Terraria: Keeping It Simple

How many times have you waited for the next big budget release? Call of Duty? Battlefield? Uncharted? Anything in between? Now, how many times have you bought a little indie game while waiting for those blockbuster releases and been so wowed by it you play it up to and after the release of said big budget titles? Not many, I’d bet. Sure, indie are generally simple and addictive, but lately there’s been a handful of indie developed games that have broken the mould, going on to sell insane amounts, all whilst constantly be updated (for free, no less) and still have very large, very active player bases. Minecraft and Terraria are the two best examples, but for this piece’s sake, we’ll roll with Terraria.

Running off no advertising, Terraria was launched on Steam rather quietly; only through trailers on YouTube and word of mouth among friends did people buy it (although a complimentary tweet from Notch helped a little), and when it was first released it was in a very different state to what it is now. On release it was an addictive little ‘2D Minecraft,’ where you gathered resources to build shelter and stay safe from the world’s inhabitants. But digging a little deeper (ahem) players found so much more, despite it being an alpha version of the game. Masses of weapons and armour, insane boss battles against giant eyeballs and worms that would make Beetlejuice jealous for a start. Still there was more to discover, but patient players were rewarded when the game started getting frequent updates.

From interface changes to new items and NPC characters, players were rewarded for their purchase, and not through paying extra money unlike the general way most titles update through DLC. Terraria was updated for free by Re-Logic, constantly tweaking and adding. Currently the game is sitting pretty at 1.1.2, its tenth free update. Now among other things, there’s yet more weapons to craft, more armour, more bosses, an added hard mode, more NPC’s and new biomes (world areas).

While ‘2D Minecraft’ will still be the easiest comparison to make overall, as said in our review, it’s far from the truth, and this is in effect more like an old-school 2D side-scroller in nature, with shelter crafting there on the side. The games focus is combat and exploration, and it’s still dragging players back for more, wishing Steam didn’t track the amount of hours you’d played.

As a now finished package (it’s been officially released and is no longer alpha/beta) and a retail release on the way, this little gem proved you don’t need complicated gimmicks or millions of dollars/pounds/whatever in advertising; and most of all, you don’t need to hype a game on graphics. Terraria does have a nice little old-school charm to it, but it’s never going to win awards based on looks.

Although it’s been updated a lot, and it’s a far different game to it’s original incarnation, it still remains simple to pick up and play, and it’s very easy to lose hours to it unintentionally.  It’s been a weird ride for Terraria so far, and there’s sure to be more added in the future. So what do you think? Does the simple indie style of game/development (and constant updates) suit you, or are you more inclined to ignore these games and pass them off as rubbish while you wait for the next heavy hitter? Let us know in the comments.