May 25, 2011

Minecraft Links Help Indie Game Sell 200,000 Copies In Nine Days

Terraria

Terraria is a 2D game that has often (and somewhat unfairly) been called "Minecraft in 2D". Not that the four developers care, since they've just sold 200,000 copies in a little over a week.

Spurred on by word-of-mouth, much of it stemming from the game's supposed similarity to Minecraft, the $10 game was first released on May 16. At time of posting, it was the top-selling game on Steam, ahead of games like The Witcher 2 and Portal 2.

What's undoubtedly lured people towards the game is the fact it appears to operate much like Minecraft with a pinch of Castlevania thrown in, in that you explore a world and craft things while fighting monsters.

I'd say it's a bit closer to being a 2D Dwarf Fortress myself. Well, a different kind of 2D than it is normally, anyway.

2D Word-Of-Mouth Hit Terraria Sells 200K In Nine Days [Gamasutra]

May 23, 2011

Terraria Update Released

Terraria - Valve

Updates to Terraria have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Controls

Right clicking and holding on a crafting recipe will craft multiple of the same item to a max of the stack and/or until you run out of materials.

Items

NEW ITEM : Sticky Bombs, Requires 5 Gel and a Bomb.
Sand Duping bug fixed.
Placing a bed far from the spawn no longer causes a player who has set their spawn there to crash on join.
Mining stone and other hard ores make a 'tink' noise now.
Hellstone and Obsidian now require at least a Demonite pick to gather.
Sand no longer spawns within a certain distance of the spawn location, This should remove the chance of spawning in a desert with no wood to use.
Hellstone now correctly takes as long to dig as meteor does.
The clay pot item now has the correct size.

Performance

Frame-skip is now correctly ON by default for new players.
Increased Client Side Multiplayer stability. Should resolve many crash causes.
Corrected a bug where players would intermittently not take falling damage.
The world file is now saved to a temporary file that is copied over to the actual save file. This prevents world corruption when saving is interrupted.
Fixed a bug that disabled some error handling. Overall game stability should be improved.

GUI

The version number of the game now shows on the title screen.
Typing numbers in chat no longer changes your selected item in your hotbar.

Server

Servers now listen to all IP addresses on the hosting PC, regardless of how many network connections are active.
Typing "localhost" instead of your own local IP address will connect to your own same-PC server.
The games default port is no longer ELEET (31337) it is now 7777.
Client will now resolve a hostname into its IP address, for example, if randomsite.org ran a server, you could type randomsite.org as the IP address and be able to connect.

May 18, 2011

Take Your Pick: Terraria Released

Terraria - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Quintin Smith)

2D-Minecraft-except-not Terraria has been been released! More than that, it managed to sell 50,000 copies on its first day of release. If you have six pounds you can buy the game here here and also begin having fun whenever you please. Remarkable!

…the temptation is to leave this post there and go back to playing The Witcher 2, but I shall resist. I’ve been trained> for this. Some details as to precisely what Terraria is, why you should be interested in it and a trailer await after the jump.
(more…)

May 17, 2011

Terraria Update Released

Terraria - Valve

Updates to Terraria have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Items

Cobwebs now prevent falling damage correctly.
Certain 'Dev only' items were removed, as they were for testing only.
The dark outlines on player and armor sprites have been blended better.
Torches now work correctly when being placed on wooden platforms.
Spawning no longer destroys chests that are placed on ground that is removed due to spawn point clearing.
Sand directly under a chest no longer falls due to gravity.

NPCs

Guide now explains the use of a hammer and its interactions with walls and placed objects.

Crash Fixes

Leaving the settings menu via the back button should longer crash.

Performance

Added a toggle for Frame skip, which can correct some slowdown issues on higher end computers.
Optimized Single Player and Multiplayer.
Players who haven't cheated will no longer be flagged as a cheater.

Controls

The Inventory button is now re-mappable.

May 17, 2011

Terraria launch a huge success

Terraria

Yesterday we mentioned the launch of a little-known game called Terraria. It appeared on Steam with no marketing campaign, and no real build up beyond a link on Twitter from Minecraft creator notch. Right now, it's the sixth most played game on Steam, ahead of Portal 2 and Team Fortress 2, and is the second best selling game on Steam, lingering just behind The Witcher 2.

The Terraria forums noted that at its first day peak, over 17,121 players were playing the game at the same time. They estimate that the game has sold over 50,000 copies (at $9.99 a go). That figure's set to rise over the coming days as word spreads.

So what is Terraria? The words "two-dimensional Minecraft" go a long way to summing it up. The fully destructible, randomly generated worlds can be mined for materials that can be crafted into tools. The big differences between Terraria and Minecraft, beyond the missing dimension, is the madness of the gear that you can craft. From laser weapons to magical swords and grappling hooks, there are dozens of items to construct.

Then, once fully kitted out you can expect to encounter some much more threatening monsters than you'd meet in Minecraft, including giant demonic eyeballs and a snake called The Eater of Worlds.

There's also a multiplayer mode which supports as many players as the server you're playing on can handle. See the trailer below for a taste of the madness that ensues when more than a couple of humans get involved. Note also the amazing whirly-armed attack animation. Are you playing Terraria? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.