Terraria first impressions: Patience seems to be required

Dig, fight, explore, build! Nothing is impossible in this action-packed adventure game. The world is your canvas and the ground itself is your paint. Grab your tools and go! – official Terraria blurb

 

I picked up Terraria, the 2D Minecraft-alike, over the long weekend, and I’ve spent a little bit of time messing around with it. So far, I can see how this could become either very addictive, or very tedious.

 

My first in-game day was a lot of fun. I knew I had to build shelter before nightfall, when monsters would come out, so that immediately gave the game a source of tension. I hacked down trees, dug away at the earth, and finally threw up a simple house for myself. It was satisfying to plonk each bit of wood down to form a floor, wall and roof, add a door, and build a workbench.

 

The problem became every day after that. Most games are built around offering the player a constant stream of rewards. In Civilization, this means building new farms and mines, researching the wheel or electricity, or completing a Wonder of the World. In RPGs, this consists of levelling up and recovering cool loot. And in Terraria, this consists of obtaining higher-grade ores that I can then use to craft better gear. Unfortunately, so far I’ve found very little in the way of decent ore. I have wood and stone aplenty; and I’ve found crumbs of iron and copper and even gold; but nowhere near enough to feel as though I’m actually making significant progress. So after several in-game days, or possibly even a week, my gear consists of a basic helmet and nothing more intimidating than a wooden sword.

 

Now, this issue undoubtedly arose from my inexperience leading me to “play the game wrong” (I’ve read the wiki and some forum threads, but I’m still very much learning as I go). I seem to be doing a little better now – tonight I found a cavern where I recovered some decent ore. But I was perilously close to boredom before I found that cavern, and I no longer have enough free time to be able to invest significant amounts of time in a game while I wait for it to become fun (or resume being fun). So the jury is still out….


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