Modern marketing technologies and the ubiquitous spread of the Internet have done their job - it seems that with a sufficient advertising budget, almost any game can succeed. Well, what if there is no money for advertising at all? What if your only marketing resource is a tweet link from the creator of Minecraft? As it turns out, in some cases this is more than enough.
Free diggers
The way Terraria appeared on our monitors - at one point, without declaration of war and preliminary scraping - after acquaintance with it seems absolutely natural. The fact is that this game is all such - one big surprise. At first you do not even understand what is going on around you. Terraria suggests creating a character, but does not specify any of its characteristics, except for the appearance. Then it generates a new game world ... and you suddenly find yourself in the middle of the wild steppe. On the left a low hill rises, on the right a deep cave leaves in unexplored depths. For the soul of your hero in the meantime just a couple of tools - an ax and a pick with which he must build a future for himself. What exactly it will be, entirely depends on you.
Terraria is a game about freedom. She does not consciously set any limits, except for temporary ones: a clear day is replaced by a dark night, zombies and carnivorous flying eyes come out from somewhere, so by the evening it is better to get a shelter. To build it, it is necessary to obtain construction materials - to cut trees in the district and dig a stone from under the ground. When the first rough house is finished (you build it yourself, literally laying out on the brick), it turns out that there are a lot of things to do. For example, to assemble a woodwork bench from which you can create new tools, weapons and decoration materials. Or put an anvil in the house to change the frail wooden sword on a steel sting with damask stains, and put on any shoulders armor. After all, the world around is not at all safe - both in the galleries and at the top of you monsters are constantly being pressed.
But with the sword and the first armor everything is just beginning, because the lucky hero in the depths of Terraria is waiting for the most exotic things. So, you can find a sword that calls a starfall on the enemies' heads. And then collect a working blaster. And then (why shy) - the real light saber. Variants of equipment, which can be adjusted from various underground debris in Terraria, - mass. And it may very well be that over time, will become even more: the creators of the game, as befits self-respecting indie developers, promise to regularly add something new, listening to the demands of the fans.
Inland
The whole game is built around shuttle mechanics: to run underground to get new materials, to create something new, to again run underground. There is no final goal - there is only a process exciting the exploration of the world and its own possibilities. Hunting for rare minerals, forays into the dark grottoes in the hope of finding a magic wand accidentally stucking somewhere behind the stone, shooting lightning - that's what a player lives in Terraria. And not bad itself feels.
Here everyone finds something for himself. Those who are more interested in building than digging in the ground, will be rebuilt on the surface of three-story mansions, where merchants and doctors will come from all over the region, ready to offer their help in a difficult moment. Those who are keen on digging, too, will find than to take the steps: the worlds of Terraria are huge and under them lies more interesting than above. Even fans of action-RPG will not go offended: the combat system in the game is simple, but dynamic, monsters are often born into the world with whole battalions, and the most patient wait for meetings with bosses.
The game is constantly supplemented, but most of all it lacks at least a simple generator of quests and more variety of "events".
Particularly hot in the co-op, which Terraria naturally supports. True, it does it in a very peculiar way. And this, perhaps, is the first problem of the game, which in no way is explained by the features of the gameplay. How long have you had, say, manually typed the IP address of the game server? And run a second copy of the game on one computer to participate in the same organized party? Alas, in Terraria it's all so - to play in multiplayer, you have to scratch your left foot behind your right ear. Almost all the other troubles that you come across in the process: the absence of a common list of items that can be created, extremely vague starting instructions and everything else - can be justified by the desire of the authors at any cost to preserve a sense of surprise, when suddenly it turns out that silk and wood are obtained an excellent bed (it's also a point of resurrection, in case the enemies are too pushy), and from the sticks and special mucus - bright torches, so useful under the ground. But the primitive methods of organizing multiplayer - this is clearly from lack of experience. Like bugs that many players complain about: someone Terraria sometimes crashes,others just do not start. Although we can hope that these problems will soon be resolved thanks to the authors' persistence.
Cubometers
And the fact that the developers will cherish and cherish Terraria, there are almost no doubts. According to the rudest estimates, on the first day of sales the game brought about half a million dollars and soared to the top of the list of top-selling products on Steam, losing only to The Witcher 2 and surpassing, for example, Portal 2.
And now Terraria easily makes you forgive all the shortcomings and turn a blind eye to the flaws (especially since there are not so many of them), exerting an almost narcotic effect on the body. It is worthwhile to understand how basic mechanics works, and you yourself will not notice how to start a couple of construction national projects, get carried away by digging tunnels and wait with trembling for the next opportunity to run to a work bench or anvil to find out if something new has appeared on the list of products.
A lot contributes to the immersion and high pace of the game. Digging characters at the speed of the grapple shield, and fresh surprises are always somewhere near. Fans of Civilization, I remember, called this effect "well, one more move!". It is almost impossible to come off.
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Someone may think that Terraria is just a replicated Minecraft clone. Indeed, these two games have a lot in common, but the fact that Marcus Persson personally advertised the competitor in his microblog, makes it clear that not everything is so simple.
Terraria occupies another niche. In it, much more attention is given to the action, it is more dynamic and at the same time a little weaker in terms of construction. Well, most importantly, she's already out. And right now offers such things, which even in the final version of Minecraft, you may have to just dream of.