Video Game Vintage Title: Terraria

Terraria

Terraria is an action-adventure sandbox indie video game, developed by game studio Re-Logic, available on Microsoft Windows with ports for Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Android and iOS. The game features exploration, crafting, construction, and combat with a variety of creatures in a randomly generated 2D world. It's music is largely composed of Chiptunes.

Originally released for Microsoft Windows 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. 200,000 copies of the game were sold, making it the top-selling game on Steam for the week, ahead of The Witcher 2 and Portal 2. It remained number one on Steam for the first six days of its release, and as of January 2013 has sold over 2,000,000 copies.

The game was released on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade at the end of March 2013 with exclusive content. The PS3 European and Australian release date was May 15, 2013. It was announced on March 28, 2013 that Terraria is coming to the PlayStation Vita. It was released on December 11, 2013. The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PlayStation Vita versions were developed by Dutch studio Engine Software. On August 29, 2013, Terraria came out on iOS phones and tablets. The developers are the Dutch studio Codeglue.

Terraria Gameplay

Terraria is an open-ended sandbox 2D game with gameplay revolved around exploration, building, and action. The game has a 2D sprite tile-based graphical style reminiscent of the 16-bit sprites found on the SNES. The game is noted for its classic exploration-adventure style of play, similar to titles such as Metroid and Minecraft.

The game starts in a procedurally generated world and the player is given three basic tools, including a pickaxe for mining, a short sword for combat, and an axe for woodcutting. Many resources, notably ores, can be found while mining or exploring underground caves. Some resources and most items may only be found in certain areas of the map, stored in common and rare chests, or only dropped by certain enemies. Players must use resources to craft new items and equipment at an appropriate crafting station for that recipe. For example, torches can be crafted at a crafting bench or ingots smelted from ore at a furnace. Many advanced items in Terraria require several crafting operations, where the product of one recipe will be used as the ingredient for another.

Players encounter many different enemies in Terraria from simple slimes and zombies to various region-specific enemies. The occurrence of certain enemies depends on several factors including time, location, random events and player interactions. Players may also summon powerful boss monsters with various combat mechanics that drop rare loot. Each map will have several zones with unique items and unusual enemies, and one of two evil biomes known as the Crimson and the Corruption. Both spread across the world and have their own unique bosses and loot.

By completing specific goals (such as defeating a boss, or finding a gun), characters can attract non-player characters (NPCs) to occupy structures or rooms they have built, such as a merchant, nurse, or wizard. Some NPCs can be acquired by finding them throughout the world and will then reside in the player's house. Characters may then buy or sell items and certain services from NPCs with coins found in the world.

By summoning and defeating a powerful boss called "Wall of Flesh" located in hell, the player will activate the game's "hard mode", which is a much tougher version of the game. This adds many new and harder to defeat enemies to the game in all zones. This also unlocks new NPCs, new bosses and tougher versions of normal bosses, and makes many new items available for crafting or acquiring from mob and boss drops. A much larger part of the world becomes corrupted and a new "Hallowed" biome emerges with new enemies and items.

Reception
Terraria has received favorable reviews from critics with an 83/100 metascore on Metacritic. A review for Destructoid included praise for Terraria as "full of depth". Another reviewer praised Terraria's integration of some of Minecraft's concepts into two dimensions. GameZone gave the game a 9 out of 10.

GameSpot praised Terraria's exploration and feeling of accomplishment but criticized its lack of tutorial or explicit directions. Terraria received the #1 of 2011 Indie of the Year Player Choice on IndieDB. Spike Chunsoft released the PlayStation 3 version in Japan, including exclusive items such as a costume based on Monokuma from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.