantly moving. What we had to do was create a long bridge with no obstacles so that we could run ahead of the wall and shoot behind us as we ran. It took about 1000 planks but we completed the bridge, and then it was time to spawn the wall.

The fight was rough but we all lived which was a first for us. He felt easier than previous bosses because we had prepared ahead of time. With the boss dead, the server was plunged into hardmode, which means a few things.

Upon defeating the boss, we received a “Pwnhammer” – and this item is used to destroy demon altars and crimson altars. When we destroy those, it triggers the creation of ore in the world. Right now we’re harvesting palladium, and we’ve gotten enough to find a few bits of mythril. Not enough to do anything useful with, but enough palladium that I made myself a new suit of armor. I went from 21 defense to 38, which is a huge jump. I’m quite proud of my first set of hardmode gear.

The other thing that came with hardmode aside from all this awesome new gear material is new bosses and mob encounters. Things are HARD. We had to board up the doors to the houses for the first time ever, because our NPC kept getting slaughtered. The Blood Moon showed up 6 nights in a row, which allows mobs to open doors. Thankfully a brick outside each door stops that. So instead of breezing through mobs and encounters the entire game is a challenge. If you get easily frustrated by that, you may want to keep away from hardmode, but since when my character dies I lose nothing but coin I don’t have any issues with the difficulty.

Am I having fun? That would be an understatement. I am having an incredibly glorious time exploring the world, mining, crafting, and creating my own dungeons so to speak. Of course it does help that I’m playing multiplayer since things are always better with friends, but even alone the game is hours of fun.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

A New Addicition #Terraria

stargrace November 3, 2013 0Comment

I was gifted Terraria on steam some time ago, but never really played the game. The one time I logged in I was so completely lost I had no idea what I was doing or what the point was. This weekend, all of that changed. First, I highly suggest people check out the wiki. Like all sandbox games, the wiki is very important to gameplay. I browsed the getting started guide which was a huge help.

What’s the point? Well, you play a little avatar, and you get placed down in the middle of a world. Think minecraft, only 2D. You can explore, craft things, find dungeons, treasure, and at night things get dangerous. There is danger during the day too, but night is far more dangerous, especially during a ‘blood moon’ which is when the bad guys not only spawn in abundance, but can also open doors.

I set up a server for a few friends and I to play on, and play we have. That’s my house in the screenshot above – the smaller house. The gigantic hotel to the left of my place allows NPC to come and stay in our area. You can spawn different NPC for completing objectives in game, like defeating a boss. Each world is guaranteed a few particulars. Each end is ocean, and there’s a dungeon. There are different biomes like forest, desert, and jungle.

Right now Halloween events are going on, and I’ve been collecting goodie bags filled with costumes and rotten eggs. I’ve got a nice collection of costumes so far, a creeper, bride of frankenstein, princess, ghost, and a handful of others. I managed to loot an icy sword as one of my first weapons, and it shot bolts out that I thought were amazing until I got an agile space gun, along with a suit of meteor armor which lets me use the gun without it costing mana.

The game is quirky, fun, and creative, all things that I enjoy an enormous amount. There are so many little unique do-dads and bits and bobs that the gameplay is really whatever you want to make of it. I’ve had a lot of fun collecting trophies for my house, furniture from dungeons, and just digging down as far as I could to see where it lead and what I could find.

Of course because it’s a 2D side scrolling game it won’t be for everyone but I’ve never let that stop me from enjoying something before and if you’re fond of sandboxes, minecraft, wurmonline, or those types of games I would highly suggest you check it out on steam.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!